Frankly Speaking: 'The Official eBay Bible' successfully guides users through eBay maze

Frank Shipe, a former SBJ section editor, is a freelance writer in Springfield.

If the used rolls from Scotch Tape dispensers ever become collectibles, I'll be rich. My mother saved those things all her life and somehow, after her passing, they're mine. A whole bag full.

That's why I've been thinking about eBay, where I understand you can sell anything. I don't know who needs empty tape rolls, but I can sure see folks buying the giant plaster frog, the wooden penguin, and, especially, Aunt Millie's antique rhinestone hatpin.

In my wildest fantasies, I join eBay and sell all the family effluvia, emerging with a freer mind and lots of money. The great American garage-sale dream.

I shared the dream with a friend recently and he said, "I'd love to use eBay, but it scares me to death. It looks so complicated." It's a common complaint, and understandable. With more than 60 million users and as many items for sale, eBay's size alone suggests a complexity that many don't care to take on.

Which brings us to Jim Griffith's "The Official eBay Bible," released in June by Gotham Books. This is a remarkable, even amazing, book that takes readers with uncompromising clarity through virtually every action imaginable on eBay.

Griffith isn't just one more writer cashing in on a cyber-phenomenon. He was eBay's first customer service representative. He helped develop the company's pro-consumer service philosophy and went on to train 500 workers to staff its customer service center in Salt Lake City.

This author knows his subject inside-out, upside-down and backwards. And he infuses the book with real enthusiasm. His passion is sincere, and for good reason. As he relates rather poignantly at the beginning of the book, eBay's job offer rescued him at the low point of his life after his own computer business failed and his savings were gone. It was a case of eBay creator Pierre Omidyar and co-founder Jeff Stoll recognizing how helpful he had been earlier to other users on eBay's chat-board.

Griffith walks the reader through registering on eBay, listing items, bidding, buying, selling, tracking transactions, evaluating buyers and sellers, and much more.

The book is filled with bonuses. For example, an entire chapter details digital photography, explaining how it works and how to use it to create the most attractive eBay listings. Another chapter explains HTML and how to use it to your advantage. Griffith also describes such utilities as eBay's "Turbo-Lister" for creating and tracking multiple listings and how to create a seller's "About Me" page to encourage sales.

He also makes clear such nifty eBay features as the reserve price, a protective device that, as it happens, appears on Aunt Millie's antique rhinestone hatpin. Let's assume the hatpin has been appraised at $75. In an eBay auction, can I protect myself from letting it go for a high bid of only $2? Sure thing. The answer is the reserve price, which I can set at any figure. Only the seller and eBay know the reserve price. Bidders know only whether the reserve price has been met. If it's not been met when the bidding time expires, there is no sale, and I am not taken to the cleaners.

Happily, a good bit of Griffith's book deals with how to protect oneself from being ripped off on eBay, either by sellers or buyers. There are many ways to protect oneself, and he spells them out clearly.

EBay has come a long way since Omidyar, a San Jose computer programmer, created it as a simple, text-only Web site in the summer of 1995. Growing from 10,000 users in 1996 to the 60 million of 2003, it's also become slick as glass, loaded with graphics, and an outlet not only for auction sales but fixed-price sales and direct sales by businesses that sell on eBay exclusively.

Griffith neglects nothing. For those serious about developing a dedicated eBay business, he provides a detailed section on how to do so, including tips on business structure, bookkeeping, better business practices, the office, taxes and selling internationally.