Q&A: At Friends of the Library sales, should I go for quantity or quality?
QUESTION: I'm going to a big Friends of the Library sale, and looking for nonfiction. Should I grab a lot of books quickly, say $400 worth, or should I buy fewer books after I've checked their prices?
ANSWER: Wow, I wish I were going to this sale! The most I've ever managed to spend at a library sale is about $275. But I never worry about how much I'm spending -- I know the more books I buy, the more money I'll be making in the future.
I hardly ever research prices at a sale, I'm too busy grabbing books. My strategy is to buy in volume -- anything that looks like a winner, I snatch it, as long as I'm getting it for a few dollars or less.
The only time I use my cellphone to check prices at a sale is when there's a special collection of high-end books on sale for $4 and over. Then I'll look up the prices to avoid taking big losses on my mistakes. I've snagged some monster books this way, including this eight-pound gem
for just $30. But I wouldn't have taken the chance without being able to see its price on Amazon Marketplace.
I can't always find something in the "special" section of a library sale, so I save this for last -- after I've combed the sale for all the regular hardbacks and trade paperbacks I can find.
ANSWER: Wow, I wish I were going to this sale! The most I've ever managed to spend at a library sale is about $275. But I never worry about how much I'm spending -- I know the more books I buy, the more money I'll be making in the future.
I hardly ever research prices at a sale, I'm too busy grabbing books. My strategy is to buy in volume -- anything that looks like a winner, I snatch it, as long as I'm getting it for a few dollars or less.
The only time I use my cellphone to check prices at a sale is when there's a special collection of high-end books on sale for $4 and over. Then I'll look up the prices to avoid taking big losses on my mistakes. I've snagged some monster books this way, including this eight-pound gem
for just $30. But I wouldn't have taken the chance without being able to see its price on Amazon Marketplace.I can't always find something in the "special" section of a library sale, so I save this for last -- after I've combed the sale for all the regular hardbacks and trade paperbacks I can find.
posted by Steve Weber at 3/13/2006
6 Comments:
I always go to the library BAG sales on the last day. They are my favorites. You can buy something like 600 books for under 100 Dollars (at least in my area). Some sales even charge 2 dollars a bag only. Go and grab, grab, grab. Don't waste time checking prices. Just let your gut feeling be your guide. How could you possibly go wrong with this. Why come in at the very end and not the beginning, after all the "desirable" books have already been sold to everybody else? Isn't a bag sale only for the inferior left-over books? Depends how you define inferior. Because people invaribly always go for the brand new Stephen King hardcovers, which you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. The books you want, the rare, not pretty-looking ones are all still there, waiting for you, because who would possibly want these?! You'd be surprised. Just made over 50 bucks on an old, old, 1950's ex-library book that was lying on the floor of a sale and was basically garbage and for which I paid about 10 cents. I love library sales!
I agree on the last-day bag sales! No matter how thoroughly the cream has been skimmed, I always manage to find a few treasures at bargain prices at the bag sale.
I would say that I go for quality and quantity. In my area library sales can get really competitive (and I figure this is universal), so you have to move very quickly. However, as Steve mentions in his book, this isn't a guarantee that the sale will have good books. For instance, I've found the best books at smaller venues where the competition is marginal or non-existant. You may have to do some driving to get there, but it's certainly worth it!
As I'm still new to this business, at my first few sales I basically grabbed as many books as possible but really didn't take enough time to examine them. Using this approach I ended up with a lot of junk and fewer gems. But, doing this enables you to learn from your experiences so you can avoid more loser books in the future. Now I'm gettng much better at spotting good books quickly, it just takes practice.
I agree fully on the web-enabled cell phones, they will slow you down at a busy sale. What I do is I first go over the entire room and pick up as much as I can that looks good. Once I've had my run of the mill, I then go back with my cell phone and check some other books more casually. The cell phones are great for thrift stores when you have more time to browse (I've been finding a lot of good books this way), but at a fast paced library sale someone might grab all the good stuff while you're waiting for your phone to cough up a price. I use ASellerTool and it can take up to a minute to find a price...and that's a minute I can't afford to spare at a library sale.
I have never tried the 2 dollar bag sales, but I will certainly give those a try now. Thank you to the others for sharing! :)
Btw, this also applies to garage/estate sales. I recently went to a sale on the SECOND day, after all the "good stuff" had been picked clean, and found a John McEnroe signed book, and a Jack Nicklaus signed book. I paid 4.00 (total) and made 60.00 (total). Not bad for leftovers!
I am fairly new at used bookselling but I have noticed some pretty awful behavior at library sales that is disappointing. I understand everyone's interest in finding good used books to resell but it is offensive to see people working in teams, blocking aisles, grabbing every book they can, pushing, and then parking themselves in a crowded space with their cellphones looking up prices while other people are trying to act in a civilized manner to find books. Is this really what it is like? It reminds me of photos I've seen of food drops in famine stricken areas in Africa. Bookselling has always been a highly respected profession but I doubt that it will last much longer. I've seen families and elderly people looking for books for themselves at library sales walk away in disgust. I hate to think it has to be this way. Some sales have banned cellphones altogether because of aggressive behavior like grabbing anything in sight and thinking later. Any thoughts on this?
I agree wholesheartedly that everyone attending book sales should be courteous to everyone else in attendence. There's no excuse for patently rude behavior -- at book sales or anywhere else.
However, I've noticed some resentment toward me at some FOL sales, just because I buy lots of books (and it takes a lot of work for the FOL volunteers to total my bill). So on the other side of the coin, it seems silly to me that the FOL folks are irritated that I'm buying lots of books (Isn't that why they're having the sale in the first place? I usually have already figured the total for them, but they insist on taking everything out of the boxes and counting themselves, lest I try to cheat them out of $2.)
I should add that I try not to inconvenience other folks at book sales -- I don't hog the aisles, and I usually wait until last to go through the checkout, so that I'm not holding up everyone else.
Just the same, I agree with your criticism of the bad behavior by some booksellers, and if they keep it up, they'll be shooting themselves in the foot. The FOL volunteers could start imposing per-customer limits (only 10 books per customer, or something like that). In that case, all collectors and dealers would suffer because of the ill-mannered few.
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