Getting a Virtual Assistant to Declutter Your Library
Posted by Steve Munroe | Under Data Management, Work Sunday Apr 27, 2008
I love books and I tend to buy a lot of them. Looking back over my last four months of Amazon purchases for books, I see that I have bought 15 books. Add to this the ones I buy when shopping at the weekends and your looking at around 25 books in the last 4 months alone! That’s a lot of reading. In fact, in my garage I must have around 60-70 books stored away in bags and boxes. However, this is only a small fraction of the books I have ever owned. I have lost count of the number of books I have jettisoned over the years, usually when I’m about to move house or apartment - books are heavy!
In the past I would always just take the books down to the local Oxfam shop, but I think next time I am going to try something different! I have often thought about selling my books on Amazon but I have always been put off by the need to search the same books sold by others to find out where to set the asking price, and the need to list the books on Amazon (hey, I’m lazy, I admit it). But now I think I have found a way that combines my desire to sell my old books online with another idea I’ve been toying with lately - virtual assistants.
There are many virtual assistant sites around now such as Your man in India, GetFriday or Elance. At each you can farm out or outsource time consuming tasks for a cheap rate.
Here’s what I plan to do. First I need to decide which books I want to let go. As much as I’ll hate it, I’m going to have to go through my books and sort them and makes notes on their titles and condition (I’d have to do most of this anyway even if I was going to drop them off at Oxfam). Then, with my list of books and their condition, I am going to contact one of these sites, hire a virtual assistant and ask them to price and list my books on Amazon. Of course, I’ll still have to package up any sales and post them out myself, but at that point, I’m hoping the promise of some easy cash will incentivise me enough not to care. That’s the idea anyway, I’ll let you know how I get on…
i like this idea. you will first catalogue all yr books which is an important task in itself. let us know how it goes. and if the virtual assistant is any help at all
PS cool blog. and i like your self-introduction; the kjeragbolten was a defining moment eh?
xxx