Table of Contents
- Is Dropshipping Books a Great Idea in 2025?
- Why Dropshipping Books Is Smart
- Benefits of Dropshipping Books
- No Inventory Hassles
- Passive Income Potential
- Growing Market
- Extensive Product Selection
- No Storage Costs
- Multiple Niche Opportunities
- Risks of Dropshipping Books
- High Competition
- How to Overcome High Competition
- Low-Profit Margin
- How to Overcome Low Margins
- Copyright Issues
- How to Overcome Copyright Issues
- Related Reading
- How To Start Dropshipping Books in 2025
- 1. Find Books To Dropship Online
- Dropping Communities and Product Research Tools
- What is a Product Research Tool?
- Best Books Categories for Dropshipping
- Children’s Books
- Novels
- History Books
- Arts & Entertainment
- Vintage & Antique Books
- Religious Books
- Digital Books
- Important
- 2. Finding Dropshipping Books Suppliers
- How To Find the Best Books Dropshipping Suppliers
- 6 Best dropshipping book suppliers
- 1. AmericanBookCo
- 2. Half Moon Bay
- 3. Lulu Express
- 4. AliExpress
- 5. IngramSpark
- 6. Amazon
- 3. Choosing a Dropshipping Platform: Own Store or Marketplace
- Create Your eCommerce Store.
- 4. Creating Product Listings
- Marketing
- Here Are Some Strategies
- Utilize Social Media
- Leverage SEO Optimization
- Partner with Influencers
- Email Marketing Campaigns
- Run Paid Advertising
- Content Marketing
- Offer Promotions and Discounts
- Customer Reviews
- Host Online Events
- 5. Fulfilling Orders (Packaging, Shipping, Delivery, and Returns)
- Example
- How does Dropshipping Fulfillment Work?
- Related Reading
- 5 Tips for Dropshipping Success
- 1. Read Reviews
- 2. Get All the Details
- 3. Sell What You Love
- 4. Sell the Right Product
- 5. Have a Unique Selling Point
- Related Reading
- Sign up for a free trial (no credit card required) on our Shopify sales tracker to find your next e-commerce opportunity today!
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So, you love reading and want to make money on your passion. You start an online bookstore, thinking it will be fun, but managing inventory quickly becomes overwhelming. You find yourself drowning in unsold books. If this scenario sounds familiar, you’re in the right place. In this guide, we will explore dropshipping books, a way to run an online bookstore without the hassle of managing inventory. You’ll learn how it works, why it’s a great niche, and how to get started. We will also touch upon best dropshipping niches 2025.
As you read on, consider using Shophunter's Shopify sales tracker as a valuable tool to help you reach your goals. This dropshipping solution will give you the insights you need to build a successful, low-risk online bookstore that generates steady income without the hassle of managing inventory.
Is Dropshipping Books a Great Idea in 2025?
If you're keen to start a bookstore, the data is encouraging: 767 million printed books were sold in the US in 2023, 23% more than a decade previously. As digital books continue gaining traction, physical book sales remain strong. In 2023, 65% of adults reported reading a print book in the last year. The market for books is not only stable; it’s also growing.
Why Dropshipping Books Is Smart
Dropshipping books is an easy way to get started if you don’t fancy stocking and storing towers of hardbacks in a nearby warehouse. The dropshipping model allows you to sell books while suppliers handle fulfillment, so you don't have to worry about inventory management or shipping logistics.
Benefits of Dropshipping Books
Dropshipping books offers numerous advantages, making it an appealing business model:
No Inventory Hassles
One of the primary benefits is that you don’t have to store any products. This eliminates the costs and logistics associated with inventory and shipping, which can be particularly expensive for books due to their size, weight, and delicate nature.
Passive Income Potential
Setting up a dropshipping store allows you to generate passive income. Once your online store is established and connected to a third-party book supplier, you can maintain a hands-off approach to operations.
Growing Market
Physical books remain popular despite the rise of digital formats like e-books and audiobooks. In the US, 65% of adults have read a print book in the past year, indicating a strong and stable market.
Extensive Product Selection
With an estimated 160 million unique books available worldwide as of 2023, you have a vast selection. This variety allows you to cater to diverse customer interests and preferences.
No Storage Costs
Storing books can quickly become expensive, but with dropshipping, you don’t need to worry about warehouse fees. Your suppliers handle the storage and shipping, reducing your overhead costs significantly.
