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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)



 
 
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  #11  
Old December 31st 05, 04:12 PM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)


xerlome wrote:

Two or three years ago i broke down and bought Robert Hunter's 4
volume, 1894 "Encyclopedic Dictionary" from an online dealer. I was
silly, i paid too much, and it had worm holes in it. Shortly after
that i discovered a copy in a thrift store. That was one of my last
really great thrift store finds.

I used to find great items one after another. It looked like almost
anything would turn up eventually. Now not only do i rarely find them,
but i rarely see the ones i already have. I see some items selling
online for pretty good money that i used to see all the time in thrift
stores. I'm not kidding you. I don't even want to tell you the titles
because i wouldn't want to give anyone out there any big ideas.


Wow, I've never seen anything like that in any of the thrift stores
near me, not in 20 years. That's pretty cool. I can definitely
understand why having such experiences disappear would be a bitter pill
to swallow. I'd be pining too.

I suspect that it's not just dealers picking them up ahead of you. I
suspect that those who might have donated them before are now going
straight to eBay themselves as well.

In any event, the only solution would be to ask people to stop trying
to make a buck where they have discovered an opportunity to do so.
Painful or not, the odds are not in your favor. Maybe you could join
the party and turn over some of your collection at a profit on eBay
yourself. Maybe you could somehow spread the word that you are
interested in old dictionaries that are collecting dust in people's
attics in your town. Rather than letting the markup knock you out,
take advantage of the folks like me who will pay *you* the markup.

Selling things where they bring the most return is a pretty fundamental
process to be fighting. I hope you recover your lost joy in
collecting, one way or another.

- Todd T.

Ads
  #12  
Old December 31st 05, 05:17 PM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)

on 31 Dec 2005 00:49:43 -0800, xerlome stated:

Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:

xerlome wrote:
This is what dealers in every area have always done.


Obviously it is much worse now. As a buyer i have noticed dramatic
change in just the last few years. I used to regularly buy books for 3
for a dollar at a local Salvation Army Store, grat items, old and new,
every time i went. Now i rarely see any of that level of material. I
don't believe this is due to extreme increase of personal buying.
There are clearly vastly more resalers than a few years ago.


I think you should also take into consideration the shifting
market. As someone else has said, there are probably plenty
of people now who put their books on eBay instead of donating
them to thrift stores. And there are probably a lot of people
like you - not big dealers - who are buying up the very
inexpensive books from thrift stores and also putting them
online. I'm not a dealer, nor have I had a lot of experience
with them, but I wouldn't go blaming them entirely for the
shift you're seeing.


Over the last few years, more and more of these stores have started
"smart pricing" books, perhaps in response to the booming internet
resale industry. Often the prices are not so smart, though, but based
on what someone imagines is "worth something." I have noticed that
many stores are treating all dictionaries as if they are "hot." Some
trashy Collegiate 7th edition might cost as much as 5 or 10 dollars ( a
particularly egregious example). I was annoyed by this at first, but
now i appreciate that it at least discourages the resalers enough to
reserve items i want (something better than a Collegiate 7th, though.)
It is preferable to paying $20 or $50 or $100 or more to resalers.


Well, you know, I think it's perfectly reasonable of thrift
stores to "smart price" their books instead of selling them
four for a buck. One of our local stores has volunteers
working there, and donates all of their income to care for
the elderly. Why shouldn't they get $10 for a book instead
of $0.25, if people are willing to pay it?

I'm sorry, but my heart just doesn't bleed for collectors
like you (*and* me) who can no longer get an astonishing
deal every time we turn around. At least we're not 95 with
no one to care for us.


The good thing about the Internet is that
even if one dealer decides he wants to charge $200 for a book, one can
see if other dealers are selling it for $20.


This is rare, you must admit.


Absolutely not.

A range like $20 to $200 is not common
for identical books in equal condition. The high range is usually some
preposterously unreasonable price for the item. Yes, i've seen this.
I think there are some sellers who just hope some fool will come along.


It _is_ incredibly common. The only times I *don't* see
it are for some of the books for which there just aren't
a lot of copies available. And that's only because (I
think) there aren't enough copies for sale to demonstrate
the typical $1 to $10 (or $20 to $200, or whatever) range.

As an example, I chose a title randomly that I remembered
seeing sell well (new) off the shelves when I worked for
a book distributor, and looked it up in addall. (You do
know about used.addall.com, don't you? *Excellent* place
to get a good idea of the price range of a book; I go there,
look at the prices, and see if I can beat them on eBay.)

Ironweed, by William Kennedy, paperback. Discounting the
two uncorrected proofs (going for $500 and $600, latter
signed), there are 300 listings for this book (which
probably means there are about 200 copies - several are
duplicates) and the price range is $0.49 to $45.63. Note
the nearly 10x range.

