Charity (00:00.046)
Is pango books worth it? There are pros and cons to every book selling platform out there.
Charity (00:11.598)
Hello readers, my name is Charity, the host of Booktrivert Reader podcast. I'm introverted but willing to talk about fantasy books. On this podcast, I will do book reviews, author interviews, and fantasy book discussions. Come join me every week as I explore new realms and talk to amazing people. I'm Booktrivert Reader. Thank you for joining my Booktube channel. I am a book fantasy book lover and...
I am so happy for you to join. If this is the first time seeing me, definitely like and subscribe. My goal is a thousand subscribers by the end of this year. So I'm excited to hit that goal this year. And I want to talk to you about Pango Books. And I got introduced to that in 2023. I had some books that, you know, when I took it to certain, you know, like used books, consignments, just getting like maybe 20 cents, like for a book.
So when I discovered pango books, I was able to sell my books for a lot more, especially when you're spending like, you know, $20 for books, you kind of want to get something back for spending that money. Basically with pango books, you can either buy or sell on pango books. And it's a very good app to be able to buy within the local United States. I personally have sold quite a number of them over about a hundred books so far on it. So I just wanted to share the pros and cons of
I have tried to get into ebooks and eBay but I felt like they had a lot of high, very high platform fees and also too I felt like I had a bad experience with A -books. I ordered a book and the seller never communicated to me and it never got shipped and it took them forever to finally go, hey and you know...
it got lost in the mail, I'll give you a refund back. Ever since then, I just, I went to pango books just because so far I've had positive experiences with very few nuances, so I can assure you that pango books is worth your time for it, but I have to tell you the certain things that happen within pango books. What's bad about pango books is that it is, for me anyways, I buy and sell within the United States.
Charity (02:27.374)
And it's from local readers. So it's usually people, so far I've gotten books from California, I shipped to Texas, Tennessee, all kinds of different states. And then they're just readers looking for a good deal. And they ship to you and you ship to them. And it's all within the done with an app. What I like about Pango Books is that you do recoup some of your money when selling within the app. I'm not saying that if you spent $20,
on a book, you're not gonna get the full $20 back. Let's just be real. But I just like how I can get something for it and they use it as pango books. So you in turn can turn that money that you just sold a book and just buy another book from another seller. You can actually take that money and deposit it into your bank account. For me, I personally have been using and saving that money for books that I might find on pango books and want instead. It kind of just supports.
other readers your book collection and unhauling their own books. So I find that fun for me personally. The books just recently started doing this back in early April in 2024. They have started doing like if you buy a book with your pango books you get five percent of it back. It's not a heck of a lot but I think that's just kind of taking care of...
you know, the buyer, when they sell a book, you know, just to reinvest that money within the platform. What I like about this is that the Pango books will ensure the package, so there has been a situation where I got lost in the mail. Now it protects not only the person buying the book, it protects the seller of the book, because you know, like once you ship it, there's no control outside of that.
I have had that happen before and they didn't go in, well, since it didn't get to them, you know, we're going to take it out of your, that was paid to you. Instead, I get the full amount of what I, what I shipped off regardless of getting lost in the mail and not getting to the person who bought the book. What I like about Pango Books is that they also create your shipping labels, which makes it super easy. You just pick from your computer, you tape it on your package and you can stick it in your mailbox so the mail person can pick it up and route.
Charity (04:47.982)
I personally started doing that. It's just super simple. I don't have to run to the post office. I can just stick it in there and it gets shipped off. If the package is a lot bigger, then I have to kind of like, you know, either schedule run to the post office or kind of catch my post office person to pick up the package. You know, the whole point of doing pango books is to make it as simple as possible for you as a seller.
The downsides of pango books. Now, I will say a lot of the good outweighs the bad, but you gotta know the bad, right? I will say the platform fees can be a lot. If it's under $2, it's a straight up 40 cents. Once it gets over $2, it becomes 20 % of the sale. It can get a little hefty sometimes, especially if you sell the book for only $5 at 20 % of that and add up.
