The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)

"Wildwood" wrote in message
...
On 2 Jan 2006 23:49:05 -0800, in rec.collecting.books "xerlome"
wrote:

I also plan to
leave my collection in trust to a library for public use,

Or, as is becoming more and more common, the donated books will be
sold at a Friends of The Library sale... probably to book dealers on
preview night.

Bill

Yup. You just can't give them books and expect them to display
them eternally with your name prominently displayed UNLESS you
also give them a few million dollars to house the collection, and
hire permanent curators.

Kris

"Wildwood" wrote in message
...
On 1 Jan 2006 23:20:05 -0800, in rec.collecting.books "xerlome"
wrote:

Todd T wrote:


Rather than letting the markup knock you out,
take advantage of the folks like me who will pay *you* the markup.

You mean become a resaler ? I could get the markup ? Well... what
would you like ? It's a good offer. Could you give me some time to
think it over ? Thank you. I'll get back to you in a day or so. - -

No, no, now wait a minute here ! I don't need to think it over, i know
right now, and the answer is no ! No ! Doggone it ! You people
think the whole world revolves around you and your money ! Well, it
doesn't !


*yawn* Performance art is so much more fulfilling when it's on stage.

Bill

.....as other newsgroups found out.

Kris

Bud Webster wrote:

I will say it again: you have NO IDEA what it takes to be a
bookseller. Nothing in your reply to me indicates anything else.

I thought "Independent business is tough" pretty much summed it up.
Doesn't it ? That seems to be the gist of all you are saying here.
Believe it or not, i'm familiar with this. That's one of the reasons
i'm "poor." I attempted a marketing business of my own, and it has not
panned out as yet. What i'm talking about is small farming. Garlic is
my main crop.

For a while it looked as if i were making progress and this would be
the year i broke through. Then we had this cold wet spring that didn't
clear up until July. By then, the damage was done and i lost half my
crop to molds that had set in and developed in storage. Nobody pays
for the spoiled crop. I call that a setback. I could have chosen
something easier. I haven't given up because it is a passion of mine
and i believe in it. Time will tell...

Booksellers are NOT in business to assure you a cheap and steady
source of whatever you're collecting. They - we - are in business to
be in business, to make a living, however precarious. If that means I
buy cheap and sell high, so be it. If it means that those people who
are unable to pay my prices can't do so, that's a damn shame, but if I
sell to them at prices they can afford, how long will I realistically be
able to do so?

It's dog-eat-dog, isn't it ? Marketing is competitive. I compete by
making my product the best and charging the lowest price. I have to
try to beat my competion to the buyers who usually take first come. I
think about this. I don't even know who they are most of the time.

Sometimes i'll go to a market and they'll tell me they've already
bought what they need. Even if i wanted to, i couldn't get anywhere
charging added value for the exrta time it takes me to sell.

Are we really so different ?

What good would I do them to be in business for six
months? Or three? In the meantime, what do I tell my landlord? My
wife, my children? They should be proud of me because I'm selling
rare books at bottom-of-the-barrel prices so poor collectors can have
a more valuable estate to leave their children than I can?

That's a good point: Someone else may make the money, or somebody's
children, so it might as well be you as them.

Actually, i have been waiting for someone to offer an argument along
the same line, the only one i find cogent enough to struggle with
myself: That there's a 50 - 50 (or a 30 - 70, or a 70 - 30 ...) chance
that it will be a resaler who buys the cheap item if i (or you) don't.


I've been doing without certain specific items in my own collection(s)
for more years than I care to think about. Does this mean that the
sellers who have those books for sale at prices I can't meet are
thieves?

Leaving the "thieves" idea aside, it means you and they are playing the
same game, so you understand each other.

Someone once told me: "If you can't afford to buy it, you can't afford
to keep it." In other words, if you buy something for two dollars
which could sell for two hundred, but your income does not allow you to
buy such an item for two hundred, then you must sell it because you are
making the choice between the item and the money just as much as if you
saw the item in the market for the higher price in the first place. If
i accept this very cogent suggestion, it means i can't have anything
that's "worth" $200 even if i find it for 10 cents.

So i find this book for a dime, and i think "oh, boy" and i buy it,
and the ghost of this person comes over to me and says "I'm sorry, but
this book is too valuable. You won't be able to keep it." "But it
only cost 10 cents, and i've been wanting this for a long time !"
"Well, that can't be helped. You see, there's this other person over
here with $200 burning a hole in his pocket who kind of wants it. Do
*you* have $200 dollars burning a hole in *your* pocket ? I thought
not."

