Places To Buy Used, And/Or Rare Books
When I started I only had a few books, mostly those from my own collection. I didn’t have anything really valuable, but I had good general stock. My mother had some books from her grandmother and I sold those for a commission. To get additional stock I started to browse in used bookstores, estate sales and garage sales.
I was browsing in a used bookstore shortly after I started when a customer came in and offered 2,000 books to the owner. He said that he had just purchased an old printing company and the guy who he bought it from was a collector. Would the shop owner be interested in looking at them, as he knew nothing about books.
The owner of the bookstore declined saying that she had all the books she could use right now. I was within earshot of the entire conversation but didn’t say anything until I knew what the shop owner was going to do. When she declined the offer, I was ready to speak up but instead the shop owner turned to me and asked if I was interested. I said I was and set up a time to look at the books.
I made an offer on the spot after seeing, what I thought at the time, was, some pretty good books. I could immediately see a dozen books that I could get my money back on. I rationalized my offer of $1,000.00 with the knowledge that even if I really blew it and none of the other books were valuable, I could at least make my investment back on the dozen good books I saw among the stock.
He accepted my offer and I was in business! Within a period of three months I made SIX times my investment selling them on the Internet and I still had 300 books left! Now I didn’t sell all the books remaining over the Internet but I sold 80% of them there.
The remaining 20% I sold to local rare and used book dealers. I needed the cash at the time and if you need really, really fast cash there is no better place than a local used book dealer who is fair. Only you will not incure maximum dollars. Plainly they have to trade at a net profit and will not pay more than 50% (ordinarily 30%) of the fair market price.
Used books stores (not rare books stores), library annual book sales, estate sales and local auctions I’ve found, are the best low-cost sources of inventory. And inventory is plentiful. You might have a dry spell from time to time, but generally there is more available stock out there than you’ll ever be able to buy.
After you have gained some knowledge you can buy from other dealers. You’ll pay more, but if the book is out of the dealer’s specialty you’re likely to get a bargain and make money on it. Most dealers will give you at least a 10% dealer discount. Some will give you 20% or even 30%! The only way to know is to ask.
Occasionally I have successfully bought books from dealers with NO discount and doubled my money. Most of the time I buy a book, mark it up 40 to 50 percent and sold it to either a collector or another dealer over the net. I’ve done this successfully with higher priced books as well as low to mid-range $30 to $250 books. If I can earn a 40% return on my investment and turn that investment over several times during the month then I’ve done a good job and earned a lot of money. By now you should be able to see the potential of this business.
But just in case you need a little more help, let me illustrate:
The key to this system is the fact that you can now tap into a huge marketplace for books on the Internet. With the knowledge that more potential buyers is better than few potential buyers we will make our buying and selling decisions based on that fact.
Remember, I’m showing you how I do business. You may be able to improve on what I’m doing. In any case this is what I do and why I do it:
In the stock market there is a strategy of investing called “arbitrage”. Basically when you want to take advantage of price differentials between one market and another it’s called arbitrage. You buy for one price in one market and sell for another (a higher price) in another market. In the stock market, because it’s such an efficient market, the price differentials are likely to be ? of a point or less in the price of the stock. And the only way anyone can make money at it in the stock market is by buying large lots (100,000 shares or more) and selling then instantly in another market at the ?th or ¼th price differential.
Now, we have the “electronic book market”. It’s somewhat efficient because there is a lot of information available about books and their value. But it’s not as efficient as the stock market and it NEVER will be. That’s what make’s for wonderful opportunities. Here’s why:
Stocks are homogeneous. One share of IBM stock is exactly the same as any other share of IBM stock. If you compared them side-by-side they are identical and they sell in the same market at the exact same price. Maybe this is over-simplistic but I’m trying to make a very important point, a point that has made me a lot of money, so please stick with me here.
Books are not homogeneous (i.e they are not of the same composition). There are several editions, possibly, of the same book, all with different values and “points of issue”, i.e. even the “first edition” of a book may have several ‘variations’- such as different wording on the dustjacket, different pictures, etc. all affecting value. There are other factors that affect a book’s value:
* An author’s signature on a page of the book;
* An inscription to someone by the author (if the inscription is to another famous author or person then THAT also affects value-usually upward);
* The condition of the hard cover part of the book (called the “boards”);
* The condition of the dustjacket;
Who the previous owner of the book was. For example I purchased a copy of a rare book by SS Van Dine, a mystery author writing under pseudonym, that belonged to Vincent Starrett a famous writer himself.
As you can see, there are many factors that determine a book’s value. That helps to make the book market inefficient- not everyone can know everything about just one particular book. Also, there is such an emotional factor involved- the desire to possess a scarce object- that you have working in your favor. What I’m saying is that if you buy from one dealer (who has access to a small, limited market) at a good price, chances are very good there is another dealer or collector (another market) you can sell that book to for a good mark-up (arbitrage).
One thing you should be aware of before buying anything from another dealer. Sometimes a dealer will mark a book up so high that they are not concerned if they sell it or not. They are emotionally involved with the book or they are using it as an ego booster. I’m not saying all dealers do this. But most will admit, if they’re honest, that owning a signed, first edition of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, is exciting and is a significant possession.
My advice is to stay away from these books. This is the high end of the market and for the most part is the smallest part of the market. What I have done is to concentrate on the ‘middle market’- books in the $50.00 to $500.00 range. They have provided me with a very good living and there are a lot of buyers in this market. Also, even though they also might never admit it, many buyers in this middle market are speculators- hoping that the price of the book they just bought from you will skyrocket in price making them money. I have made it a personal policy never to predict the stock market or the book market. I make money by supplying the market with what they want, not by speculating.
You want to think carefully about places where the kind of book you are searching for could be found. For example, at one time I studied to become a Catholic Priest. I built up quite a collection of rare spiritual classics in theology from the 1850’s on. This is exactly how I did it:
While traveling, as I often did, from or to monasteries or other seminaries in other cities and states I searched used books stores that were in the immediate vicinity of the monastery or seminary I was visiting. Very often people who lived nearby were also inclined to buy spiritual books and the used book dealer stocked them because he knew he had ready-made market.
There are many ways of determining where certain types of books could be located with a little imagination.
© 2010, Work At Home Covert Opps!. All rights reserved.
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Roberto on October 4th, 2009 5:26 amcool blog
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