booksellers - inflation in books to source?

[keziak]

I wonder if it's my area but the cost of books I am attempting to buy for resale has skyrocketed.

It was bad at the first (small) booksale I went to last week so I'm not sanguine about what it will be like all season.

Also people on Facebook Marketplace have largely lost it in terms of pricing. I just viewed an assortment of children's books: $5 each for skinny paperbacks, $10 for hardcover. For...used...children's...books. Trade paperbacks, very expensive. Maybe people are selling for these prices? Because they are low compared to new? I don't know. I can't sell on there to save my life. Of course nobody owes resellers a deal. I get it.

My main thrift store also jacked up prices. They now want $3 for crummy pocket paperbacks, $7 for hardcovers for NOT GOOD BOOKS. 

I wish I could say that I get more for my books across the board but nope. It's been pretty much the same for years.

[keziak]

My theory as to why local libraries have never come back from covid is that during that time when people were stuck home they cleaned out and donated heavily to thrift store. A friend "plugged in" to one of them described huge loads. Now we have fewer books in town, changing demographics to people unlikely to have many books, and estates disappearing as older people with good collections moved or passed away. A used bookstore in town gets plenty of books but every person I've talked to there was from elsewhere, not in town.

[keziak]

About the pallets, are many of the books worthless? 

A friend told me about getting a sweet deal on multiple pallets of good textbooks. But he says that is hardly likely to happen again and he's plugged into those kinds of sources of inventory. BUT he used to be a huge bookseller with a warehouse that was like a nightmare from hoarderville. Now he doesn't sell books at all except those textbooks. 

[jewelbiz]

Thank you 🙏 for your helpful advice and you gave me something to think about.

My sister and my 2 nieces are driving 400 miles to see me in September on my big birthday (80)

+ said anything I want to do that day to celebrate 🎉 is good with them.

So far we’d agreed to have breakfast at a diner we all love, next drive to Coney Island to sit on the Boardwalk and have lunch there at Nathan’s and then go back later to  that same favorite diner in my neighborhood for our dinner…

Perhaps I could get the 3 of them to help me for 2 hours to sell my books on the street on Broadway in front of my building on my birthday  🎂  in the afternoon?

But my sister is funny she might not agree to that new plan.  She hates my books and thinks I should throw them immediately in the garbage as she doesn’t want anything whatsoever to do with them!

Oh yes!  Book selling is a lot of work.  

[keziak]

Have you thought about finding a bookstore or dealers who would buy it all? I"m sure not for great money but they might give your space back to you. 

[jewelbiz]

The Strand once came over and offered me 25 cents a book!  The man from the Strand then somehow picked out 1 of my books and actually flung it across the room saying that “I don’t know books that he knows books.”
When he finally left I ran to pick up the book that he threw.  I had never noticed it before.

 I sold that 1 book for $200.  Had that Strand book buyer not flung that 1 book across my living room I never would have ever seen it.

[reallynicestamps]

I stopped shopping at Value Village when they went to pricing as a percentage of the original cover price.

Although with the vintage paperbacks that I was buying for resale, that meant I was getting books for 50% of the original price of 50c (and at that in Canadian currency), and reselling for $9.99 USD. Then they caught on and set up a Vintage Books section.

However, the bottom seems to have dropped out of the vintage books market in any case, with few 21st century readers interested in 20th century writers.

I even skipped the Times Colonist Book Sale this year.

Not even a curling rink filled with books could tempt me.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@keziak Ah, yes, hadn't really thought about that: more books, but more competition as well. 

[yuzuha]

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@fbusoni wrote:

I'm in northern Va and my book suppliers have not raised the prices of books for many years.  Goodwill, Salvation Army, and the two private thrift shops I visit charge between $1 and $2 for hardcovers and paperbacks alike.

Maybe its regional?

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Oh hey there neighbor... yeah, that's about what I see around here too. For a while one of my local thrifts was doing 10 cents for paperbacks and 25 cents for hardcovers just because they had so many... not sure if they're raised the prices or if they're still that low.

[luckythewinner]

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@keziak wrote:

My main thrift store also jacked up prices. They now want $3 for crummy pocket paperbacks

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How much do you ask for your cheapest book?

[keziak]

If I had those books I'm referring to I would not charge anything because I would donate them somewhere, like Salvation Army.  But I know that's not your point. I gamble that a small percentage of all books might sell online for an amount with maybe just a little profit, maybe more.  Trying to sell them locally to a fraction of an audience would drive the prices way down due to little demand.  But who knows, maybe that thrift store sells 20 year old worn romances all day long for $3.  

[tobaccocardyahoo]

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@jewelbiz wrote:

The Strand once came over and offered me 25 cents a book!

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Made by first book sales to The Strand at age 16. Sold them review copies of recent books I acquired from someone. Paid me 15% of msrp for books they sold at 50% of MSRP.

That made up the contents of the entire front of the store in the early 60's,

I used to get calls to come out and make an offer on books at homes/estates in the Boston area. Being an unknown with no store, I got to come in after the big name stores. Those booksellers did such a good job of bad mouthing the rest of the books, that I could usually get any offer I made accepted.

It was a lot of effort hauling those books away, but there were some great books. Your experience with The Strand was totally in keeping with what The Brattle Bookshop and Goodspeed's were like, though they were too genteel to offer .25 for anything.

[chapeau-noir]

@reallynicestamps  However, the bottom seems to have dropped out of the vintage books market in any case, with few 21st century readers interested in 20th century writers.

Someone else made that observation in another thread, and it's a really good one (maybe it was you?). I mentioned that I had read an article (sorry, can't remember the publication) written by a book reviewer where she was chatting with a bunch of other reviewers and authors, and they realise that few books ever survive a generation, or even a few decades, and that has never changed. The authors or titles might come round again and be popular, but so many are forgotten.

A friend of mine was a well recognized romance writer (and good, I even liked her stuff and I usually like murder mystery and sword-and-sandals/combat style novels) who wrote and published book after book which sold well. I think she quit writing about 20 years ago and said the taste for the type of writing she did had passed and she is out of print now.  Almost no one talks about CP Snow anymore, but he was a popular writer in my dad's generation.

At any rate, the author of this article mused about what causes a title to remain in the public's eye, and what causes them (most of them) to just fade away. In the end, many books are ephemeral.

What were we talking about again? LOL.

[reallynicestamps]

but there were some great books.

Great books or great sellers?

The writers I still pick up are Douglas Adams, Leo Frankowski, John Wyndham,and John Norman.

Two of those are great writers. Two.... ugh.

But all four sell.

[keziak]

I got a very large collection of vintage paperbacks and magazines. So far I've sold John D. MacDonald but not for big money and one out of three "Manhunt" has a bid.  Another guy didn't sell and I'm not sure what to do next. There are sold copies of his books at Fixed Price.  Don't know where to put such books if I used Fixed Price.

[rippets]

I honestly think book people are a special breed.  You either love books or you hate books.  My spouse simply cannot understand how I can spend hours in a bookstore.