The way that you approach scouting will depend on your scouting tool. Those of you using a cell phone and ScoutPal will take a different approach then those using a PDA scanning tool. In this lesson we will cover the basics of using your scouting tools.

Using your Cell phone and ScoutPal:

It is very important to know that you can be successful as a book-scouter using ScoutPal on a cell phone as your primary tool. We used ScoutPal for the first year that we were scouting and grew our business many times over.

Lets look at formatting your search results on ScoutPal. To do this, sign into your ScoutPal account on your home computer. Near the top of the page you will see a link titled “Format your results.” Click on this link and you will be taken to the format editor for your account. Here you will want to specify which results you will want to receive on your cell phone when you search for a book. We typically want to know the Amazon.com price, low price, collectible price, and the sales rank of the book. We strongly suggest that you at least start with these options and add other choices over time.

Now you are ready to sign into your account on your cell phone. We are not going to go into detail about signing into your ScoutPal account on your phone because you will be walked through all of this when you sign up for your service.

You might start by searching your local thrift store. Most thrift store book sections are divided into sections by genre or designation. If there is a section for nonfiction, start there. (For more on which sections to search, read The bookstore.)

When we are using ScoutPal we try to really use our gut feelings about the books in front of us. It would take too long to go through all of the books on a shelf, so we look for hints. If there are books by high quality publishers or ones dealing with niche topics, we will enter the ISBNs into our phones. (Knowing what to look for is covered in greater detail in The bookstore.)

Searching for books using ScoutPal is a simple process. You will need to find the ISBN number that is located on the back cover, spine, or on the copyright page. You will know it is an ISBN number because it will follow the “ISBN” designation, or it will be a ten or thirteen digit string of numbers. ISBN numbers have been assigned to almost all books since the mid seventies as away for publishers and retailers to organize their databases. At fist it may seem confusing to locate this number string, but after a few days of scouting it will become second nature.

Older books will not have an ISBN number. ScoutPal lacks a convenient way for you to look up books by their title. This is our primary complaint with this particular system. Until you upgrade to a PDA system you will need to pass on older books or be able to identify valuable books through experience.

When you are provided with results for a book you will look for several things. First, you should look for the low price that the book is selling for on Amazon.com. If the book is selling for a few pennies or even a few dollars, you will likely choose to pass is by. If, on the other hand, it is selling for a price that you are comfortable with, (see, Buying books, the math), you will want to look for several additional pieces of information.

Look for the books sales rank on scoutPal. This may range from a rank of one to a rank of four million. The rank is number applied to a book by Amazon.com that reflects the regularity at which it sells. If a book has a rank of one then it is the top selling book on Amazon.com. On the other hand, if a book ranks at one million, it is less common for it to sell on Amazon. com. As a general rule of thumb, we always buy books that rank under 100,000. We commonly buy books that rank below a million, figuring that it may take as long as a year for these books to sell. Beyond one million, we are more careful. We should point out that some books have a very high rank because copies are rare and uncommon on the Amazon.com marketplace. We have sold some 4 million ranking books for hundreds of dollars without having to wait. Its all about educating yourself. (See, Starting a research library.)

Using your PDA scanner tool:

As a scouter with a PDA scanner system, you are on the cutting edge of the industry. You will have no problem growing your business as quickly as you choose. In fact, your only challenge will be finding new book sources with which to grow.

If you have purchased your PDA, memory, scanner plug in, and you have signed up for one of the scanner systems, see Buying books, tools and services, then you are ready to start scouting. Using your PDA system is simple and highly effective. We are not going to go over setting up any of the PDA scouting services because each service provider will walk you through the steps when you sign up. Be sure to download a robust database from Amazon.com, you will appreciate this information when you are having a productive day book scouting.

You are ready to start scanning. Turn on your PDA and start the scanner software, this activates the scanner. Turn on the software provided by your scanning service provider, this should fully activate your scanning tool.

We recommend starting at your nearest thrift store. Because of the efficiency of your tool you will be able to move through entire book sections in minutes. If there is a textbook or specifically non-fiction section you should start there. Try carefully pulling out each book just far enough to reveal the bar code. Aim your scanning tool at it and press the button that you have designated as your scanner trigger. We use the side button on the HP iPAQ that we recommended in Buying books, tools and services. This will upload the bar code data into your PDA which will display the corresponding information from the Amazon.com database.

We discussed our approach to scouting results earlier on this page in the section about using ScoutPal, skip this section if you read it above:

When you are provided with results for a book you will look for several things. First you should look for the low price that the book is selling for on Amazon.com. If the book is selling for a few pennies or even a few dollars, you will likely choose to pass is by. If on the other hand it is selling for a price that you are comfortable with, (see, Buying books, the math), you will want to look for several additional pieces of information.

Look for the books sales rank. This may range from a rank of one to a rank of four million. The rank is number applied to a book by Amazon.com that reflects the regularity at which it sells. If a book has a rank of one then it is the top selling book on Amazon.com. If on the other hand a book ranks one million, it is less common for it to sell on Amazon. com. As a general rule of thumb we always buy books that rank under a hundred thousand. We commonly buy books that rank bellow a million, figuring that it may take as long as a year for these books to sell. Beyond one million we are more careful. We should point out that some books have a very high rank because copies are rare and uncommon on the Amazon.com marketplace. We have sold some four million ranking books for hundreds of dollars without having to wait. Its all about educating yourself. (see, Starting a research library.)

As you become proficient using your PDA scanner tool, you will learn which sections produce well and which books to skip entirely. We found that at the beginning of our scanner use we tried almost every book. We were constantly surprised by the books that had value that we never would have checked with our ScoutPal system. Over time we learned to target the books that held potential and increased our efficiency many times over.

Next lesson, Buying books, the math.