Fiction Addiction’s Blog

A story I read in the Fine Books Blog about an English church that sold a book collection for a measly $70,000 that was later valued at over $1 million gave me the idea for this blog post.

The bookseller who purchased the collection states that the deal was fair. The church solicited several bids from different dealers and his was the highest. He added that “It was difficult to give an accurate evaluation of the collection when we were asked to do so in 2004 because of the dimly lit and confined conditions in which they were held.”

I often field calls at Fiction Addiction about book collections for sale. Most of the time I say “thanks but no thanks,” but occasionally I’ll make an appointment to look at the books. In these cases I try to warn the sellers in advance that I may only be able to offer $.10-.25 per book, if I want them at all. Why so little? Most book collections are simply a random assortment of the books that a person or family has read over the course of several years. Many of the books may be outdated, in poor condition, duplicates of our current holdings, or simply things that don’t sell well for us. What we prefer are collections centered around a theme or two. Areas of interest for us include religion, gardening, cookbooks, science fiction, historical seafaring, South Caroliniana, and military history.

If you want to get top dollar for your books, then keep these tips in mind:

• Count your books. Know exactly how many books there are in total, how many hardcovers vs. paperbacks, and how many books in each category (i.e., 50 gardening books, 100 cookbooks, 2000 sci-fi paperbacks).
• Get an appraisal. If your collection consists of collectible or antiquarian books, consider paying for an appraisal first. Make sure you find a licensed appraiser with a strong background in books. Rather than getting an itemized appraisal of each book, you probably want to specify that you’d like anything over $x amount in value to be identified. Depending on what you’ve got, it may be more appropriate to send certain items or the entire collection to an auction house.
• Target appropriate dealers. Contact dealers who have knowledge and interest that matches your collection. If there are only one or two bookstores that are a good fit, consider branching out and also contacting online dealers who live in your area.
• Get several bids. Make sure to solicit offers from more than one dealer and let the dealers know that you are doing so. Competition may get you a higher offer.
• Display the books well. When a dealer makes an appointment to view the books, make sure they are all displayed and easily accessible. Do not double-stack books on bookshelves or have one sample box out and say that there are another 9 in the attic. If the books are on shelves that reacher higher than 5 feet, have a stepstool at hand. Try to group like books together — all the gardening on this shelf, the cookbooks here, etc. If you had an appraisal done, make sure to give each dealer a copy to work from.
• Do not hover. Maybe it’s just me, but I find it hard to concentrate on the task at hand when eyeballs are poring at the back of my head or I’m having to make polite chit-chat while trying to evaluate a collection. If you have knowledge about the collection, then give the dealer a bit of an introductory tour but after that try to find something else to do and leave the dealer alone in the room with the books.
• Do not ask for an immediate quote. If the dealer knows they can go home and do some research before giving you a quote, then they’re likely to come back with a higher offer than if they have to make one on the fly. The best technique may be to let the dealer know that you are soliciting bids from several sources and that if he/she is interested in the collection to let you know his/her best offer by x date.
• Offer to pack and deliver the books. Keep in mind that if the dealer has to bring boxes, pack, and then cart away the books then all that labor must be factored into the price you are offered. If you are willing to do this work yourself and let the dealer know this, then you will probably get a higher offer. Book packing tip: Books should be packed flat, rather than with spines up.

If the offer you receive is still not what you’d like, keep these facts in mind:

• Bookdealers need room to profit off their purchases. We usually like to pay only 25-30% of our projected sales price. When calculating how much we can afford to pay, we also must include applicable labor for packing, sorting, and cataloguing the collection.
• Bookselling is not a profession with lots of positive cash flow. The dealer may have offered not what the books are worth, but what he/she can afford to pay. If this is the case and you are not in a hurry to sell then you may be able to work with the dealer in small lots or perhaps work out a consignment deal.
• The dealer may only be interested in a small portion of the collection and consider the rest to be a laborious task to deal with. If different dealers are interested in different parts of the collection, you can possibly make several small deals that combine for a greater total sum.
• The condition of your books may have reduced the price. Top dollar is paid for books in like-new condition. If your books are water-stained, highlighted, have missing or torn dust jackets, are dusty, etc. then the price you are offered will be substantially reduced.
• Bookclub edition hardcovers are often of very little value.