I see this *all* the time. I've gotten accustomed to
thinking that I should be paying at the bottom end of the
10x range; the top end is usually either people trying to
scam a large $ amount (as you seem to think is mostly
the case) or people who actually paid a fair percent of
that and are trying to recoup, or, sometimes, people who
have a book that actually is better than those priced at
the bottom end, but haven't made it clear in their listing.
Or those who are clueless about the fact that others are
selling the same title for 1/10 their price. I suspect
the last to be the case more often than not. That's their
problem; their book will just sit there and gather dust.

I see it all the time on eBay, too. I collect "Materia
Medica" books (medical books on drugs from 1800 to ~1920)
and I have frequently seen the same author's work, in
similar condition, selling for $5 and for $50. Or even
for $200 or so. In fact, there's one such on eBay right
now: Robert Bartholow's Materia Medica (I have two copies,
one I probably paid $5 for, and a much nicer one I think
I paid $20 for): three listings, $19.99, $36.00, and
$375.00. I think the last seller is nuts, personally,
but there's no law against making a fool of yourself
online. I also suspect that the $375 copy is no better
than the $19.99 copy (which ends in 4 hours and has, so
far, no bids; if I didn't already have two copies I'd
buy it). That fool with the high price has not
provided any pictures, so I don't entertain any high
expectation that he'll ever sell his copy.


I've often seen in book searches where someone is selling a used copy
of an in-print book for twice or more the current retail price of a new
copy of the same edition. I wrote to one of these sellers and asked
him why. He replied that he didn't know, he wasn't familiar with other
people's prices.


My point. There are clueless sellers out there. It isn't
that there's a racket, or that they're trying to scam the
public (not most of them, anyway); they just haven't taken
the time to look around and see what their books are
actually worth.

So why don't you just ignore them? They're just fools;
not worth jacking up your blood pressure over.


-Allison

  #13  
Old December 31st 05, 06:24 PM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)

on 31 Dec 2005 08:17:44 -0800, Allison Turner- stated:


Ironweed, by William Kennedy, paperback. Discounting the
two uncorrected proofs (going for $500 and $600, latter
signed), there are 300 listings for this book (which
probably means there are about 200 copies - several are
duplicates) and the price range is $0.49 to $45.63. Note
the nearly 10x range.


uh. Oops. 100x range. But my point stands.

-Allison
you wouldn't know I teach math, would you?

  #14  
Old December 31st 05, 09:28 PM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)


Allison Turner- wrote:
on 31 Dec 2005 08:17:44 -0800, Allison Turner- stated:


Ironweed, by William Kennedy, paperback. Discounting the
two uncorrected proofs (going for $500 and $600, latter
signed), there are 300 listings for this book (which
probably means there are about 200 copies - several are
duplicates) and the price range is $0.49 to $45.63. Note
the nearly 10x range.


uh. Oops. 100x range. But my point stands.

-Allison
you wouldn't know I teach math, would you?


Well, I would have bet you don't teach typing.

David Ames

  #15  
Old January 1st 06, 04:35 AM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)

on 31 Dec 2005 12:28:45 -0800, David Ames stated:

Allison Turner- wrote:
you wouldn't know I teach math, would you?


Well, I would have bet you don't teach typing.


Does anyone still teach 'typing'?

The computer science prof in our building has a
sign on the door that says "Department of
Typewriter Science."

-at

  #16  
Old January 1st 06, 01:38 PM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)


Allison Turner- wrote:
on 31 Dec 2005 12:28:45 -0800, David Ames stated:

Allison Turner- wrote:
you wouldn't know I teach math, would you?


Well, I would have bet you don't teach typing.


Does anyone still teach 'typing'?


Our young 'un took typing (required) in eighth grade.
Not sure if it was so called.


The computer science prof in our building has a
sign on the door that says "Department of
Typewriter Science."

-at


I like to tell people we have a printer with a keyboard.

David Ames

  #17  
Old January 2nd 06, 06:47 AM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)

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

  #18  
Old January 2nd 06, 07:09 AM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)

Mr. Lyon:

I've tried very hard to keep from replying to this thread, even when
you began to compare used booksellers to safecrackers. Thieves, in
other words.

I will say this, then no mo you have *no idea* what it takes in the
way of physical and financial resources to be able to operate a used
book service and make any kind of living at it. You don't. And, from
what I've seen of your posts, you're unlikely to ever understand it.
Whether this is because you're unable to, or are simply unwilling to
do so because paying a higher price is inconvenient to you, I neither
know nor care.

I know of not one single wealthy bookseller who got that way solely
from selling used books, no matter what their mark-up is. Not ONE. I
know many who, after decades of hard work and study, can support
themselves and their families, but they'd all be better off
financially if they'd gone into IT twenty-five years ago.

Quite the contrary, I know of hundreds and hundreds of booksellers who
could NOT make a living at it, either in brick-and-mortar shops or
on-line, because competition is so tough that they were unable to get
prices that would cover their expenses, and subsequently closed down
and sold off their stock. At thrift-store prices, I might add.

