In a concerning development for the book industry, the United States Postal Service (USPS) filed a proposal on December 20, 2024, to eliminate Bound Printed Matter (BPM) Flats and Parcels from its services.

If implemented, this change would have far-reaching consequences for publishers, booksellers, and, most importantly, readers across America.

1. What’s Changing?
2. Impact on the Book Industry
3. Market Consolidation Concerns
4. BookScouter’s Position
5. What’s Next?

What’s Changing?

The USPS is planning to remove two critical mail services that the book industry heavily relies on:

• Bound Printed Matter (BPM) Flats
• Bound Printed Matter (BPM) Parcels

These services would be replaced with alternatives, and even the cheapest replacement option would cost approximately twice as much as current BPM rates.

Impact on the Book Industry

At BookScouter, we are deeply concerned about how these changes will affect book accessibility and affordability across the United States. Here’s why:

1. Dramatic Price Increases

The elimination of BPM services could force publishers and booksellers to switch to alternative shipping methods that could double current shipping costs. This increase in operational expenses would inevitably be passed on to consumers, potentially raising book prices by up to 50%, depending on the type of book.

2. Disproportionate Impact on Rural Communities

Rural areas would be particularly hard hit by these changes. Private shipping companies typically charge premium rates for delivery to remote locations, making books significantly more expensive for rural readers. This creates an accessibility gap that contradicts the fundamental principle of equal access to literature and education.

3. Educational Impact

The ripple effects of these changes would be felt throughout the educational system:

• Higher costs for textbooks and educational materials
• Increased expenses for school libraries
• More expensive children’s books, affecting early literacy programs
• Greater financial burden on students and educational institutions

4. Small and Medium-Sized Businesses at Risk

While major corporations like Amazon, with their own delivery infrastructure, would remain largely unaffected, small and medium-sized bookstores and publishers would face significant challenges. Many of these businesses operate on thin margins and rely heavily on affordable USPS shipping rates to remain competitive.

Market Consolidation Concerns

This change could accelerate market consolidation in the book industry. As smaller players struggle with increased operational costs, large corporations like Amazon with established logistics networks would gain even more market share. This trend threatens to reduce competition and diversity in the book market.

BookScouter’s Position

As a platform dedicated to making literature more accessible and affordable for everyone, BookScouter is deeply troubled by these developments. Our mission has always been to help readers find the best prices for books and to support a diverse, competitive book market that serves all communities.

The elimination of BPM services threatens to:

• Make books less affordable for average Americans
• Create barriers to educational resources
• Disadvantage rural communities
• Hurt small and medium-sized businesses in the book industry
• Further consolidate market power in the hands of large corporations

What’s Next?

The USPS proposal is currently under review, with implementation planned for no earlier than July 2025. BookScouter will continue to monitor this situation closely and advocate for solutions that maintain affordable access to books for all Americans.

We encourage industry stakeholders and concerned citizens to engage with their representatives and the Postal Regulatory Commission during the public comment period. The future of affordable book access in America may depend on it.

We’ll continue to update this story as new developments emerge. Follow BookScouter on Facebook and X.com for the latest updates on this critical industry issue.

The used book market saw a significant shift this week as SellBackYourBook.com merged with World of Books – Sell Your Books on November 19, following the earlier integration of Ziffit into the World of Books ecosystem. The consolidation brings multiple well-known buyback brands under a single unified platform.

Existing SellBackYourBook.com customers won’t face any service disruption. The platform maintains all user credentials, with open carts and ongoing trades seamlessly transferred to the new system. “We’re still the same great place to sell books – just with a new look and feel,” reads the announcement on the website.

World of Books: A Growing Force in the Used Books Market

The consolidation highlights the expanding influence of the World of Books Group, a company that started with an environmentally conscious mission in 2002. What began as an initiative to rescue books from landfills has evolved into a major player in the sustainable book industry, now moving approximately 6 million books annually.