Multiple Niche Opportunities
The vast number of books available provides countless niche markets to explore. Focusing on specific genres or themes can create a profitable niche and attract a dedicated customer base.
Risks of Dropshipping Books
High Competition
Books are a competitive niche. There are established authors and brands that customers choose to buy from. This can make it hard to stand out and generate sales.
How to Overcome High Competition
Do in-depth product research. Try to find unsaturated products with a unique selling point.
Low-Profit Margin
Dropshipping can often have low margins. It can be very competitive, which can drive down prices, and it costs a lot to advertise your products.
How to Overcome Low Margins
Shop around for a supplier. Many suppliers sell similar products at varying costs, so look for more affordable ones. Make sure to request samples to double-check the quality.
E-books will have a higher profit margin; you don’t need to buy the book or pay for shipping each time. So, consider selling a digital version of your books.
Copyright Issues
Copyright protection is a form of intellectual property. This is how authors and artists protect their work. Before choosing a book to sell, you need to ensure it isn’t copyrighted or a counterfeit copy, as it’s against the law.
How to Overcome Copyright Issues
Check the book's copyright before you agree to stock it. Often, a copyright page is at the front of a book. If this is there, you won’t be able to sell it unless you have permission from the copyright owner.
You can also use the book identification number, called an ISBN, to look up the book and copyright information.
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- Best Dropshipping Niches 2025
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How To Start Dropshipping Books in 2025
1. Find Books To Dropship Online
Finding a niche in dropshipping is key. We are glad you chose books, and as explained above, you can’t go wrong with selling books online despite the challenges with digitization. But here’s the catch: you can’t start selling just any book. You need winning product books that will sell. So, which books are in demand? You can find the best books to sell in many ways, including using search engines, finding trending books, researching hashtags, and spying on your competition.
Dropping Communities and Product Research Tools
The most straightforward way to find the best books for your dropshipping is to search on Google for the best dropshipping books. However, this may not give you raw data to work on. You can also check out trending books on Google Trends and research social media hashtags related to books. Spying on what the best book dropshipping sites are selling and asking dropshipping community members are also worthy options. However, the best and most accurate method is using product research tools.
What is a Product Research Tool?
Product research tools are dropshipping software solutions that collect, collate, review, and analyze key product metrics to enable dropshippers to find high-revenue and low-competition products to sell. They also offer key insights and historical sales data necessary for the prediction of the profitability of products.
Best Books Categories for Dropshipping
As a beginner, we understand that finding the best books to sell may be complicated. But we have done the heavy lifting for you. Below are some of the best categories you can focus on.
Children’s Books
Coloring books, comic books, dictionaries, animal books, early learning books, writing books, etc.
Novels
mystery, romance, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, etc. Hobbyist Books – Music, photography, carpentry, gardening, cooking, painting, sporting, archery, interior design, etc.
History Books
World history, ancient history, military history.
Arts & Entertainment
Adult coloring books, sketchbooks, design books, performing arts, tattoo idea books, etc.
Vintage & Antique Books
First edition and rare books
Religious Books
Bible, Qu’ran, Gita, Tota, Tripaka, etc
Digital Books
eBooks and audiobooks. Focusing on a specific category when starting will be key. It helps you fine-tune your audience and marketing efforts. Besides, you will be able to create a better product lineup.
Important
You can also curve a profitable niche selling books about dropshipping. Today, many online entrepreneurs want to learn the ins and outs of dropshipping, so they turn to dropshipping books and other guides.
2. Finding Dropshipping Books Suppliers
After finding the right books to sell, the next step is finding the best suppliers. However, supplier research is not a walk in the park like product research. According to statistics, 84% of online businesses say finding the right supplier is the biggest challenge in running their business.
As a beginner, you fall into this category. Finding the right supplier can be the deal maker or breaker. This is because the supplier you work with has a significant impact on key aspects of the business, including;
- Product Quality
- Product costs
- Shipping and delivery
- Operational stress levels
- Customer satisfaction Brand
How To Find the Best Books Dropshipping Suppliers
How do you find the best dropshipping book suppliers? Well, there are several methods of finding suppliers, including;
Using search engines, researching supplier directories, buying from competitors, using dropshipping tools, and searching for the best suppliers on Google can yield some results. Still, you must be careful, as many unreliable suppliers will appear on the SERPs. Supplier directories are promising, but finding updated supplier directories can be challenging.
