Fall Online Book Sale Season Starts With a Bang!

It's official.  The fall sale season has begun.  It started for me last night, when in the span of a 2 hour period I sold five books priced at $95 and up.  Ah yes, back to school season is always good for us booksellers, when our clientele has finally stopped vacationing and enjoying the gorgeous end of summer nights, and come back inside to hit the books again.  Let us hope Textbook season is followed up by a brisk Holiday shopping season.

Below I have included photographs of the books that sold (only the first two of which I would classify as strictly academic), and a brief description to help you identify what types of books to look for at your next library sale.  Clicking on any of the titles will take you to either the Amazon Catalog page or the completed Ebay listiong.

The Critical Response to Jack London

Sold to a customer in the UK via Amazon for $95.  The spine of the book had the Greenwood Press seal, which is definitely one you should become familiar with if you are not already.

Japan's Image in America: Popular Writing about Japan, 1800-1941

Published by Bowling Green State University Press.  Sold for $250 to a university library acquisitions department via Abebooks.  The sales rank has climbed to 400K during back to school season and the only other copy on Amazon is listed for over $600, yowza! 

The People of Chambers County Alabama

Sold via Ebay for $135 on a 10% off Store Fixed Price Listings sale.  County history, cemetary recors and genealogy books are all some of my favorite Flashpoints.  Much of this information is available in a digital format as well now, but the diehard genealogists still want a hard copy for the family library.

Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff

Published in 1962 by Louisiana State University Press, this just so happens to be the first book of immensely popular and now deceased historian Stephen Ambrose (author of Undaunted Courage, a personal favorite of mine).  Although there are several copies available in the $30-50 range, a little extra information and a professional description netted me $150 via Abebooks.

Farmer in the Sky

In an upcoming article, I am going to write about a sale I attended where scanners were banned.  Here is one of the non-ISBN gems I found, along with a handful of other Heinlein 1sts.  This one lacked the dustjacket, but sold so quickly after I listed it that I worried I may have priced it too low.  Again, I pocketed $150 on this one, but as you can see on the Amazon Product Detail Page, slightly less saavy sellers are willing to settle for much less!

Thanks for reading, and please comment on whether you have noticed an upturn in sales the last few days.  Also, feel free to share your experience with any of the flashpoints, publishers or authors I have mentioned above.

A Meaningful Gift Inscription

While sorting through a box of recently acquired books this morning, I found one of the more thoughtful gift inscriptions I've come across in a while, not to mention the perfect cursive.  Has anyone else noticed their penmanship going downhill the past few years?  It was written in black pen on the front free endpaper of a copy of The Greatest Thing in the World, by Henry Drummond (published by Thomas Crowell in 1940, just in case you were wondering).  The book was originally published in 1874, and was "a meditation...to influence people to follow God's two great commandments: to love God and to love each other."

The inscription reads:
"To Billy...
The intellect cannot compass all of Truth.
It accepts only what is logical in the light of reason or what appeals to the senses as true to nature.
The higher aspects of Truth are reached through Love.
With every good wish, Love, Dad.
Christmas 1948.
Memphis, Tenn."

I hope that meaningful gift inscriptions are one thing that our literary culture doesn't lose sight of with the advent of electronic books.

Feel free to share any meaningful inscriptions in books you have come across.  Oh, and make sure to check out this super cool website, Found Magazine, when you get a chance.

My Michael Jackson Weekend

No, I wasn't playing dress up.

I am referring to the weekend that I sold several valuable books due to the untimely death of musical legend Michael Jackson. 

A brief caveat: this is not a discussion of morals and virtues in bookselling, nor should it be.  It is my humble opinion that, like any skilled professional does, I combine knowledge of current events with a passion for my craft by providing desired goods/services to book collectors and casual readers.  This is a simple case of the economic laws of supply and demand at work. 