The British company recently rebranded its retail operation to “Wob” while expanding beyond books into other media formats like CDs and DVDs. Operating through various brands including Wob, Ziffit, and Shopiago, World of Books Group has established itself as a significant force in both consumer and business-to-business book trade.

Book Buyback Industry Outlook

This consolidation represents one of the more significant shifts in recent book buyback market history. The merger of these established brands under the World of Books umbrella suggests a trend toward consolidation in the used book industry.

BookScouter will continue monitoring these market developments and their impact on buyback pricing trends and industry dynamics. Future updates will track how this consolidation affects various market segments, from individual sellers to professional book flippers and bulk resellers.

Ever wondered if you’re getting the best deal on that paperback?

Or maybe you’re looking to declutter your shelves and make some extra cash?

BookScouter’s ISBN scanner app is about to become your new best friend!

How The BookScouter ISBN Scanner App Works

BookScouter is a book price comparison app that helps you buy, rent, and sell books at the best prices. You perform a single search and get offers from all popular online bookstores or buyback vendors compared on one page in real time.

Why Choose the BookScouter App for Book Pricing Comparison?

Students can find the best textbook purchase and rental deals for the coming semester or sell their books back much more profitably than at a campus bookstore.

Actually, the app is not just about textbooks.

You can sell any used book with resale value, including those you no longer need or those you bought in thrift stores or garage sales. That’s what some BookScouter users do—run a business or side hustle on book reselling.

Feel free to read more about flipping books for profit or book scouting:

the top 3 platforms where to sell books for money

the top 10 questions about starting a used book selling business

different business models

where to find books to sell

where to get used books for free

By the way, by contributing to sustainable living instead of throwing used books away, you give them a second life.

Book Barcode Scanner App Brings You The Best Buyback Deals In Seconds

You can check out the best buyback price for any book you have in your hands – textbooks you no longer need, books at a thrift store or garage sale, books someone wants to donate, trash, or recycle.

There is no typing required. You just scan the book barcode or ISBN, and that’s it!

All buyback offers from 20+ online vendors are compared for you on one page, with the best deals on top.

Buy Books For Less with the BookScouter App

Did you know that the average student can save up to 50% on textbook purchases by comparing prices? That’s right—and we’re here to help you join the savvy students’ club.

Whether you’re a casual reader or a serious collector, don’t let another great deal on a book you plan to buy slip through your fingers.

Download the BookScouter app today and join thousands of savvy book lovers who are comparing prices and saving money every day. Your next great read (at the best price) is just one search away!

Install FREE BookScouter App & Try It!

Next time you want to buy books or textbooks, declutter your shelves, or simply make extra cash selling things you no longer need, let the BookScouter app bring you the best deals!

The last few months have brought a lot of changes into our neck of the woods. Quite a few mergers took place, and several companies either discontinued some of their services or stopped operations completely. Please find below a digest of the latest events in the book industry.

1. No more printed textbook rentals from Amazon
2. Will There Be a Sequel to ‘Simon & Schuster Was (not) Acquired’ Blockbuster?
3. Acquisitions that Actually Happened
4. Now-defunct Companies, Some of Which We’ll Miss

No more printed textbook rentals from Amazon

The e-commerce behemoth revealed the plans to cancel the print textbook rental program back in December 2022. The program was brought to a halt on April 1, 2023. It is still possible to either purchase the already rented books or extend the rental period till September 13, 2023. 

Will There Be a Sequel to ‘Simon & Schuster Was (not) Acquired’ Blockbuster?

At the end of 2022, after a long trial, The Department of Justice blocked the acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House. The major reason was that the new company would control too much of the market and make the publishing industry much less competitive.

As per Bob Bakish, CEO of Simon & Schuster’s parent company Paramount Global, the court’s decision does not stop them from wanting to sell the publishing subsidiary. According to anonymous sources, the value of the potential sale is from $2 billion to $2.5 billion dollars. Despite Simon & Schuster’s record revenue last year, Paramount Global considers it a “non-core asset” and therefore seems to have no doubt about selling the business. 

