# Why are used books worth so little? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 12, 2014, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481 "2014-11-12T22:59:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/61 "2014-11-16T05:16:42Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Most people who look for old books on the internet don’t want reading copies; they can go to [paperbackswap.com](http://paperbackswap.com) and get those. They want something of value and that is almost always dependent on condition. Seriously? I suspect most people looking for old books on the internet are looking exclusively for reading copies and use Amazon Marketplace. Collectors are much rarer and are probably using higher-end sites like Bookfinder and Abebooks where they can order from actual booksellers and not hippies who scan thousands of books at library sales. I’ve never heard of [paperbackswap.com](http://paperbackswap.com) but I’m very impressed that there over 600 people using the site right now. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/62 "2014-11-16T07:44:30Z")
You can’t get much for used books anymore, but it’s no worse than what you get for old CDs/LPs/DVDs or really anything that can be easily digitized. Plus, even at dirt cheap prices selling used books isn’t going to make you rich. The turnover at used bookstores is ridiculously low; two huge bookstores in my area (Tacoma Book Center and Comstock’s Bindery in nearby Auburn) have many if not most of the books I saw when I first visited them ten years ago. That means a huge amount of physical inventory for relatively little revenue per square foot. And since most bookstores are found in big cities, they have to pay much more rent than other businesses. That’s what’s killing used bookstores, even more than the internet; you make a lot more money selling out to condos than eeking out a living in a low profit field. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/63 "2014-11-17T03:00:35Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Used to. Except for a tiny handful of the biggest names, older genre books are no longer reprinted by large publishers. There is a cottage industry of tiny presses who print some, but in tiny numbers. We have no idea at all what the romance boom will result in, but I certainly wouldn’t try to argue with their fans that they are less memorable. Oh, no argument there. It’s really amazing (to me, anyway) that whoever the copyright holder of some old science fiction and fantasy authors haven’t spent the time to digitize old books. Cheap way to get them back into print and actually make some money off the copyright. Sell them at a reasonable amount ($3 or $5 a book) and actually make some cash. I remember that at least one poster here paid for the full Virgina Edition of the complete Heinlein. If I remember correctly, it was originally supposed to be published by (now-defunct) Meisha Merlin, which I was interested in because they were publishing omnibus editions (it was supposed to be three total volumes) of John Morressy’s “Kedrigern” short stories and novels. The first volume came out and had all sorts of proofing and printing errors. The second one came out and was much better, and the promised third volume was never published due to the demise of the publisher. Thanks to a combination of those two published volumes, individual novels found at used book stores, and some old magazines, I have pretty much everything ever written by John Morressy in his three main series (not his individual novels) in hardcopy, most of which was cheaply published decades ago. Thanks to Amazon, I can get replacement copies of various books if I want, but I’d much rather be able to pay a few dollars for edited (hyperlinks and formatting, for instance) digital files I could just load onto my Kindle. Now, I don’t expect there to be many people on this board to be interested in that particular author. But it’s really amazing how much stuff simply isn’t available digitally and may wind up being slowly lost as the physical copies deteriorate or are destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/64 "2014-11-17T07:37:24Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > Oh, no argument there. It’s really amazing (to me, anyway) that whoever the copyright holder of some old science fiction and fantasy authors haven’t spent the time to digitize old books. Cheap way to get them back into print and actually make some money off the copyright. Sell them at a reasonable amount ($3 or $5 a book) and actually make some cash. > > I remember that at least one poster here paid for the full Virgina Edition of the complete Heinlein. If I remember correctly, it was originally supposed to be published by (now-defunct) Meisha Merlin, which I was interested in because they were publishing omnibus editions (it was supposed to be three total volumes) of John Morressy’s “Kedrigern” short stories and novels. The first volume came out and had all sorts of proofing and printing errors. The second one came out and was much better, and the promised third volume was never published due to the demise of the publisher. Thanks to a combination of those two published volumes, individual novels found at used book stores, and some old magazines, I have pretty much everything ever written by John Morressy in his three main series (not his individual novels) in hardcopy, most of which was cheaply published decades ago. Thanks to Amazon, I can get replacement copies of various books if I want, but I’d much rather be able to pay a few dollars for edited (hyperlinks and formatting, for instance) digital files I could just load onto my Kindle. > > Now, I don’t expect there to be many people on this board to be interested in that particular author. But it’s really amazing how much stuff simply isn’t available digitally and may wind up being slowly lost as the physical copies deteriorate or are destroyed. Is Google digitizing these books? You’d think so. I wonder how many e-copies old books lots of people have heard of sell? I’d have a hard time believing someone reasonably obscure would sell enough books to make it worthwhile. I have one of Morressy’s books, but doubt another would be high on my list. epublication would be a fannish labor of love, I’d guess. ---
**Author:** ![jigs5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@jigs5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jigs5)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/65 "2014-11-17T07:42:25Z")
yeah old books are purchased at half price. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/66 "2014-11-17T16:16:49Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Is Google digitizing these books? You’d think so. I wonder how many e-copies old books lots of people have heard of sell? I’d have a hard time believing someone reasonably obscure would sell enough books to make it worthwhile. I have one of Morressy’s books, but doubt another would be high on my list. epublication would be a fannish labor of love, I’d guess. Google sourced their scanning from several of the largest university libraries in the U.S. (Maybe elsewhere as well.) They are unlikely to have many genre books or paperback originals. Some libraries have specialty collections of genre. Calfornia-Riverside has sf; Texas has mysteries; Buffalo has pulps. They have enough problems just finding the money to maintain them, and I know of no plans to digitize the collections. The hope is that if they do keep the collections intact they will be available in the future. And eventually they will move into the public domain. 