You know *nothing,* Mr. Lyon, about what it takes to be a bookseller.
  #19  
Old January 2nd 06, 07:20 AM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)

Kris Baker wrote:

"xerlome" wrote in message
When a resaler picks up a used book for, say, a dollar, and then sells
it for the price of a new book or even higher, we are paying the dealer
a four (or even five) digit percent profit for buying and holding an
already available book after the original buyer has paid the legitimate
costs and later decided to donate it to a charity thrift store or
public library. Even $20.00 is a 2000% markup. I see this as a kind
of market theft.


You're assuming that the new book dealer and used book
dealer invest the same amount of time and effort into selling
a book.


You cut out the part where i mentioned the retailer as only one of many
on the chain of people paid for their part in creating the book and
making it available. I might better have left the distributor and
retailer out of the list and my point would have been clearer. Up to
that point, the cost of the book goes to those who actually create and
make the book. After that, it is primaily a matter of moving it
around. That can be pretty costly, but i'd like to see those costs
kept to a minimum.

If I sell new books, I have to:
1 - order them from the publisher
2 - open the box and put them on the shelf
3 - return them for credit if they don't sell


That's true. And it's probably done by an employee on a salary who
gets paid either way. Right ?

If I sell used books, I have to:
1 - know possible locations they can be found


I know how difficult that is. I generally look in the yellow pages to
find the locations of thrift stores (as well as used book stores). I
look in the paper for yard sales and other sales. Libraries post their
sales, etc.

2 - go search those places (time, fuel, effort)


All part of the added value. I understand. But if you have a store,
and i bring books to you and tell you i want extra money because i
added value when i invested my time, fuel, and effort finding the books
originally, and again bringing them to you, what would you say ?

a) That's fair. I'm always willing to pay for added value. Saves me
adding it myself.
b) Ha ! That's a good one ! - Hey Pat ! - Tell Pat what you just told
me.
c) I'll have to see your resaler's ID or i can't validate the added
value.
d) Would you be willing to sell me just the book and hold on to the
added value ?
e) Other (suggestions welcome).

or pay a scout


A scout ! That's an idea, i'll have to try that ! A boy scout or a
girl scout on vacation, maybe they'd work for peanuts !

3 - pay for them (the $1 you claim I pay)


.... or $2 or $3. Or 50 cents - but point taken. I can accept the
need to allow for thrift inflation.

4 - bring them back and research each of them


.... to determine what price the market will bear...

5 - inspect them fully and then grade for condition


I usually spend a few seconds doing that at the thrift store.

Oh, i see: You are an online seller. You write up data and
descriptions. (I just do it in my head.)

6 - in some cases, perform restoration/cleaning


I do that a bit, too. Usually it's just removing the price sticker or
erasing the penciled price.

7 - watch them sit on the shelf if they don't sell


I know i'm being peevish in my frustration, but it might have been on
*my* shelf if you hadn't taken it.

8 - donate them back to the thrift store if they don't sell


I'm glad you do that. I sometimes do it, too. It's a charity, after
all.

What it breaks down to is that you are my competition. I don't want
you to get it first because i usually can't pay your price. You don't
want me to get it first because you want to sell it to someone with
more disposable income than i have.

You claim that some booksellers dump them in the trash;
that's possible.


I talked to one who does. I've been told by others about the practice.

Many thrift stores have stopped accepting
common books as dictionaries, encyclopediae, Reader's
Digest anythings, National Geographics or the like.....
because no one will buy them.


I've noticed some of this, too: a new style of cleaned up thrift store
But in the case of dictionaries, in the last couple of years i'm seeing
some thrift stores treating them as if they are *hot stuff*. *Any*
dictionary, even some little home and office type that has no more than
three words in it that an educated adult doesn't know (try opening to
random pages and pointing blindly to words and you'll see what i mean
!)

I've seen so many ordinary or trashy dictionaries on eBay that it makes
me wonder if eBayers are buying these dictionaries (well, at least a
notch better than what i just described). Perhaps the thrift strores
have noticed them disappearing fast and are trying to get in on the
action. Maybe dictionaries *are* hot. I probably shouldn't be saying
that here, though. I'm my own worst enemy...

At such time as thrift stores start to do more than
flip a price on them and put them on the shelf, watch
their prices soar.


Oh, i hope they don't do that - i mean start putting a lot of added
value into them. I can never seem to find that added value.

In fact, here, many do attempt to
sell ungraded books that "look old" for $25 and up.


Yeah, but i leave those for the eBayers.

ER Lyon

  #20  
Old January 2nd 06, 07:28 AM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)

BobFinnan.com wrote:

Kris Baker sez:
You claim that some booksellers dump them in the trash; that's possible.


My local used book dealer (who, sadly, is going out of business) puts
his unwanted books out on his stoop and allows the locals to build up
their libraries for free!


Yes, there's one around here that has a box outside which says "FREE".
I'll bet that actually brings customers.

Is he doing it because he's going out of business ? Or did it put him
out of business ?

ER Lyon

 




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