Buying a book lot makes sense, and can save you money! Just about any book you want to read can be found on e-Bay: Brand new, used, rare and collectible, children's, non-fiction. The prices are often very good, but if you buy only one book, the shipping can cancel out the savings.

A book lot is a group of books that you purchase as one unit, and pay a set shipping price for. There is actually a book category called Wholesale; Book lots, grouped by numbers of books offered for sale (Up to 5 Items, 6-10 Items, 11-50 Items, 51-100 Items, More than 500). Many sellers group books and sell them as a unit; some in an auction setting, and some in stores.  Some sellers sell sorted lots- such as "101 Popular Novels, see detailed list", and some sell unsorted lots such as "Huge lot of books, sold by the pound" you do not know the titles until the books arrive. Sometimes the books are grouped by topic or interest group, such as "Lot of 24 Harlequin Books" or "Bulk Lot of 99 Scholastic Used Books".

Here are some things to consider when you are looking at a book lot. Are there photos, and do they picture the specific books you will be purchasing, or a representative sample? Is a detailed list provided? Do you mind purchasing a few books you don't want or already have to get some you want at a cheaper price? Is the shipping fair and within e-Bay's guidelines for fair shipping? A lot of Children's Scholastic Books, which have about 100 pages each, average approximately 6 to a pound. If you are buying 60 of these books, they will weigh about 10 pounds; a box and packing material add 1-2 pounds. Media Mail with delivery confirmation for 12 pounds of books runs $6.17 or $10.00 for Priority, add 50% of the postage fee for shipping-related seller charges and you get approximately $10.25 for Media Mail or $15.50 for Priority. How much does that boil down to per book? Say the lot sold for 17.00 and the postage is $10.25; total is 27.25 - divided by 60 books, you would be paying about $.45 per book! That's a pretty good deal when you consider that you would pay at least $1.00 each at a used book store, and $3.00-$8.00 each, brand new.

What if you do not want to buy titles that you don't want in order to get the savings of a book lot? Consider shopping with the numerous store owners who offer shipping discounts on multiple book orders. All you need to do is search for sellers who offer shipping discounts, then browse the seller's inventory, select your books, and request a combined invoice. You will generally pay a bit more per book than for a pre-selected lot, but the shipping is calculated either by weight, or given as a fixed amount, and you will control the titles you purchase. You can evaluate the value by adding up the book prices, adding the shipping and dividing by the number of books in order to figure out how much each book will cost you.

Whether you are a teacher or home-schooling parent putting together a library for your class, a college student buying books for classes, or a reader who wants to gather a group of books to read and save money doing it, BOOK LOTS and COMBINED SHIPPING at STORES will save you money. Be sure to read the fine print, and e-mail the seller if you have any questions before you buy.

What better way to collect all of Kurt Vonnegut's paperbacks or  find those out-of -print childhood books to share with your grandchildren?

Enjoy your BOOKS!