Buying from competitors is another idea, but how many books will you buy before finding that perfect supplier? All the above are worthy options, but the best way to find dropshipping suppliers is to use dropshipping tools. A good example is Easync, which gives you access to dozens of dropshipping book suppliers, including Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress. When finding a supplier, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. Check the:
- The credibility of the supplier
- Location Contact
- Reviews and Reputation
- Product quality and pricing
- Packaging options
- Shipping and delivery turnaround
- Returns policy
- Customer support
6 Best dropshipping book suppliers
The book dropshipping model requires you to connect with a third-party supplier who will send purchased products to customers. They are in charge of storing the inventory, labeling shipments, and delivering products to buyers. Here are six of the top dropshipping suppliers for books.
1. AmericanBookCo
AmericanBookCo focuses solely on wholesaling books. You can browse books in 23 categories, including biographies, entertainment, history, and fiction.
- Pricing: 40% off traditional retail prices.
2. Half Moon Bay
Half Moon Bay is a UK dropshipping supplier that offers a selection of books, among other products. Browse hundreds of titles in different niches and connect to your Shopify store for quick and easy sales.
- Pricing: Free to use–you must ask for permission and certificates to dropship branded products.
3. Lulu Express
If you want to sell your books, Lulu lets you print and drop ship your writing. Deliver to more than 150 countries, use the pre-built templates to design your hardback, and integrate your account directly with Shopify to automate the process.
- Pricing: Free to use; you pay for books to be printed and shipped.
4. AliExpress
AliExpress is one of the biggest dropship suppliers in the world and has thousands of books to choose from. Shipping fees are usually very low; you can deliver to over 200 countries and regions worldwide.
- Pricing: Free to use, you cover the cost of manufacturing and shipping fees.
5. IngramSpark
IngramSpark is a self-publishing platform that helps authors produce and distribute their books. It's not a traditional book supplier, but if you are writing your books, the platform will print and ship them to customers after they place an order.
- Pricing: Free to make an account and upload your print or ebook.
6. Amazon
Like AliExpress, Amazon has a vast audience and thousands of books. You can populate my bookstore with titles from the best authors in various niches.
- Pricing: Free to use; you cover the cost of shipping fees.
3. Choosing a Dropshipping Platform: Own Store or Marketplace
Where do you plan to sell your books? The channel you select will have a significant impact on the success of your business. Although drop shipping platforms can be classified based on several factors, the main categorization is ownership.
Who owns the store? You can create your eCommerce store or sell on marketplaces. Either option has advantages and disadvantages.
Create Your eCommerce Store.
Creating your eCommerce store is great if you want to grow your brand. Here, there are two options:
- Use Hosted Platforms (Website)
- Use Self Hosted Platforms (Shopify, BigCommerce).
Creating your store from scratch is an excellent idea as you control the business and, importantly, your branding. Whatever marketing efforts you put in, or investment, doesn’t go down the drain. Besides, you no longer have to be wary of bans and competition, as is the case with marketplaces. The only problem is that creating your website and the entire infrastructure is financially intensive and from a human resource perspective.
You will also have to spend a lot in marketing to get organic (SEO) or inorganic (Ads) traffic. For beginners, the best option is to sell on marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and others. For example, you may start selling products on eBay and source them from AliExpress in the AliExpress to eBay dropshipping model. You can also consider Amazon to eBay or AliExpress to Amazon dropshipping. The advantage of selling on marketplaces is ease.
First, you don’t need a huge budget, as is the case with creating your store, and besides, the infrastructure is already there. Notably, marketplaces are already established eCommerce stores with millions of active customers. So, making a sale is easier and faster. However, there’s a catch. You have no control of the brand and platform and face stiff competition from the rest of the merchants.
4. Creating Product Listings
Now you have a working store. The next step is creating listings. This is an essential stage as it directly impacts SEO and visibility. You want to write optimized titles and product descriptions that sell. Enough product images, accurate book editions, and language are essential to avoid returns. Creating listings can be hectic if you have many products. However, we have dropshipping tools such as Easync.io that can help you import products with just one click.
Marketing
Now we have a working store with products live. But there’s one big question. How do you make sales? Marketing is key whether you have your store or are selling on a marketplace. What’s your marketing plan? As a beginner, we always recommend starting with marketplaces, especially if you are on a budget.