Just hours before his final curtain call on June 25th, 2009, copies of Michael Jackson's autobiography, Moon Walk, were selling for just a few dollars (which is what they are worth once again today).

Several days after his passing, copies of the then out-of-print (but certainly not scarce) autobiography were skyrocketing in value, with used copies selling for hundreds of dollars.  I happened to remember that I had a copy for sale in my booth at the local antique mall for $5, and quickly pulled it off the shelf as soon as I noticed the trend.

I quickly posted my Fine/Fine copy for $500, and it sold almost immediately (egads, did I price it too low)!  I then proceeded to scour every used bookstore in my immediate vicinity and came up with 2 more copies of Moon Walk and one copy of Dancing the Dream, a collection of Jackson's poetry and "reflections," which is still out-of-print and has very much retained its' value as a collectible book.

Both copies of Moon Walk sold over the weekend in excess of $400, and my copy of Dancing the Dream also sold for $750 to a well-know entertainer with a Beverly Hills zip code.  Not a bad weekend for sales!

Of course, Michael Jackson had more star power than just about anyone in the world, fading star as it was.  The purpose of this article is to make beginning booksellers aware that the marketplace for collectible books is often based on current events and media exposure.  Sure, there are those things called "The Classics," or "The Canon," which tend to have a much longer shelf life.  However, if someone is mentioned often enough on television/radio/Yahoo News/etc., books by and about them are sure to start selling in direct correlation to their exposure.  Most professional booksellers are acutely aware of the immediate rise in value of a recently deceased author's works (most recently J.D. Salinger and Robert Parker), and a saavy bookseller must also be in tune with what is going on in Hollywood (and in the political arena as well) should they care to see an increase in profits.

Here is a potentially helpful Wikepedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2010

Pay attention to the names for a few months and see if you notice a trend in Amazon.com sales rank data, and an increase in your own sales.  I doubt that you will see any spikes as drastic as this one, but it pays to be aware.

My top 5 favorite all-time Michael Jackson hits: "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)", "Human Nature", "Billie Jean", "Smooth Criminal" and  "Man in the Mirror."  Of course, "Thriller" is one of the greatest music videos of all time. 

How will you remember MJ? Did you happen to sell any MJ books in the summer of 2009?

Book Review of Richard Russell's "Antique Trader Book Collector's Price Guide, 3rd Edition"

Antique Trader Book Collector's Price Guide, 3rd Edition

by Richard Russell

ISBN-10: 1440203725

For both amateur and professional booksellers, good reference guides are still a must have.  While the majority of pricing research can be done quickly on either AbeBooks (works best for non-ISBN books) or Amazon (my first stop for ISBN books), there is still something to be said for owning printed reference material.

Having been a professional bookseller for just over ten years now, my library of Books about Books is always expanding.  However, aside from using the Internet for pricing information, there has only been one resource that I have used on a daily basis, and that book is Ahearn's Collected Books: The Guide to Values 2002 Edition.  What I like most about this guide is that it only includes the cream of the bookselling crop, and also includes essential points of issue, which help me to determine if the book in hand is a true 1st, or simply a reading copy.  By no means is it a comprehensive guide to points of issue, just a good starting point for your research.  Ahearn's Collected is most helpful for fiction high spots and author's early works (but not books in the $25-100 range), and there is a respectable selection of non-fiction, specifically History and Americana, as well.

Ahearn's biggest omission would have to be the lack of photographs, which is understandable considering the already massive size of the still handy reference volume.  This is where Antique Trader Book Collector's Price Guide excels.  It is full of color photographs of books with and without their dustjackets.  It can almost fit in your back pocket (but not quite).  There are over 8,000 1st Editions identified, and while this is less than Ahearn's (which still contains only a fraction of the collectible books in existence), it does include many of the books one is more likely to encounter in the field.  It is divided into 13 categories including Vintage Fiction, Art/Illustrated Books, Modern First Editions, and even more esoteric ones like Paranormal and Banned Books.  Each section begins with 10 High Spots in the category, the "Holy Grails" of that genre, complete with sometimes humorous sidenotes like this entry:

Bannerman, Helen.  The Story of Little Black Sambo.

