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"Friends of the Library" Book Sales
On May 7, 10:31 am, "Francis A. Miniter"
wrote: bml wrote: Evelyn C. Leeper wrote: .... A couple of years ago the friends of the library bought a scanner - they scan the likely candidates for high value (over about $20) How do they scan pre-1976 books? They don't - that is one reason why the "real" dealers still come. and pull them for special pricing or selling online. Since they started doing that I have not seen any scanners at the sale. All the dealers who attend now seem like "real" book dealers who don't rely solely on scanners. The "amateurs" and "look everything up" dealers have stopped attending because they don't find much. So, the "friends" have successfully reduced their buying pool by driving away the average person. Wonderful. No, they do what the "look everything up" dealers were doing - It takes a little work, but no skill. The books that the "scanner dealers" would have bought sell anyway - some pulled by the friends to sell somewhere else and the rest sold at the sale to "real" dealers or the general public. The "real" dealers probably prefer not having the people with scanners getting in their way even if it means losing a few marginal books. As for "driving away the average person," the people who feel that there is nothing for them already felt that way from seeing the dealers pick over the place. The "average" person is looking for books to read and they still show up - the dealers won't touch last year's best seller, but the general public buyers usually grab some of them. There are lots of books that a dealer won't pay a buck for, but the "average" person will buy it because the used book store would charge two bucks or more. [The successful dealers get most of their common stock for a quarter, so the "average" person is not competing with the dealers for that stock.] BML |
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#12
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"Friends of the Library" Book Sales
On May 10, 11:08*pm, bml wrote:
On May 7, 10:31 am, "Francis A. Miniter" wrote: bml wrote: Evelyn C. Leeper wrote: ... A couple of years ago the friends of the library bought a scanner - they scan the likely candidates for high value (over about $20) How do they scan pre-1976 books? They don't - that is one reason why the "real" dealers still come. and pull them for special pricing or selling online. Since they started doing that I have not seen any scanners at the sale. *All the dealers who attend now seem like "real" book dealers who don't rely solely on scanners. The "amateurs" and "look everything up" dealers have stopped attending because they don't find much. So, the "friends" have successfully reduced their buying pool by driving away the average person. *Wonderful. No, they do what the "look everything up" dealers were doing *- It takes a little work, but no skill. *The books that the "scanner dealers" would have bought sell anyway - some pulled by the friends to sell somewhere else and the rest sold at the sale to "real" dealers or the general public. The "real" dealers probably prefer not having the people with scanners getting in their way even if it means losing a few marginal books. As for "driving away the average person," the people who feel that there is nothing for them already felt that way from seeing the dealers pick over the place. The "average" person is looking for books to read and they still show up - the dealers won't touch last year's best seller, but the general public buyers usually grab some of them. There are lots of books that a dealer won't pay a buck for, but the "average" person will buy it because the used book store would charge two bucks or more. *[The successful dealers get most of their common stock for a quarter, so the "average" person is not competing with the dealers for that stock.] One of the used book dealers in my area pays one-dollar for like-new hardcover novels and sells them for $3 each. This is really a wise policy, becuase even though most of these popular hardcover novels are sold on the net for less than $1 (in used, like-new condition) buyers have to pay the $4 shipping. So, by charging $3, the dealer gives customers more incentive to buy in the bricks-and-mortar store. As far as getting books (and this dealer is very particular about the books being in "as new" condition) they never stop coming. Often the dealer has to turn sellers-wanabe away until the stock sells down. People realize that they can't get anything much for these books on the net, so they are glad to get $1. [Memo from the upstairs office] BML |
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