I’ve been offloading some of my books lately through Amazon Marketplace. It’s actually been going well and I’m getting some dead trees off of my shelf (to make way for new dead trees, that is). The way Amazon Marketplace works is they list the books (you know the “12 used and new available from $1.99″ next to the “Checkout” button) on their book pages, then when it sells they take a cut and send the rest to me. I ship the book to the buyer.

Here’s the math for my recent sale of Danny Hillis’ “Pattern on the Stone”.

Buyer’s price: $2.00
Amazon Commission: $2.49

Yes, that’s right. Amazon took a two-fiddy commission on a two dollar book. Tony Soprano would be proud. Now, I’ll probably end up even after the shipping allowance and shipping are applied and it’s worth 50 cents to me that the book isn’t going to end up in a landfill, but I thought it was kinda funny.

Next up, “eBay increases fees to 110% of final auction value + 30 cents”.