OK, I have spent my entire life buying books. I have gone to the library on occasion to find the book that I can’t find anywhere else, but if it can be ordered I will buy it.
Now I find myself staring at potential joblessness in the near future. And I also find myself staring at four of those cheapo particle-board bookcases full of books. Which take up a lot of space. And weigh a lot.
Now while planning for the possible movement into a smaller place, I have begun putting the books into boxes for a trip to the…used book store.
I feel that I am about to cross of those thresholds in life…my first time SELLING books. I have expended a lot of energy over the years moving these books around with me (and so have a lot of unsuspecting moving guys!).
But after all that it comes down to…twenty bucks. Or so I was told I can expect that for a box of “average” books. Of course MY books are not “average”! Can I actually reduce an entire box of books down to $20? But they will cost me money to move, or money to store…
Anyone ever done this? Parted with books they never thought they would? Does it really matter?
I know some people that have, and inevitably they seem to regret it when the topic comes up. Or talk about all the cool stuff they used to have. I’ve shipped my books across the country three seperate times and it has cost a lot, but I’ve never regretted it.
I honestly think I might sell my furniture before I would sell my books.
You’ll not get much cash out of them, anyway. A bookstore may give you a dollar apiece for them (if you’re very lucky) but usually, it’s store credit. Yardsales aren’t much of an option, because people won’t pay more than a quarter for them.
If you seriously want to sell, you may try Amazon.com, but again, I wouldn’t expect to get much out of them. (I for one will not buy used books.)
If it’s not necessarily the financial gain you’re looking for, you might consider donating them to a worth cause, such as a battered women’s shelter, a nursing home, etc.
I wouldn’t get rid of them, if I were you. Yeah, it’ll cost you to move them, but in the long run, I think it will be worth it. For me, parting with books is like parting with friends.
Don’t. Just don’t do it. Do they still pay for blood in your part of the world? Semen or ova? Medical experiments?
If you sell the books, you’ll wind up with one of two situations: a serious book guy who will give you a small but reasonable percentage of what they’re worth to him and still leave you with three and a half bookcases of stuff to move, or a flunkie who will follow the x% of cover price formula. Either way, you wind up on the bad side of capitalism.
That’s not the worst part, though. The insidious thing is that you wind up buying them back. You kept these books for a reason. It may not happen soon, but it will happen. You’ll want to reread book Y. Well, you sold book Y for $.50. You go to your local used book store thinking “Well, I should be able to find it here”, and you’re right. You do. It’s there, it’s (personal experience) the SAME COPY YOU SOLD, it’s $2.50.
It’s easier to move them than to buy them back. It’s cheaper to drop them off with a buddy who has a crawlspace or an attic than to move them. You’ll miss the bodily fluids less than you’ll miss the books, long term.
Value is a very slippery thing, especially when it comes to books. (But I’m rather a fanatic, so factor that in.)
The cash value is what someone’s willing to pay, “someone”, of course, being an unknown buyer in an unknown market. And the seller will most definitely, and legitimately, demand a cut.
My suspicion? Unless you have some really hard-to-find titles, what you’d get out selling would amount to peanuts. You can and should look around; e.g. standard used/rare book sites like abebooks to scope out prices, demand, etc. But keep in mind those are retail quotes, and getting your books into like hands is a whole 'nother issue.
My recommendation? Go through your books with a very close eye for what you will actually re-read. I cherish books, and many are old friends who’ve lasted years. But some, not many but some, are passing interests/tastes. Good stuff, but they’ve done their duty and I’m ready to pass them on. If on the fence, keep it. There’s nothing quite book hunger, when the need to read something is like an ache, but the old friend isn’t around any more. Unless you can realize a signifcant actual cash difference in selling versus keeping, I’d say err on the side of keeping. If you’re facing joblessness, making sure your soul and mind are fed far outweighs the pennies you’d make.
I might consider pruning down the collection some, but seriously, you probably’d burn more money on gas hauling the things to the used book shop. Do you have any friends who’d be willing to store em for you, or that you could just give em to?
Though honestly, I’ve moved a few times, and the books were probably the easiest things to move. You put a bunch of em in a box, put a bunch of boxes on a dolly, roll it out to the truck. Sure beats furniture.
I’ve sold books before; didn’t get a lot for them, but I wanted other to be able to enjoy them. Better sell them than have them sitting on my shelves and never read.
I’d prefer to keep them, but space is a problem. I’m in the middle of a pruning right now.
Certain books and authors are always keepers (and I have quite a few books I never read, nor do I plan to, but which I would never give away). But there are all too many that I read once and will never read again – popcorn books – that I’d just as soon give away.
Of course, I get a lot of books for free, which makes it easier to give those away.
If you’re going to sell books, you might as well cut out the various middlemen. Half.com allows you to sell your books online for a 15% commission of the sale price (you can figure in the shipping charges). Assuming you sell your books for the traditional half cover price, this works out to 42.5% and you’re probably not going to do better than that unless you have some collector’s items.
I have a muches huge collection of books. I took about 600 of them (about a quarter of my whole collection) to a used bookstore because there just plain wasn’t enough room in my bedroom for them. I picked the newest store in town because they really need a variety of books and they didn’t at the time.
I got $224 in store credit for them, which isn’t bad cos now I can get even more boooooooooksssss!
I don’t regret it because I went through and picked 600 of the books I know I will never read again: books I hated, kids’ books, books that just took up room. I didn’t sell any books that I really felt I would want back and now, about six months later, I haven’t gone to buy any of them back. So for me, it was good.