Acquisitions that Actually Happened

Regnery Publishing has purchased the ISI Books imprint. The acquisition includes 85+ titles – works by J. Budziszewski, Anthony Esplen, Paul Kengor, and others. Part of the titles will be reprinted under the Regnery Gateway imprint in the future. ISI president Johnny Burtka mentioned that the acquisition “will allow ISI to concentrate on its core mission of educating young Americans for liberty while giving these enduring books a loving home where they will flourish for years to come.”

A group of investors bought New Leaf Publishing Group, a family-owned Christian book publisher. The current owners sold the business to “expand its reach to more students, families, and individuals.” 

Arcadia Publishing has acquired Applewood Book. Applewood was started in 1976 and has about 2,500 titles in its catalog. The titles are mostly reissues of original versions of historical books, such as George Washington’s Rules of Civility, a hardcover edition of the U.S. Constitution, and many others. “Applewood’s extraordinary catalog will enhance Arcadia’s ability to deliver on our mission: to connect people with their past, with their communities, and with one another,” Arcadia CEO Brittain Phillips said.

Ulysses Press has purchased VeloPress. The deal includes around 80 health and fitness-related titles, such as Running Rewired, The Triathlete’s Training Bible, and others. Ulysses plans to extend the VeloPress list by 12 new titles in 2024. “Ulysses Press is thrilled to have the opportunity to continue to grow the audience for some of the world’s best sports training books and fitness experts,” said Keith Riegert, publisher of Ulysses Press.

VitalSource, a prominent player in the realm of digital course content distribution and learning platforms, has recently acquired Akademos, a comprehensive online bookstore and course materials platform. “Together, we can expand access to learning materials for millions of students while innovating to help our partners succeed. We are ready and excited for our next chapter,” Raj Kaji, CEO of Akademos, wrote in the company blog.

Cordance, the parent company of Upright Labs, a provider of innovative multi-channel listing tools and services for online reselling, has acquired Neatoscan, Inc., a provider of product sourcing and inventory management solutions. “We are excited to bring together two industry leaders to deliver unparalleled value to our customers,” said Siera Smith, President of Upright Labs. 

Threecolts, an e-commerce management platform, purchased ScoutIQ, a retail arbitrage software, created to help Amazon sellers find profitable products quickly. “It’s a wrap! ScoutIQ has been acquired. We sold our software business after 7+ years of building, fixing, iterating, listening, and solving problems for Amazon sellers,” Caleb Roth, founder of ScoutIQ, wrote on his Instagram. 

World of Books, Sellbackyoubook.com and Secondsale.com are now part of one company group. “We’ve grown the business by more than 50% by partnering with US trade-in site, Sell Back Your Book. Together we’ll continue to help protect the environment by encouraging the reuse of books, CDs, DVDs, games and more,” is written on the World of Books website.

Now-defunct Companies, Some of Which We’ll Miss

The end of an era has arrived as Nebraska Book Company, a leading provider of course materials to colleges, closed its doors on March 1, 2023. The company had a network of 2,000+ partners and had been in business for over 100 years. However, the decline in demand for physical textbooks and the increase in demand for digital course materials made the business unprofitable and led to its closure. 

Another piece of sad news from Amazon – Book Depository, one of its divisions, shut down. It accepted its last order on April 26, 2023. The online bookstore featured more than twenty million titles in its enormous catalog. With low prices and free worldwide shipping, it was very popular among book fans and will be missed by many. 

Bookbyte, one of the oldest used textbook businesses online, went out of business. Founded in 1999, it used to be one of the largest textbook retailers on the US west coast. It helped students to rent and buy used textbooks at reasonable prices. 

Conclusion

The book industry has been facing severe challenges. Some businesses have to shut down, others manage to overcome adversities and become stronger. At BookScouter, we are committed to helping our customers stay strong and thrive in these difficult times.