I've seen a lot of book sales that I've had that a good percentage of it has gone into the platform fees. Now granted, I know I do have a problem with the price. I do like the convenience of it and the less hassle. It's more insured. So I have situations where it did benefit me with, you know, pango books insuring my books. I have recently changed this, but it's still in the works. The problem with...
this is that one of their advices is you need to actually look up the book, see how much everyone is selling it for, and then sell it a little bit under what they're doing. Now the problem with that, they will sell it for $5, then the next person goes in, I need to sell it for $4 .50 to compete with that price, and then the next person comes in, I need to sell it for $4 .25 to compete with that price, and then the next person comes in and says, I need to sell it for $4 to compete with that price.
So in that situation, it seems like the book gets extremely devalued because everyone is competing with one another when it comes to selling that book. And when in technicality, if you do go to eBay or if you do go somewhere else, you might get actually six to $8 for the book, but because everyone is competing with one another, sometimes that book can be four or $5 because you're competing with everybody else. So that is the downfall of that.
Charity (07:04.75)
They recently updated a change that went as you're doing the selling process of the book, they actually have a recommended average rain of the price of the book that you can do. And I personally feel like that helps not only give the seller some information of how much that book is selling for, but it also kind of prevents people like knocking the price down all the time. You know, like I feel like it's gonna even it out a little bit more just because.
that competition when you know you can get it 8 to 10 dollars and everybody's selling it for 5 because they're competing with one another really messes with the value of your book. The other thing that I came across is the shipping fees. You can offer discounts or free shipping on your book but when you offer, sometimes people don't want to buy your books because you don't offer free shipping. Shipping fees can be to 4 to 7 dollars.
And if you don't offer that free shipping, a lot of people don't want to buy your books, which, you know, is understandable, but it actually eats into your cost as a seller. So you got to offer that free shipping. And then sometimes you have to offer the discounts if they pay for a certain amount of books. That's how much it's going to be. So I've had situations where I had like $30 worth of books sold with platform fees, free shipping and the discount. I ended up with only 18 bucks at the end of the day.
over $12 worth of fees, shipping fees and discounts that I gave out just to sell my books. And it was so hard to like absorb that cost. And then sometimes I do wonder if that went to a different platform, if I would get more of that money back. But I want the convenience. I'm not having to worry about, you know, where are these books going and all that stuff.
and it's just, it's the kind of the unfortunate side of the most selling on pingo books. I would say that's the only thing I really don't like about it is that it adds up sometimes and it can eat a good portion of your sales. The thing that can happen is that your books can be on your storefront for quite a while. I have seen where books has been on there for more than a year. I have some books that I have over six months, but I do have kind of a plan that...
Charity (09:19.566)
I might do like this big boost of a sale at a certain point and if I don't sell them I'll either take it second to Charles, I will take it to my local library so they can sell the book for, you know, funding the library. One thing I've came across that very early when I was selling these books was someone unfortunately lying that they never received the book. I'm pretty great about my packing.
and when they said they didn't get a book out of the three or the two that they'd gotten, I kind of don't believe them as well, especially if they said the package didn't arise damage, so they were trying to cast the blame on me that I didn't send the book, which isn't accurate, I'm very good about it. So I reached out to Pango Books and they did credit them that book back and they still gave me all the money, so it does ensure...
those situations, but it can happen and I think it only happened to me once out of all the books I've sold so far. So it's not a very common thing and I do believe that pango books probably keeps track of the people who are repeat offenders if there's any. I do hope for the best for that person. Obviously I don't want to assume the worst, but it can happen to be honest with you. Poor packing can lead to damage a book. I am not super stingent about getting that pack.
book to that person in like in a way where they got bubble wrap and all this stuff, but it is the reality of the situation where they might receive the book damaged. As a bookseller, I do have some tips when it comes to selling books. If I have any product information, I'll definitely put the links in the bottom to my Amazon link. You can do this. I don't, you don't have to do it, but this is just the way I do the packing. A lot of people prefer this.