London: Grant Richards, 1899.  Find this and forsake politically correct behavior forever.

NF/F: $14,000  G/VG: $6,500

While Ahearn's only includes prices for books in pristine condition, Russell tries to make a distinction between a Fine Copy and a Very Good/Good copy, although like all price guides in the Internet Age (and during a slow economy), the numbers can be a bit on the optimistic side more often than not.

More established booksellers who have already familiarized themselves with many of the books included may scoff at the Book Collector's Price Guide as a book for beginners or simpletons, but even after ten years in the business, I would still consider myself a beginner in many ways.  One must always be learning to succeed in bookselling. 

It should be noted that the 3rd Edition does not include the Pseudonyms and Signature Guide sections that the 2nd Edition included, which makes it about 50 pages shorter.  The amount of color photographs included in the 3rd Edition is enough to make up for this difference, and I honestly cannot remember using the Pseudonym or Signature Guide in this reference guide before, so I am not mourning the omission.

The strength of this book is in its compact size, simple format (although which category a book falls into can sometimes be difficult to decipher; many of the books in the Vanity and Small Press section could be more logically consolidated into other sections) and multitude of color photographs.  It is the type of book you can take with you anywhere: on a plane, waiting for the doctor, using the...ahem...facilities, hanging out at a coffee shop or sitting at home on your end table for when you are fed up with television.

At the affordable price of $16.50 for a brand new copy in paperback, it should pay for itself within days.  Happy Hunting...

Official Rating: 4.75/5.0

Pros: Color Photographs, Compact Size, Realistic Availability of Books Included, Variety of Genres
Cons: Rudimentary 1st Edition Identification Section, Crossover of Categories

You can purchase a copy or read other reviews of this book here

Don't Give Up On Thrift Stores

I will be the first to admit that the selection of books in my local thrift stores, well, it sucks.

There is always a smattering of crayoned up children's books, diet of the month cookbooks, book club editions and uber-common coffee table books.

It is not often that I find more than one or two books worth buying, and my attitude of late has been: "OK, I'll stop at the Thrift Store on my way home, but only because it is on the way, and only to find one or two good books to pay for gas money for the day."

There was a time not long ago when I had much better luck at my local thrift stores, but things have changed.  The sorters who bring the good books out rotate monthly, a large local outfit is selling online, and another is selling books by the gaylord to a local bookseller.

So, having said all that, is it even worth it?  Why bother with thrift stores?

1.  Because it only takes one good book to make up for a month of sorting through junk
2.  Because they are not typically saavy enough to spot valuable non-ISBN books
3.  Because they are on your way home from better bookscouting locations

Case in point, just yesterday, after being gone for my annual summer vacation for two weeks, I stopped by a local thrift store to find this gem:

A near fine/near fine copy of the American Theatre classic West Side Story, first published in 1958 by Random House and illustrated with photographs from the original production.  You know, the update of Romeo and Juliet set in New York City.  You know, the Sharks and the Jets.  The play was also Stephen Sondheim's 1st Broadway musical and the film adaptation went on to win 10 Academy Awards.

Luckily, the dustjacket was preserved in mylar.  There is no doubt as to the Edition, as "First Printing" is stated clearly on the copyright page and the original retail price of $2.95 is intact.

My asking price of $1000 may be a bit optimistic in this economy.  Between the Covers has a copy in similar condition for $1500, and several other sellers have lesser quality copies in the $300-400 range. I'm just hoping one of my multiple listings (especially Ebay) might get a quick bite or a solid offer.  If not, I can always re-evaluate my price later, but I can never raise it after the fact.

This one should earn me at least a couple tanks of gas.

Click here for a link to my complete listing of the item