There is a great channel to sell your book inventory with profit and diversify your reselling efforts you probably didn’t know about. No, it’s not Amazon. It’s BookScouter Bulk Liquidation Tool.

Some of our Pro users might have known its earlier version—Bulk Lookup, but now, it definitely deserves a separate review.

About the Tool

BookScouter Bulk Liquidation Tool allows checking real-time buyback prices in bulk (up to 10,000 ISBNs per day) and getting the required buyback price information for your excess inventory. Here is how it works:

Depending on your goal, you can upload two types of files (follow the instructions): 

• If you need to get a list of up-to-date buyback prices for your ISBNs, upload the ISNBs list.
• If you need to get a list of up-to-date buyback price quotes that match your “target price,” upload the ISNBs list with the “target price” column. 

In the latter case, you’ll get the list of ISBNs with buyback prices that match your desired price and vendor offers:

You’ll be able to see price matches both in your final file and on the web interface:

This option is a recent addition that’ll be extremely helpful if you want to sell some of your excess inventory to vendors at your desired prices. The Bulk Liquidation Tool allows you to add an extra sales channel for your book reselling business. You sell your books with profit and without hassle when there are offers from buyback vendors matching your target prices. All you need to do is check your ISBNs list regularly on BookScouter. No need to follow the tedious process of listing them on Amazon and shipping them to individual buyers.

Features

Benefits

While Bulk Lookup used to be all about providing real-time buyback prices, we’ve upgraded it to make the tool more efficient for you. 

With the updated Bulk Liquidation Tool, instead of just uploading a file with ISBNs and getting a file with buyback prices in return, users can receive the buyback price information they specifically need.

To get price matches filtered out, users can upload files with an extra column named “Target price,” where the suitable buyback prices are inserted. 

In the return file, the information about the books with the prices that met the “target price” in the upload file will be featured. Users will be able to see the best offer for the “target price” and can sell their books directly to them by following the link.

Individual FBM sellers will find this tool extremely useful, as it can help remove excess inventory quickly, without hassle and headaches. With BookScouter Bulk Liquidation Tool, there is no need to take the trouble of listing the item on Amazon individually, waiting for the client to buy it, shipping, etc. Instead, getting a file with target prices uploaded once daily equips a seller with all the information to get rid of excess books.

To sum up the benefits:

• Easy to use
• Saves time
• Fast access to buyback price information
• No need to list items on Amazon manually
• No need to ship items to individual buyers, you can ship in bulk to buyback vendors
• Sales channels diversification

Case Study

Once again, let’s take a look at two ways a bookseller can use BookScouter Bulk Liquidation Tool:

If you want to search for the best buyback prices for your books, upload a CSV file with their ISBN list:

Here is the sample of the file you’ll get in return:

You can also add a “target price” column for your ISBNs to get the results that match your desired and filtered-out price:

You’ll see all price-matched ISBNs with buyback offers on the web page:

Here is the sample of the file you’ll get in return:

To sell the books to the vendors that offer price quotes that match your “target price,” simply click on the links on the web page or in the file. You can check the books you want to sell for the matching offers daily, and when the match happens, make a sale immediately. Voila, your excess book inventory is liquidated with profit in no time!

Why Try Now

BookScouter Bulk Liquidation Tool makes your selling process more efficient. By getting access to real-time buyback price data for your books, you can sell them at the best prices. By narrowing your search to the price margin you aim for, you can sell your excess books most profitably. 

14-Day Money-Back Guarantee

Try BookScouter Bulk Liquidation Tool now to test and see how effective it is for your sales. For every new Pro user, we offer a 14-day money-back guarantee. If you get a BookScouter Pro Tools subscription and decide you don’t need our tools, we promise to refund you in full within the first 14 days of the usage period. Yet, we bet you’ll find them irreplaceable!

Happy selling!