And also two tips, be able to sell more books on your store. I do say, don't be afraid to price your books a little higher than most. I wouldn't say this is 100 % of the time, but a good, like a percentage of it, people don't mind paying a little higher in price, especially if you have high reviews and ratings. So if you have good ratings, you're more likely to be trusted and getting that package to you compared to being a brand new person and you're selling your book top dollar. You're not going to be like,
Charity (11:34.222)
totally like reliable when it comes to like, hey, you know, they'll get the book to me if I pay this extra price. So I personally, I'm not afraid to price it a little bit more. And then what you could do over time is to lower the price. So it triggers who are following you or who are looking for books. They say, hey, this person decreased at 15 % in the last few days. So that helps kind of reformulate like putting that.
your photo in front of people so I don't mind putting it a little higher to see if anyone is willing to buy and then slowly lower it down to kind of like, it's a little cheaper now, let me buy it now. So it's kind of like that mindset that I don't mind doing. So don't be afraid to price it a little higher than normal. One thing I've noticed as a seller and a buyer, I highly recommend taking pictures, lots of pictures of your book.
reasons as to why I do that because as a buyer, when I'm looking for a book, I want to know what book I'm getting. If I only see one photo of your book that has just the cover, I'm not likely to buy that book because I don't know the quality of that book. So for me personally, as a buyer would want, I take plenty of photos of books. So what I do is I take the front, I take the back, I get the paper edges because people want to know the quality of the edges of the pages.
I do kinda, if there's a map, I try to do pictures of that. If it's a hardcover, I take the dust jacket off and I show what it looks like on the hardcover, it's a naked hardcover. And I kinda just show any kind of details. If there's any flaws with it, I take a picture of that. If there's like a dent on it, hey, I take a picture of that. You know, if I know that there's writing in the book, because I buy my books used, I take a picture of it. Because I want...
the buyer to know exactly what they're getting. Appearance is so important when coming to like selling your books with any kind of damage on it. And a lot of people are more likely to buy your book because you are very transparent with your photos and you are showing everything about it and you're not hiding anything. So it kind of creates this trust between you and the buyer. So I personally take a lot of pictures with my books. So you don't have to get too fancy with packaging. I'm very...
Charity (13:53.422)
on my packaging just depending on the quantity of books that are being bought and what kind of book. I don't want anyone to feel pressured that they have to have super fancy mapping and things like that. I think, you know, there's a lot of people that do that and I definitely just do it if that's your jam, but I don't personally like to invest too much money into that because, you know...
Sometimes I'm only getting three dollars for a package and I don't want to spend a lot of time packing it but I will go and Try to make it pretty at least because I love color thing that I do if it's a book is single like it's just a single book I will wrap it in wrapping paper and stick it in there because I just see on paper a paper could be very expensive It's so happen to get this small one. I would definitely recommend a larger one, but they can get very pricey
time -consuming. It's a single book, this is what I do. I just wrap it in that. Sometimes I might do this, like put it in there like if it's a fancier book or something like that. I don't always do it. These are pretty expensive and I was using it for Etsy sales but I decided to repurpose it for book selling and every once in a while I do do that. Maybe like if it's a nicer book.
people do is that they find old boxes that they get from amazon or something like that and they repurpose those and that's perfectly fine. go for that. but for me, got my inspiration kind of from thrift books. thrift books always sell their books and ship them in polymanual - polyman - mail - polymailier - mailers. polymailiers. wow. i can't say that. but i got - i got two sizes. one is this smaller size.
put the sizes in the link below because I can't remember it. And I also have another size for my larger orders, which is here. And just stick it in there. Usually I like to fold it up into the book and make sure it's nice and tight and compact so it's not moving around a lot. And I just seal it really good because one thing that I'm concerned about if I was a buyer, I would be concerned about water damage as the book gets to you because it might have a snag or two or whatever the case may be. So...
