Todd T wrote:
I think a sizeable markup is fair,
and I also think that dealers add value, which I also should pay for.

I'm still perplexed by this mysterious "value" they add to books. I
can't tell the difference between a book from a thrift store and the
same one from a dealer. Unless you mean the feeling of greater
sacrifice you feel if you spend more for the latter. That i can relate
to.

The comparison to new books is not quite applicable. A new book will
be returned to the publisher for a refund if it sits for any length of
time on a new book seller's shelf. ... A used book dealer, however, has no
such recourse, and therefore accrues a cost that I think you are not
accounting for: his/her money is tied up in that book until it sells.

What i have been specifically commenting on is high markups on books
already available to the public at low cost markets, such as thrift
stores. But you are right: the resaler risks money.

A resaler may buy 20 (or 10 or 15 or 30 ...) thrift store books for
$20.00. If one of them sells for $20.00, investment rescued. If that
is too great a risk, thrift store books may not be such a good
inventment.

At worst, thrift store book purchases are not going to break the bank,
anyway. If the books don't sell, reverting to the original thrift
price may salvage some of the cost.

(And in thousands more books, none of which earn interest sitting there.)

Well, at the rate of inflation for used books, i'm not sure that is
quite true.

The fact that the donor paid the initial "legitimate" costs
becomes irrelevant once the book hits the used market and is subject to
the supply and demand levels therein.

I guess i've never been able to accept "supply and demand" as some
ultimate moral principle, any more than "survival of the fittest."
They may both be natural laws, at a certain level, but does that mean
they need to be our core motivations as human beings ?

We (most of us) wouldn't beat someone up to get their money even if it
were legal, and we wouldn't try to beat the old lady into the "12 items
or less" checkout line with 15 items even if we could get away with it.
Do we really want to try to beat the poor to the bargains only to sell
them to the rich ?

It's a general practice of sellers to pull prices up to whatever the
market will bear. There's a profit graph, a curve showing what price
produces the greatest profit, based on numbers of sales times the
price. Competition, whether the number of units available is virtually
unlimited or very few, the time it takes to sell a unit, etc.,
influence the graph.

If maximum profit for the seller is the ultimate consideration, it
defines all other considerations by default, including what is sold,
who can buy it, how it affects the world we live in. On some issues
we're on the honor system.

Pardon me, i didn't mean to start writing a book. Anyway, whether one
believes in supply and demand as a principle to aspire to, or as a
lowest common denominator, or something in between, depends on one's
ideology, status, character, etc., and my theorizing probably won't
alter that.

When I add that to the dealer's other overhead costs, and the value of
the dealer spending his time to corral the book rather than me spending
mine, and the ability of the dealer to tell me more about the book,
steer me to other books of interest and keep eyes open for my wants, my
conclusion is that the profit is not obscene. It's worth it to pay the
higher, even much higher, price he ends up charging rather than try to
beat the dealer to the bargain. If I then cannot afford some things I
want, such is life for a collector. If I want them badly enough I'll
try to hunt them down myself and prepare for a long wait, and if not,
then I am not willing to pay the price and that's my decision and I
can't blame anyone.

You are clearly a model client for the book dealer. Clearly, i am
not.

If i eat at a restaurant, I expect to pay a sizeable markup, not a
marginal one, for overhead and the owner's risk, plus value added by
chef's skills, whereas if I cook for myself I avoid all that but must
eat my own cooking. If I can't eat out every night, then I can't.

I don't eat at restaurants, although it's not only because i can't
afford to pay people to buy and prepare my food, serve me, and clean up
after me...

But if restaurants were buying up most of the affordable good food, i
might have to bite the bullet, i suppose. And i probably wouldn't be
as, shall we say, philosophical about it as you are when i have to sell
off most of my books to pay the added value of restaurant food, because
i'll be damned if i just say "oh, well" and eat leftover junk.

Just my humble opinion.

I do sense your humility. I'm being serious. You don't find fault,
you make allowances. You like to trust in others, even to do and know
things for you. You are willing to pay. You accept your lot without
complaint or blame. You are more content with this world than i am.


If your post is a fair indication, i would imagine you have little
quarrel with the Patriot Act. And when our society slides into
totalitarianism, you'll take it quietly in stride, preferring not to
make waves, and probably go unnoticed living pretty much the same life
you do now. I, on the other hand, will probably be dead, or else in
prison for trying to buy the wrong books.

Please don't take me wrong: I can tell you are a good guy. I'm a good
guy too (even if i don't seem like it) but probably not as nice as you.


ER Lyon