1923 becomes public domain in 2018. It’s actually getting close. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/67 "2014-11-17T17:01:02Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Sure, I have my books on computer, too. But if you were to simply list your books for sale, anybody with an once of sense would pass them over without a second glance (unless they were priced at a penny). Are they first editions? Do they have dust jackets? What’s the condition? (Both boards and jacket.) Do they have any internal markings, bookplates, dealer’s labels, price stickers? Same goes for paperbacks and magazines - you list every dent and ding and crease because that makes them more sellable, not less: it tells the customer exactly what they’re getting. But that takes time and means handling each one of them individually. Unless you’re willing to make that slight profit on the difference between media mail rates and shipping costs, you’ll wind up with as many books left as you started with. Most people who look for old books on the internet don’t want reading copies; they can go to [paperbackswap.com](http://paperbackswap.com) and get those. They want something of value and that is almost always dependent on condition. I dunno. I often buy cheap reader copies of good SF titles, paying up to $4 each or $1 in lots. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/68 "2014-11-17T17:10:53Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I dunno. I often buy cheap reader copies of good SF titles, paying up to $4 each or $1 in lots. We seem to have here the divide between people buying books as objects and people who buy books for the information or stories they contain. Condition is of paramount inportance for Collectors, but the vast majority of book buyers (on line or brick and mortar) are simply Readers. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/69 "2014-11-17T18:03:35Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > We seem to have here the divide between people buying books as objects and people who buy books for the information or stories they contain. > > Condition is of paramount inportance for Collectors, but the vast majority of book buyers (on line or brick and mortar) are simply Readers. Depends on what kind of collector you are. I’m going for completeness of readable copies. I’m not going to turn down a volume I don’t have because of condition issues, though I’m sure there are plenty of collectors who will. And I’m so far behind that anything I buy now for the collection won’t get read for years if not for decades. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/70 "2014-11-17T18:06:48Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Google sourced their scanning from several of the largest university libraries in the U.S. (Maybe elsewhere as well.) They are unlikely to have many genre books or paperback originals. If they want sf stuff they just have to contact MITSFS. Not even close to a university library, of course… ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/71 "2014-11-18T02:26:15Z")
The best way to make money on old books you want to get rid of, IMHO, is to donate them to a non-profit like Goodwill and take a tax deduction. I use TurboTax, which provides fair market values for donated items. IIRC, paperbacks are $1 and hardbacks $3 or so. All you have to do is keep a count. Yes, the deduction only lowers your tax bill by the percentage of your tax rate, but it saves you a ton of time compared to trying to sell them. Count them, box them, drop them off, and don’t forget about them on April 14. I’ve donated hundreds of old books in the process of moving three times in the last few years, and have probably “made” a few hundred buck this way. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/72 "2014-11-18T03:44:46Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If they want sf stuff they just have to contact MITSFS. Not even close to a university library, of course… The Eaton collection at Cal-Riverside is far larger: > [@](#): > > The collection is a major resource for research and is visited by scholars from around the world for both its American and international holdings. It features over 300,000 items including: > > ``` > Over 100,000 hardback and paperback books. > Full runs of many pulp magazines. > Nearly 100,000 fanzines. > Film and visual material, including 500 shooting scripts from science fiction films. > Comic books, anime and manga. > Collectible ephemera and realia, including cards, posters, pins and action figures. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/73 "2014-11-18T20:33:28Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The Eaton collection at Cal-Riverside is far larger: 4sj’s collection, right? When my parents lived in LA they lived just a few blocks from the Ackermansion, so I got to go visit. Impressive place, especially the movie stuff. And the large bookcase full of signed editions. Even when I was at MIT there was a collection that Judith Merril set up in Canada that was close to the same size as the MITSFS collection. Our claim was that we were the largest open shelf circulating library, not the largest collection. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481/74 "2014-11-18T22:55:19Z")
Forrey’s collection was auctioned off in pieces after he spent many years trying to find a competent buyer. The whole thing was a nightmare for collectors, researchers, and historians. Riverside started with J. Lloyd Eaton’s collection but grew precipitously. > [@](#): > > J. Lloyd Eaton was a pulmonologist specializing in the treatment of tuberculosis. While still in high school he collected science fiction and fantasy pulp literature. By the 1940s he communicated with book dealers in London and New York to acquire more books, expanding to the detective and western genres at a time when science fiction was an obscure interest. Eaton had particular interest in stories of future war or lost race from before the 1920s by authors such as John Polidori, Frank Aubrey, and Edgar Rice Burroughs.[6] Eaton was also the first president of the Elves, Gnomes, and Little Men’s Science Fiction, Chowder, and Marching Society, and served as the editor of the group’s sercon fanzine, The Rhodomagnetic Digest.[7] When Eaton’s family sought a home for his collection, science fiction was considered an inferior literary product—pleasant enough as a diversion, but unworthy of serious academic study. As even public libraries did not regularly acquire science fiction, there was no comprehensive collection available anywhere outside of private hands. The Merril collection is not nearly as big: > [@](#): > > The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy is a non-circulating research collection of over 72,000 items of science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction, as well as magic realism, experimental writing and some materials in ‘fringe’ areas such as parapsychology, UFOs, Atlantean legends etc. I have a friend from college who’s now a big-time dealer. He has at least 100,000 items in his inventory: books, magazines, pulps, paperbacks. He’s so overstocked that he only buys up large collections to save them from being thrown out by survivors. What happens to that when he goes out of business is unimaginable. All the big-time dealers in sf are nearing retirement age. Nobody new is entering the business. But with the big academic collections, it also seems unimaginable that at least one copy of everything won’t be saved permanently. Assuming anybody after us cares. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-used-books-worth-so-little/704481.md?page=3)