A Discussion With A Colleague About A Job For His Teenage Daughter

03/26/06

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I was recently speaking with a colleague at work and he told me his daughter could not find a job other than waiting tables, tossing pizza, flipping burgers, or delivering fast-food.  He asked if I had any suggestions.

You'll never guess what I suggested.  Well, maybe you will.  I suggested that he take my book, read it with his daughter and see if she might be interested in being self-employed selling books online.  I also pointed out that there were several advantages:

• She could easily make more money selling books than she would make flipping burgers

• Selling books online would not take as much of her time as a fast-food job

• The hours she worked would be a lot more flexible

• It would look a lot better on her resume to any future employer than a job tossing pizza

This is a great income source for a high school or college student.  The only thing that must be considered is the age of a high school student.  If they are not 18, the online marketplaces like Amazon.com, Alibris.com, etc., all require that the accounts be in an adults name.  If you have a teenager that you want to suggest this to, keep in mind that the bookseller account will have to be in your name.  You will also have to set aside some space in your home for your teenage entrepreneur to store inventory.  All of that considered, there is no reason not to allow a responsible teenager to conduct an online bookselling business from your home.

College students have a tremendous advantage if they are interested in selling books online.  On campus, they are surrounded by stores with some of the most valuable online inventory available.  In fact, it was my son, as a college student, that got me involved in this business.  He has been doing it now for about seven years and when he did this exclusively, his income rivaled my income as a senior design engineer, and he was only doing it about half-time.

Anyone willing to put in 15-20 hours a week can build up an online bookselling business and make $2,000.00 a month.  It is not going to happen immediately, it will take a few months to build up your inventory, but persistence and dedication will get you there.  If you are contemplating doing this full time to make $5,000.00 or more per month, expect to spend 6 to 12 months building up an inventory to get to that level.  If you have the space to store a large enough inventory, say 15,000 to 20,000 books, you could make more than $10,000.00 per month, but to build an inventory that large will take some time and require that you attend some large book sales.

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