Then i walk away with my book ...

Whether or not you will admit to it, you placed
booksellers like me and many others here in the same category as those
who break open safes for their living. In other words, THIEVES.

I don't know that i can explain rhetorical analogy any better than i
already did.

There have been times when I've bought books for a few dollars that
were worth, on the open market, several hundreds. Did I sell them for
$5, and be satisfied with $3 profit? I did NOT, and neither would any
other knowledgeable bookseller. I might not charge top whack for it,
but if selling a book that cost me $2, and is worth $300, for $200
enables me to keep other worthy, if not as "hot", books in inventory
so that more collectors can find what they want on my shelves, then
that's what I do to remain in business.

You struggle with these issues youself, which is probably why you have
reacted so passionately to some of what i've said. You're trying to
make a living, stay in business, there may be compromises, you may have
to step on people's toes, that's life, that's the breaks ... but you do
think about it, as i've see elsewhere as well.

I will say it again, one last time: YOU KNOW NOTHING about what it
takes to be a bookseller, and you have little room to criticize.

I'm glad you explained your reasons for saying this.

I'm done with this now, and you should be.

You are right, of course. I should be spending my time more
productively. (Maybe i should be listing all those books i "can't
afford to keep" on eBay.) But i do enjoy these conversations. It's
been years since i engaged in internet discussions. It's just a visit.


ER Lyon

Wildwood wrote:

[xerlome]
I also plan to
leave my collection in trust to a library for public use,

Or, as is becoming more and more common, the donated books will be
sold at a Friends of The Library sale... probably to book dealers on
preview night.

I've thought about that, which is why i decided it would have to be a
trust. It would be an actual legal contract which would disallow
anything like that. It would stipulate exactly how the books would be
handled and under what circumstances they could be removed and to
where, etc.

ER Lyon

michael adams wrote:

[xerlome]
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.

Just as you can't tell the difference between a bottle of water
you happen to find buried in the sand in the desert, just as you're
on the point of dying of thirst, and all the identical bottles of
water on the shelf in your local supermarket, right?

I understand that this is a rhetorical analogy. I don't believe you'd
actually buy up all the bottled water (to "add value" to it) and then
wait for people to crawl on their bellies to you. Please help me
explain this to Mr Webster.

In the case of the book, the difference is in the cost of the time
you'll need to spend, to find that particular book in a thrift store
in the first place.

When you have little money, you might choose to spend time rather than
(not be able to) pay someone else to do it for you.

When someone else performs this service for an as yet unknown buyer, it
determines that the buyer will not be you.

a) Spend 20 hours at $4 per hour, or 10 hours at $8 per hour etc.
scouring thrift stores to eventually locate a copy of Blogg's Dictionary
priced at $1. Total cost £81.

Would you tell me how to get the £ sign on the keyboard ?

As compared with -
b) Spend half an hour at $8 per hour (including phone charges),
phoning around specialist dealers (or using the Internet for free)
to locate a copy of Bloggs Dictionary priced at $40. Total cost $48.

It is true that for some people, all time is money. It's only true if
you would have been paid for the time. In the case above, i would not
actually be spending £81 the first way, nor would i be saving the
difference between £81 and $48 (whatever that is) in the second.

By the way, i'm still looking for Bloggs Dictionary. I would prefer
not to spend either £81 or $48. Any leads ?

ER Lyon

fundoc wrote:

Sorry man, I didn't realize you were clinically ****ing insane. Do carry on.

If you really believed that, you would not have said so here.

At least most people wouldn't.

ER Lyon.

You've written a good post here.. I'd like to respond to it all, but
i'll have to leave some for later, i need to go to bed soon.

Todd T wrote:

my time is worth
something to me, and for me to cover all of the bases they do for
possible finds would mean that my collection would have to supercede
family, job, everything else. How much of this applies to you I cannot
say.

I understand. You want the service, and you can afford it.

I don't speak of supply and demand as a moral principle. If books were
sold nowhere but thrift stores, the people who want the books would be
there in droves and you would still not find your finds.

That's an interesting thought !

