Q&A: Should I boycott a cherry-picked book sale?
QUESTION: One of my favorite library sales is now posting a notice that they have an arrangement to sell books online through a private vendor. Have you experienced this before?
Are these sales still worth going to, or will all the resellable inventory already be cherry picked?
ANSWER: I haven't personally run into this situation where a library is selling some of its books online, at least not that I know of. But I've certainly suspected it. And I've been hearing it's becoming more common across the country.
You can bet that most of the good stuff will have been cherry picked from a sale like this. The vendor is probably snagging everything worth most than $10 or $20 and listing it online, while people who attend the sale are left with the duds.
This can murder your profitability. Often I find that one or two of the books I get from a sale bring in half the revenue for that batch of books, sometimes more. Your chance of finding one of those rare gems after a big dealer has gone through the stock aren't good.
Definitely look for an alternative sale if you can find one. And if it's a Friends of the Library group that that's sponsoring this particular sale, you might want to let them know you won't be attending since they've already sold most of the goodies. And that you would have bought a lot of books.
Sometimes the culprit is a local dealer who gets a special deal with the FOL. And sometimes it's a company that specializes in handling used sales for libraries. Check out these two ads on the FOL home page:
I guess if the FOL can outsource some of this labor and generate more cash at the same time, it's a tempting solution for them. Any other thoughts? How commonplace are cherry-picked sales these days?
Are these sales still worth going to, or will all the resellable inventory already be cherry picked?
ANSWER: I haven't personally run into this situation where a library is selling some of its books online, at least not that I know of. But I've certainly suspected it. And I've been hearing it's becoming more common across the country.
You can bet that most of the good stuff will have been cherry picked from a sale like this. The vendor is probably snagging everything worth most than $10 or $20 and listing it online, while people who attend the sale are left with the duds.
This can murder your profitability. Often I find that one or two of the books I get from a sale bring in half the revenue for that batch of books, sometimes more. Your chance of finding one of those rare gems after a big dealer has gone through the stock aren't good.
Definitely look for an alternative sale if you can find one. And if it's a Friends of the Library group that that's sponsoring this particular sale, you might want to let them know you won't be attending since they've already sold most of the goodies. And that you would have bought a lot of books.
Sometimes the culprit is a local dealer who gets a special deal with the FOL. And sometimes it's a company that specializes in handling used sales for libraries. Check out these two ads on the FOL home page:
I guess if the FOL can outsource some of this labor and generate more cash at the same time, it's a tempting solution for them. Any other thoughts? How commonplace are cherry-picked sales these days?
Labels: library sales
posted by Steve Weber at 8/08/2007
10 Comments:
Hello,
The last library sale I went to (in the Montreal area) was terrific. Picked as many good books as I could carry.It didn't seem to be cherry picked. That being said the last 2 book fairs held nearby I was the one doing the cherry picking (had some local connections) still my expertise only goes so far and I'm sure there was plenty of great stuff left over. Of course one dealer picking up a few items isn't the same as a reseller grabbing everything in sight. I always like to go anyways, you just never know what others might miss.
There are several libraries doing this in California, Ohio, Texas, Oregan, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and a few others. They are selling them through a third party called bLogistics. The FOL website gives the rationale for this: "Many Friends groups are using an additional venue for selling used books. While most are still engaged in wonderful and fun used book sales and library book stores, more and more are selling "special" books online. It takes time and commitment to sell books this way but selling online can bring in much more for books that wouldn't sell at the book sale or wouldn't sell at the price you can get when you access the world of book buyers in the digital world."
I probably wouldn't bother going to a sale that advertised the books had been cherry-picked, unless it were close to my home, charged no entrance fee, and I had nothing better to do at the time.
But I wouldn't use the word "boycott" to describe my non-attendance.
What's the point of protesting the organizers selling their books for maximum profit?
Why should they care that I want them to let me reap the profit, rather than themselves?
As market conditions change, it's my job to adjust my business plan, if I want to stay in the game.
It's not the non-profits' obligation to leave money on the table so I can stay in business.
Aha! Now the on-line sellers are whining! Ten years ago, as a bookstore seller, I would have to compete with only the 10 other people in town that had stores. How library sales (and yard sales) have changed. Now there are many more people grabbing everything they can stockpile, fiddle with their phones, and return half or more of their stockpile to the floor, hours later, in a mess. Plus, if they join FOL, they help set up the sale and cherry pick before the sale starts. I know that I will only find pop titles and classics that are my bread and butter, and glad to have them, but I will find no treasures. Well, as noted, the market has changed, does change, and will change again. We do what we can to survive. On-line selling used to be good for me, but no more. As someone once told me, "innovation, immitation, and decline."
I haven't attended a FOL sale for a long time. My personal feeling is that private deals ARE worked out and I say that as someone who used to volunteer to help shelve the books and organize them. We definitely were offered first pick of the books and I felt this was not really fair, even though we'd worked for free. Some of the volunteer bought tons of books, leaving the remainders for buyers.
Still, there weren't that many volunteers so it wasn't a huge issue and there were plenty of good books left. I think things have changed. Sad. These sales used to be a place where buyers and sellers could afford books they might not get otherwise.
This is a natural consequence of another problem discussed here: rude and greedy buyers. Look at it from the FOL viewpoint: More and more nasty buyers, fewer and fewer volunteers. I would imagine that many sales are HOPING that buyers will "boycott" picked-over sales (especially when they announce the fact), making them easier to run and more fun for the volunteers and non-dealers. The sale organizers don't want to be policemen or babysitters, creating and enforcing all sorts of rules to deal with the obnoxious dealers; they would rather deal with one nice dealer beforehand, even if they might get less money out of it.
The library chain that does this in my area has simply quit having annual sales - these annual sales were where the donated books ended up. They still have branch sales that have not been sold to vendors.
A lot of dealers, due to lack of education or whatever, simply wouldn't know a valuable book if it whacked them upside of the head. I've been to library sales (small ones) that attracted a dozen dealers and where I was 30 minutes late and still came out with a box of stuff (books worth 70-80 $ or more) because these people with their pda's and scanners had passed them over. I depend on the ignorance of my colleagues and I am never let down.
A twist on this is done at some of the library sales in my area. What is done is that the library volunteers research a books' worth before the sale then in their pricing, they put a price equal to a mid-range of the online offering prices. I know this is done as sometimes they leave a print-out from the Internet listing the current offerings online and I see the price they are asking for.
Other times someone has noted in pencil the price range on the books end page, then put the sale price there also.
Sometimes these books are on a "special offerings" section of higher priced books. Other times they are mixed right in with all the other books.
Unfortunately condition is not always taken into account such as comparing a book reeking of mildew or a poor condition book to better condition books for sale on the Internet.
My local library (the one sale I still attend regularly) has now decided to sell its more valuable books online. I'm disappointed, but I don't blame them. More revenue for the library--less hassle from rude dealers. Why not?
FOL groups also have a stewardship responsibility. We don't spend countless hours sorting the manure from the pearls to turn around and hand dealers a gem for near nothing. We do it so we can raise $$ to fund programs at our local libraries the promote literacy and community. Technology gives everyone a leg up, and FOL groups would be remiss in their responsibility to not use it.
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