Charity (16:06.734)
I always try to make sure it's like a little waterproof. If I had multiple where I have to use this big one, I would get like two of these, put like two or three books, wrap it up, get another one of them, put two or three books in the other one, and then I'll just put them in here and wrap it up pretty good. It's kind of like a double coverage and making sure that, you know, because ever since I had that situation where they say, I didn't get the one book out of the three that you sent me,
I'm always like, I will rap sometimes just to make sure it gets to them and they can't just say that, hey, I didn't send the book to you. And so that's what I personally do. And you don't have to get the colorful ones, but I personally, as a buyer, love getting like colorful packaging in the mail. It makes me happy. So that's what I do for other people. So this is a, and I noticed some sellers do, not all do. Some people do a lot more than I do.
but I just put in my bio that, hey, I have stickers that go with any order. And I put a book care instructions that is kind of fun just to, you know, just to liven up the mood. And then I put this barcode of all my social media in my YouTube channel, especially since I'm promoting it to see if they wanna follow me. But even on here, you can say, hey, if you like.
this, give me my small bookstore and five stars if you love it or me in a photo. I had one person tag me into their photo when they received my books and I loved it. So something that you can do, it's not a must, but something I did and you can do that in Canva. You know, Simple Design is through Canva and they actually have a QR code maker in there as well. So it's simple. That's what I do.
some people actually do like fancy being and or they put bookmarks in there and things like that and I don't disagree with that for me it's just like I want to get the book to you and you know it has to be a little bit cost -effective for me so that's what I do okay my battery battery died okay so vacation is a big thing I had this experience you go to a person's buyers profile they'll usually tell you like
Charity (18:26.638)
Hey, I ship every two days. Hey, I'm just letting you know if you buy early in the week, I don't ship until Saturday, which is totally fine for me. I just, as long as I know that, hey, you have a set date that you ship, it is so good to hear and understand. But if you don't have that, for you to communicate that, I had a situation where I did purchase a book from a seller and it was over four days, still haven't shipped it.
And I was like, hey, I'm gonna ask you when you're planning on shipping this book. Another three days go by, they don't say anything to me, they don't communicate to me, and it took them a week and a half for them to eventually ship the book to me. I did get it, and I'm in good condition, I'm grateful for that, but I didn't appreciate that it took them that long to ship, and they refused to communicate to me that it's been delayed. Always make sure...
to a buyer that, hey, I'm just letting you know that I am packing up your book and I will either ship it out today or no later by Monday or Tuesday. And a lot of times they're really happy about that. I'm very known for my quick shipping because I work from home, it's easy for me to go pack up a book and put it in my mailbox that day if I can't do it or if I have to run to the mailbox or to the post office, I'll communicate, hey, it's gonna take me two days to get there.
A lot of people really appreciate knowing a deadline of when I'm gonna get that book to them. I had one situation where they were, felt so bad that I said I couldn't ship it out late, but then it took me two days to get the book to the post office because I missed my mail person twice because the package was too big to fit in my mailbox. So I had to message this person and say, hey, I'm so sorry that...
It took me a while to get to this post that I haven't got this book out in the mail yet. I will be going to the post office tomorrow morning to make sure this gets to you as soon as possible. And a lot of people appreciate that. Haven't had any issues with my shipping methods yet. Well, I don't want to say yet because I don't want any issues with that, but I try to communicate as best as I can. And it's just for me that I would like to know what's going on.