This is only hypothetical, so i'm not here declaring that this is what
should or even could be. But if your scenario were true, there would
be zillions of thrift stores, which would diffuse the crowd of
customers competing, as they are in the markets as they exist.
Everyone would have an equal chance.

All moralizing apart, you are competing against a set of other collectors,
and they too will buy the inexpensive copies first (all else being
equal), leaving only costly copies, so limited supply and high demand
lead to high prices.

Well, i don't want to continue to harp on this at length, but i would
at least *be* in the competion. Enough, though.

If your post is a fair indication, i would imagine you have little
quarrel with the Patriot Act...

I guess my post is not fair indication.

I thought you might offer some insight.

The picture you paint of me
being a vanilla straight-arrow milquetoast is pretty funny to me;

I thought so.

of course, you don't know me.

But i'm getting to, ain't i ?

Is it OK for a long haired heavy metal fan
who reads weird fiction, favors legalized marijuana and gay rights and
wilderness preservation and gun regulation and votes Democrat 2/3 of
the time

Hold on. It makes a difference what you vote the other third of the
time. Republican ? Libertarian ? Green ?

to disagree with you on economics, or must I ruffle every
societal feather to earn my wings?

I have every confidence in you, Clarence !

I do make a pretty poor liberal, but I'd make a really lousy Nazi.

That's what we're here to determine, sir.

I don't have any problems with you or your bringing up these issues,
and you don't seem like an unpleasant fellow.

Thanks. That's gracious of you. You *will* earn your wings.

your complaint ultimately leads either to a position that
(a) businessmen,including those selling non-essential items,
should be castigated for failing to either leave material for,
or sell at a loss to, those who can't pay the price they would logically charge;

No, it's not going to happen, at least not unless or until we evolve
into some kind of cooperative system. People will have to want that
for it to ever happen. I sure wouldn't want some polit bureau
dictating it.

I don't feel as if i've castigated anyone. But i think about the
effects of our actions, mine as well as others. Some of it is
uncomfortable to think about, especially if it involves things we
depend on.

or, (b) the whole
capitalist system is immoral. I just can't get to either place
starting from a lack of book bargains at thrift stores.

Oh, come on ! You can get anywhere from anything ! You just follow
it wherever it goes.

I don't know that any system is immoral, but any can be misused. And
the systems we create say something about us.

I'll get back to you.

ER Lyon

On 3 Jan 2006 23:44:05 -0800, "xerlome" wrote:

[much unbelievable codswallop snipped]

You are right, of course. I should be spending my time more
productively. (Maybe i should be listing all those books i "can't
afford to keep" on eBay.) But i do enjoy these conversations. It's
been years since i engaged in internet discussions. It's just a visit.

Oh, JESUS.

"xerlome" wrote in message
oups.com...

In the case of the book, the difference is in the cost of the time
you'll need to spend, to find that particular book in a thrift store
in the first place.

When you have little money, you might choose to spend time rather
than (not be able to) pay someone else to do it for you.

....

When you have little money, you'd don't have any choice.

And that's just your first sentence.

It's not really looking very promising is it ?



hint:not having enough money can be a perennial problem in life.

So what else is new?

What other startling insights do you intend to share with the Group ?


groans all round plus massive snippage

....

Would you tell me how to get the £ sign on the keyboard ?

....

At a guess

Use a UK keyboard - hardware, set the keyboard to UK English - software
and then use [shift] 3.

In the old days under CP/M and early DOS, UK users had to jump through
hoops to print pound signs in some programs which more often came out
as hash # symbols. Now they all moan about Windows instead. Plus ca
change blah, blah, blah.

I can type both pound and dollar sign, and in OE the currency symbols in
this post were all showing as dollar signs on my display dollar - $
or now pound - £


michael adams


ER Lyon

xerlome wrote:

You mean become a resaler ? I could get the markup ? Well... what
would you like ? It's a good offer. Could you give me some time to
think it over ? Thank you. I'll get back to you in a day or so. - -

No, no, now wait a minute here ! I don't need to think it over, i know
right now, and the answer is no ! No ! Doggone it ! You people
think the whole world revolves around you and your money ! Well, it
doesn't !

Wildwood commented:

*yawn* Performance art is so much more fulfilling when it's on stage.

Actually, it's a movie. If you're American, I'm surprised you didn't
recognise it (George Bailey [James Stewart] refusing to sell out to
Potter in It's a Wonderful Life, 1946).

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org