Selling Books

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Why is it always the wrong time? I was told this today, that it was the wrong time of year, because "everybody's cleaning out." Excuse me, it's August on Martha's Vineyard! Everybody is either working or SPENDING MONEY LIKE IT'S WATER. In the winter when there's no work, then people sell their fucking books!
Why are these people like this? I know part of it is dealer strategy, acting like it's all a big nuisance so they can give you next to nothing for the books—but shouldn't they at least try to be pleasant about it? After all, I'm a good customer, too. And, maybe I'm missing something here, but don't they NEED to buy books to keep up their stock? Or is there some huge warehouse just for them where they get used books for FREE?

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 21:31 (nineteen years ago)

Bookstore owners and employees can develop a sort of rampant book-aversion that grows worse and worse as the years pass. Books become as enticing to these people as the heaps of manure-laden straw in a horse's stall that need to be shoveled out constantly. The idea of giving you money from the till in exchange for your hap of manure (even though it is their stock-in-trade) strikes them as deeply, deeply wrong. Perhaps this owner suffers from that malady.

― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

hap = heap

― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 23:36 (nineteen years ago)

I'm often surprised at how little you get (in either cash or store credit) for used books compared to used CDs.

In my town, the two biggest used-book dealers accept used books by appointment only, and you have to present the prospective sale/trade books several hours (or up to a day) before the buyer reaches a decision and makes you an offer. I can't help comparing this experience to bringing used CDs in to Amoeba, where you stand in line for a few minutes and are rewarded with a comparatively generous offer.

Is there something about the two markets, CDs versus books, that would explain these differences? Or have I just had good luck with the former and bad with the latter?

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Thursday, 24 August 2006 00:58 (nineteen years ago)

Living in the Portland area, I have been lucky enough to both buy and sell at Powell's Books for about three decades. The process there is much as you describe for CDs, if one puts aside the description of the offer as "generous". I am grateful just knowing that Powell's so huge that they have a bottomless appetite for used books and buy just about everything under the sun. Very few cities have that sort of resource available.

Powell's offers you roughly 25% of the price the buyer envisions selling the book for. If you bought the book new, this entails an enormous reduction. If you bought the book at a garage sale for a quarter, you may actually make money on the deal.

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:58 (nineteen years ago)

Interesting. I suppose I get 20-25% of the projected selling price from the book buyers here in Santa Cruz. But they're very selective about what they'll take -- maybe one book in three, given a stack of mainstream fiction. Maybe they just don't have the shelf space to acquire used stock at a higher rate.

Amoeba will take just about any CD (as long as it's not damaged), and they'll pay up to 50% of the projected selling price.

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Thursday, 24 August 2006 16:22 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe the CD store is making more profit than a bookstore, so they can afford to be more generous, sort of like car dealers who can afford to give you a couple thousand for a trade-in junker because they're drastically jacked up the price of the new car you're buying from them.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Thursday, 24 August 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

I only got 50 bucks' store credit for a HUGE number of books. I had about 10-12 grocery bags and one wine crate full. He took about two-thirds of them. Took most of the novels, rejected most of the non-fiction. The rejects are still in my car. The thrift shop isn't taking books, so I'm going to give them to the library for their annual sale. Apparently they'll take anything.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Thursday, 24 August 2006 22:22 (nineteen years ago)

See the works of Dylan Moran (particularly "Black Books").

(I'm paraphrasing)
"If I buy these books, I'll only have to check them, then price them and people will come in and ask about them, and once I've sold them I'll need to restock and the whole circle goes on and on and on. Take them away."

― Andrew Munro (andyboyo), Monday, 28 August 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

I assume CD shops can hold onto more CDs than bookshops can hold onto books -- books are bigger! And I imagine there's more of a turnover with the CDs. So they can take a smaller cut of the profits. I suspect.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 29 August 2006 04:56 (nineteen years ago)

"...and one wine crate full."
Wow, Beth. I have heaved milk crates full of books, and have consumed crates of wine - but I have never had a wine crate, as far as I know.
Is it a milk crate, but just filled with wine, or books?
Of course, the wine would pour out if you tried to fill a milk crate with wine....

― aimurchie (aimurchie), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 10:39 (nineteen years ago)

The new postage prices make selling books via the internet a less attractive prospect.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 15:32 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.laywheeler.com/images/send_a_gift_crate.jpg

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 15:52 (nineteen years ago)

It's true, Peej. I bought a couple of books online recently, second hand, and the postage was like €7 or something. Stupid. For an exra €3, I could have got them new, and I wouldn't have had to wait ten days.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 19:25 (nineteen years ago)

four years pass...

I sold practically all of my CDs right before iTunes/Spotify took the bottom out of the online market. Does the advent of the e-book mean that I should be selling all my books before it is too late? FWIW I wouldn't be selling any of this stuff if i wasn't broke, but I have a particular attachment to books and it can be hard to let go of them.

― A41 (admrl), Sunday, 14 August 2011 18:20 (fourteen years ago)

I have a lot of art/experimental film books, for example, which I love but have been shocked at how much they are fetching online. I have this, for one, and it is a good book, a great resource, but maaaaaaan:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stuff-Video-Essay-Digital-Voldemeer/dp/3211203184/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1313346070&sr=8-6

― A41 (admrl), Sunday, 14 August 2011 18:22 (fourteen years ago)

paperbackswap.com

― diamonddave85, Sunday, 14 August 2011 18:29 (fourteen years ago)

just cos it's priced that high... the market for certain fiction & textbooks/reference books is definitely in fairly rapid decline. it's still unclear how specialist publishers like springer are going to run things so there's no real dip in value yet, but it cld all go downhill v fast. if everything does go to ebook w/ prices to match, prob most of those publishers will go under

― ogmor, Sunday, 14 August 2011 19:53 (fourteen years ago)

Yeah, online prices (esp Amazon marketplace) are not a great guide. I sell a few print-on-demand resurrected classics through Lulu and Amazon, and new the copies are about $10-$18, depending on length, but some nutters are attempting to re-sell them through Amazon for $150 -- these are POD books that can be printed anytime for anyone in the world, so it's not as though they're rare or difficult to get. Insanity.

― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Monday, 15 August 2011 23:21 (fourteen years ago)

Haha:http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/3211203184/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1313346070&sr=8-6&condition=new

I sold a Ltd Ed. Rem Koolhaas book today for more than twice what I paid for it. I guess ppl still buy books.

― A41 (admrl), Tuesday, 16 August 2011 20:49 (fourteen years ago)

Well, it is "Almost like new".

― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Tuesday, 16 August 2011 23:07 (fourteen years ago)

I once listed a paperback -- mid-70s "my life in the Mafia" trash called Barboza -- for $100 because there were a few comparables at roughly that price. Guy emailed me and asked "why is this so expensive?" I emailed back "I have no idea! But this is more or less what the market seems to think it's worth." He bought it later that day. That is my story, the end.

― L.P. Hovercraft (WmC), Tuesday, 16 August 2011 23:38 (fourteen years ago)

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