Setting up a store will cost me money and time. Besides, you need to spend on marketing to get traffic. But with marketplaces, say, dropshipping from AliExpress to eBay, you have a store ready; no back-and-forth hassles with your programmer, web designer, or hosting company about downtime and stuff. Regarding marketing, you are better off with dropshipping on marketplaces than building your store.
Here Are Some Strategies
Utilize Social Media
Use social media marketing and Engage with book communities on platforms like TikTok (BookTok), Instagram, and Facebook. Share book reviews, author interviews, and reading recommendations to attract followers.
Leverage SEO Optimization
Optimize your store and listings for search engines. Use relevant keywords high-quality content, and ensure mobile-friendliness to improve search rankings.
Partner with Influencers
Collaborate with book influencers to promote your products and reach a larger audience.
Email Marketing Campaigns
Build an email list and send newsletters with updates on new arrivals, promotions, and exclusive content. Use tools like Mailchimp or Klaviyo.
Run Paid Advertising
Invest in Google Ads and Facebook Ads to target specific demographics and interests.
Content Marketing
Create a blog with articles on books, reading tips, and author interviews to drive traffic and establish authority.
Offer Promotions and Discounts
Attract new customers with limited-time offers, bundle deals, and seasonal sales. Utilize
Customer Reviews
Encourage customers to leave and display reviews prominently to build trust.
Host Online Events
Organize virtual book clubs, author Q&A sessions, and reading challenges to engage your audience.
5. Fulfilling Orders (Packaging, Shipping, Delivery, and Returns)
Now, the business is up and running. You have a running online bookstore and a marketing strategy firing on all cylinders. Orders are about to start trickling. What’s expected of you?
Fulfillment is an operation purely handled by your supplier. But it remains your sole responsibility. You should be keen on fulfillment even after signing that agreement with your supplier. In short, you should be on top of the fulfillment lifecycle after signing that SOP agreement with the supplier.
Example
If I am into eBay dropshipping, the company says clearly the dropshipper is responsible for ensuring fulfillment is done right…proper packaging, shipping, and timely delivery.
How does Dropshipping Fulfillment Work?
There are several stages involved in dropshipping fulfillment. In the first step, you must submit the order from my store to the supplier. Remember, the supplier has an inventory of the book ordered. You have done your part once you have submitted the order and the customers’ details. Now, the ball is on the supplier’s side.
The supplier then sources the book and packages it. Here, make sure to discuss the quality of packaging prior, as it’s part of your brand. The packaging should be on point and blend with my branding efforts. You don’t want poor packaging as it triggers returns…think of a sketchbook delivered tattered or wet. Once the book is packaged, the next step is shipping. Still, it’s the responsibility of the supplier. My task here should be to ensure the supplier deals with reputable courier services or has an efficient logistics infrastructure. The idea is to ensure the customer receives the book on time.
Interestingly, 84% of consumers will not return to shop from you after just one poor delivery experience (Convery, 2022). 72% of customers satisfied with the delivery service will increase their purchase levels with the brand by 12% (Capgemini, 2022)
The order is now in transit…
By now, there are things you ought to have taken care of.
First, the order should be shipped with my company’s details. The customer should also receive communication that the order delivery has been attempted. It’s better if you and your supplier send the notification from both ends.
Things are good at this end. The customer has received the order. Do some follow-up and keep the customer in my loop with newsletters and promotional communication. You also need to be aware of returns. This is part of the dropshipping fulfillment lifecycle. You should be actively involved to ensure everything runs smoothly, obviously according to the returns policy of my store and the supplier.
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5 Tips for Dropshipping Success
Successful book dropshippers need a robust book supplier. The customer experience relies on how quickly and safely they can ship and deliver books, so choosing the right one is crucial. Here are some beginner’s tips for getting it right.
1. Read Reviews
Compare potential book suppliers by reading reviews from existing customers. Ensure it’s reputable and other book business owners have had a good experience.
2. Get All the Details
Ensure you get all the book details from suppliers, including the weight, number of pages, the material, and the color.
3. Sell What You Love
If you have a favorite genre, why not stick to that? Knowing your target audience so well will help you create the right marketing messages.
4. Sell the Right Product
As well as coming up with product ideas and choosing which books to add to your store, it’s vital that you’re linking to the right products–check for language, the version of the book, and other differentiating features.
5. Have a Unique Selling Point
As of 2024, there were more than 43,000 booksellers in the US. Stand out by identifying what makes you different. What will the price be? A niche product range? A particular audience?
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