Why are used books worth so little?

You might pay 20 or 30 dollars( or more!) at the bookstore for a book. I tried selling a whole bunch of books after I had a shelf break. I don’t think there was a single one that was worth even one dollar. I tried selling a few on ebay, and lost money. Most shops I went to paid between 10 and 25 cents per book. I needed them out quickly because I didn’t have room and I hardly ever read them, so I gave a lot to the library.

I think because they are easy to lend. The value for expensive non reference books is most likely obtained from being able to read the author’s work as soon as it is published. One pays the premium for this. I don’t know what percentage of price goes to the author versus the other charges, but I imagine more is spent on production and marketing.

Reference books might go either way, nowadays. Due to the availability of more current information, there’s a greater chance of the material becoming obsolete, and therefore,of little use. Have you ever overused an old encyclopedia from the 50’s?

Market forces.

Because there are millions more just like yours and you can get them for free from the library. Like any collectible, value depends on scarcity and condition.

That applies to new books too, though.

What kind of books? If they are best sellers, then a million other people are selling them to used book stores also while their audience who wants to buy the book everyone else is buying has moved on to other stuff. If you are selling hardcover editions of books that have come out in paperback, even more so.
I don’t get a lot when I sell duplicates to Half Price Books, but more than they were worth to me.

If you had a relatively rare book you might do better.

[quote=“Voyager, post:6, topic:704481”]

What kind of books? If they are best sellers, then a million other people are selling them to used book stores /QUOTE]

An example. Several years ago we were in a used book store in California. A new Harry Potter book had come out perhaps two days earlier. The store had a couple in stock. We asked the owner about it and he said it was pretty common to see best sellers hit the used stores in a couple of days. People buy them, he said, read them and get rid of them.

[quote=“SandyHook, post:7, topic:704481”]

I’m a used book dealer. A couple months ago, I saw the Michelle Knight autobiography, which had maybe been out a matter of weeks, at a used bookstore, and bought it (at 50% off that price, because I had a trade-in account at the store). I read it - one of the saddest books I have ever read; everyone failed that girl from the day she was born :frowning: - and then put it in the booth I have an an antique mall, and sold it for even more than I would have paid at the used bookstore. :cool:

Buying used paperbacks from you at 10 to 25 cents isn’t that surprising given that some bookstores sell used books for a dollar or two. I’m speaking here of books that are in print and easily found new in paperback in regular bookstores. Used bookstores are not a high-profit-margin business. They can barely make a profit buying books at 10 to 25 cents and selling them at one to two dollars. You have to have somebody who buys books, somebody who puts them on the shelves in some sort of order, and somebody who sells books. You have to have a decent-sized store.

There are a lot of people out there who would never consider used clothes no matter how (lightly if at all) used they are. There are a lot of people who just won’t consider a used book. And with e-books and all that various stuff, most of the used (non-collector) books stores already around are starting to fail.

Supply and demand. Nowadays, thanks to Amazon’s used book sellers and other online markets for used books, you’re competing against everyone else in the country who has a used copy of that particular book they wouldn’t mind unloading.

On the other hand, I once sold a songbook on Amazon for $300.

Bought a small dining table & two chairs, for my 1 BR condo.

Keep your eyes peeled.

I’ve sold some books on eBay and have a few observations I would like to note.

Age doesn’t matter when it comes to books printed ~1880 and after. A standard school textbook from 1892 probably won’t get a lot of action, so the ‘antique’ factor doesn’t work with books. That’s because books tend to last. What makes antiques special is there is a rarity factor to them, but old books often aren’t that rare. There are university and college libraries with books from the 1700s that you can check out if you so desire.

The more esoteric the subject of a book, the higher the chance it’s going to sell. I have a book (that I’ve yet to sell) on alcoholic drinks from the 1950s-1960s (ish). There are some copies on eBay going for $120-$140. (It also has drawings of nudie women in it, and some people are into that ‘pinup girl’ type art). So general Harlequin Romance/whodunnit/dime-a-dozen novels don’t get a lot of attention because there’s so many of them. I have a book that was autographed by the author (Thyra Ferre Bjorn if anyone cares) and it didn’t even get a watcher, let alone a bid.

Old Bibles do sell, even if they’re in crappy condition. I sold one that was absolutely demolished for $7 once.

Modern textbooks do sell pretty well, depending on how old they are.

People aren’t going to spend a lot of money on something they’re likely to read only once and never read again. Really, there’s limited utility to most books after the first read, so they’re not worth spending a lot of money on…especially used.

I think the real question should not be ‘why are used books worth so little?’, but ‘why do new books cost so much?’

I always paid more for paperbacks than hard cover books, because I could sell them for more. Only consideration I gave it as a business owner.

You sold paperbacks for higher prices than hardbacks? How does that work? The vast majority of paperbacks have little pages, poor typesetting and print quality, and tiny margins that are a headache to read. I thought their only good point was being cheap.

People who want hardbacks generally don’t want second-hand, so second-hard hardbacks don’t sell so well. At least, in most genres.

Supply and demand, but also space considerations, especially locally. If you bring boxes into a bookstore and they offer a total of $12 on 4 of the 100 you brought, they are looking for ones they can sell somewhat quickly as the have only limited space. It doesn’t mean that you can’t sell them elsewhere, but is it worth the effort? Many people are severely attached to books as a concept. When they see book art they become irate, “how can you destroy the written word!?” Fact is that’s a better fate than the books can normally expect. I understand the feeling and resisted ebooks for awhile, but now I appreciate both.

NB: don’t look up prices on Amazon and eBay unless it is for a book that was actually sold. Some out of print books are given obscene prices in the hopes that someone will bite, or an automated listing system makes an error.

I recently looked into selling two textbooks on Amazon. Then I discovered that Amazon will take trade ins. While the offered price is initially lower, when you factor in time and effort, shipping fees, listing fees, and all the other headaches I came out ahead by just sending them straight to Amazon. Also, Amazon accepts “good” or above without notice to price, while a random buyer may dispute your represented condition, etc. The only “catch” is that they pay you in Amazon credit instead of cash, but I buy crap on there all the time anyway.

Mass-market paperback - cheap paper and bindings, may be smaller than the hardcover. Some aren’t much better than newsprint - think the supermarket Grisham and Steele across from the greeting cards. May be decent books who are just printed past their initial HC and TP runs.
Trade paperback - basically the hardcover with a softcover and better quality than MMP.

Used bookstores near me won’t buy hardcover fiction at all, because they can’t sell it. People buy used novels to read on the train, and paperbacks are smaller and lighter.

Who are these weirdos that won’t buy secondhand books?

Next time you have a big box of books you want to get rid of, consider using Fulfillment by Amazon. Ship all those books in one big box by cheap mail (Media Mail?) to them and then they’ll warehouse them for you and take care of all shipping & returns to and from customers. You set the prices on them, Amazon takes care of the rest. Soooo much easier than individually shipping to people, and you usually get better prices than selling to a used bookstore.