Affiliate marketers, bloggers, influencers, and BookScouter brand advocates, this blog post is for you! If you’ve been contemplating more effective ways to generate an affiliate income, we’ve got news for you. Our BookScouter Search Box Widget is finally here!

Why is it great news? By adding our search widget to your media channel, you’ll get an opportunity to increase the quality of your content and get a commission from BookScouter. Here is how: if you are writing a book review, your readers might get interested and would like to know the best price for the book. Therefore, they will find it quite convenient to be able to use the BookScouter search box right here and now. In the end, they get the information; you get conversions and affiliate income.

BookScouter is a well-known book price comparison platform where millions of searches are performed every day. We are positive that our Search Box Widget will be a great addition to your blog about books or any website or platform with a book-loving, enthusiastic reading audience.

Introducing the BookScouter Search Box Widget

The BookScouter Search Box Widget is now available to all affiliate members and everyone who wants to add a valuable feature to their media channel.

Benefits for Your Audience

You give your audience the freedom to search for books quickly and efficiently. Once you add a search box to your blog or website, your users will be able to search for book prices right from your blog or website. They enter a book’s ISBN, author, or title in the search box’s search field, click on Search, and get transferred to BookScouter.

Currently, users are transferred to the SELL page where the best buyback price is displayed, but in the nearest future, it will be a page with relevant search results where both BUY and SELL top offers are featured. We’ll implement it into the widget as soon as it’s launched. As for now, the user has an option to navigate between SELL, BUY, and RENT results by clicking on the corresponding tabs or links leading to alternative book pricing information.

Benefits for You

While affiliate links to the main page are traditionally effective, you can get higher user conversion rates due to search relevance and user interaction. Besides, you can keep everything under control: from tracking all the searches and analyzing user activity to planning ways to generate more traffic with different widget placement options. With this widget, you will gain a lot more than you can imagine, as it makes affiliate marketing much more effective.

BookScouter Search Box Widget Features

The BookScouter Search Box may look like your average banner; however, there is much more to it than meets the eye:

• Efficiency: Search relevance and user interaction help you increase user conversion rate.
• Convenience: The Search Box widget is easy to embed into your blog or website; you don’t need to have any specific coding knowledge.
• Customization: You can experiment with widget placement and choose between two visualization options.
• Preview: You can see what the widget will look like on your blog or website page before publishing it.
• Search tracking: With your affiliate ID, you can track all the searches and analyze the widget’s effectiveness.

How to Implement

1. Go to the BookScouter Search Box Widget page.
2. If you are a member of the BookScouter Affiliate Program, enter your affiliate ID and Company Name (you can find both in the Affiliate Center on LinkTrust). 
3. If you’re not a BookScouter affiliate yet, feel free to apply or just use the search box without an affiliate link.
4. Now you can customize the search box and preview its layout before publishing.
5. When you’re done, click on the “Copy Code” button to copy the code and embed it on your website.

Where to Use the Widget

• If you run a personal blog dedicated to books and reading, you can place the widget on a sidebar so that it can be visible and accessible from any page. The same applies to any other media channel with relevant content: a website, a platform, etc. 
• If your blog covers topics not directly related to books, but you are writing a post on a relevant topic, you can insert the widget directly into the page. By doing so, you help your readers search for the books you may be referring to easier and faster.

Track Performance

We are positive that the BookScouter Search Box Widget is exactly what you and your audience needs. Not only will you provide value to your readers, but you will also generate more affiliate revenue.

You can track everything from your affiliate account on LinkTrust:

1. Log in to your affiliate account. 
2. Go to “Reports” and select “Campaign Performance.”
3. Check your ad campaign report.
4. You can also check other reports (e.g., Daily Breakout, etc.).

Get BookScouter Search Box Widget Now!

Сheck our Search Box Widget right away! If you aren’t our affiliate yet, it’s time to become one! At BookScouter, we do our best to be always helpful to both our users and affiliates, and we are sure that the widget will become a tool that will serve its purpose brilliantly!

]]>