Charity (20:41.23)
and a lot of people are great about it. I only had one situation where that person took a week and a half to ship. And I personally feel that unless you say, hey, I ship on these days, then you communicate what's going on, or you ship it out. I don't really have it on my little paper here, but no Pango Books goes out and does it. And I had one seller go to me, hey, if you really loved what I did with my selling of this book,
give me a review, a five -star review if you really appreciate it. And I don't think you should be afraid to ask for it because people genuinely forget and I think pango books takes a little bit of time to follow up with that person. I think I've gotten reviews like three weeks after the book got to them, which is fine. I think it helps that if you ask for it, you'll get a lot more reviews in. Out of the hundred books that I've sold, I've only gotten 23 reviews.
I could ask for more but personally it's just like it doesn't matter to me too much. It does help with credibility on your profile but I guess I just sell in the book for the heck of it and I just don't care for it too much but I know a lot some people do ask upfront and there is no problem with doing that. One thing that I put on my profile and I encourage people I think it helps sell your book that if you are like a pet free or smoke free home.
I encourage you to put it on your profile because the fact that some people are really making sure that there's no pet hair or smoke -free home, I do have a pet, but I have a smoke -free home, so I made sure to put it on my profile so people, as they're shopping for my books, that they know it's coming in a good condition. For me, that since I'm worried about dog hair, I try to go into an area.
that has no dog hair, that I don't let my dog in because I just want to make sure that that's not an issue as well. This is what I had an issue with myself, was getting updates on your phone. Because one time I did sell a book and I didn't see a notification, it was three days, I just decided to randomly check the app and notice that someone bought a book three days ago and I had to like rush to get that book to that person because I didn't realize it. So I did.
Charity (23:00.462)
update it where I get a notification that will not go away unless I click it because I want to know as soon as possible that I sold a book. Because if I know soon enough, I can pack it and get it out to my mailbox the same day that it's purchased. What I like about this thing about pingo books is that it does have a vacation mode. So with that said, you can actually go into your settings and
updated that to take off all your books off of there and just to deactivate the the account temporarily until you come back and reactivate the account as It you don't want to sell a book while you're gone. You have no access to those books You know, I one time had got a book sold the day before I traveled for three weeks I personally just before I travel I always deactivate it just because of the fact I just want to make sure that they're
get a book sold while i'm not able to ship out a book. proper hashtags. if you go into the app you're going to see hashtags on here. you need to check it. don't click every single one that they recommend because sometimes they might put arc reader or they might put signed copy or they put a random hashtag that has nothing to do with the book or you want to add.
I always make sure I check that just to be sure that I have the proper hashtags that correlates and then I add a few of my own to make sure it gets added properly. One thing I highly, highly, highly recommend is check the weight of the book. It's a food scale. I had situations, no joke, I have situations that I went to go book on my listing and it said it was wanting to charge the shipping.
according to 5 -6 pounds of weight. And it's like a book that's only like half a pound. So I always recommend definitely double check the weight of the book because it will affect the shipping cost of the book. If you don't have a scale, sometimes what I do is I go to Amazon and I go to the details and check to see what is the weight of the book. Obviously you want to make sure that it is the exact copy that you currently have because I know there's different editions and things like that.
Charity (25:17.262)
So that's what I do, but I always double check the weight of the book because it can affect the cost of your shipping. And if someone goes in, it's like, $7 to ship the book when it's supposed to be $4. It will affect the book being sold. I just want to say, and you know, as much as I love pango books, I don't personally feel like you can really make money off of books, selling off a pango, because of fees, discounts, and shipping costs.
I personally don't think, but it helps recoup the cost. It's a great place, I think personally, to get special editions. If you're looking for them, I've seen some pretty cool special editions for books that I've been wanting. I just think that it is a great platform to just at least sell books that you don't no longer want to have and get into somebody else's hands. Like I said, if you can't sell the book, just go to a free little library.
Go to your local library, see if you can donate the books or to use bookstore and see if you can assignment on them. It's just some, just the broad spectrum of selling on pingo books. I appreciate you joining me. Catch you later next time readers. Bye.
Charity (26:30.862)
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