Be Excellent To Each Other

At the moment I'm going through a utilitarian phase of shedding every single possession I don't absolutely need. A while ago I listed a few CDs on Amazon and checked with Music Magpie to see how little they were worth. I sold maybe 3 and as I never owned very many to start with I've kept the rest but they might be destined for a charity shop very soon.

I do have a lot of books though, and so tonight systematically checked each one for value on Amazon. I have three very large boxes of books and precisely 10 of them are listed at more than a penny. Those ones I've listed. The rest are effectively worthless without a power-seller account that limits fees, and even then the cost of shipping some of these hardbacks for a penny is far more than the sellers would receive even with the postage allowance.

There is a Music Magpie-esque site for books called FatBrain, but they didn't offer a price for a single one of my books, which I suppose isn't surprising as no doubt their database is linked to calculated Amazon resale value.

I don't think I'd quite realised just how valueless books are to the domestic reader, and even at the sharp edge they're making perhaps 10p profit per sale. With a kindle I don't think I'll ever buy another physical book, and I think I'll feel pretty unburdened to get rid of the ones I've got. Funny to think what I've got here is probably worth more to burn in a fire instead of logs for a couple of days.

Indeed; I found the same out. Give 'em to charity shops if you can; they really like getting books.

The 1p peeps are power sellers, often probably using a franking machine to skimp on postage. For little books you can make a few pence, but it's really not worth it.

What happened there? Was your bin full?

How much is a franking discount worth? Last time I checked it was 1-2p on a first class stamp. The margins must be razor sharp, and so much throughput must be needed to make even a minimum wage worth of living. Crazy.

I also wonder what its like for authors now. You could be one of the best read in the world but have a tiny fraction of that come from original sales. I'm finding it a bit of a grim realisation.

If you walked into a second hand bookshop with boxes of books, would they give you anything at all for them? Charity shop is looking the most likely, it's just a bit unfortunate as some of these have never been read in new condition; I just don't want them.

Yeah, publishers ought to introduce day-one DLC for books. Maybe use a made up word throughout the entire text, with the download telling you what that word means. Like use "plushfurt" instead of "and".

I bought a book from Amazon for 1p and paid £2.80 postage. For less than £3 I got loads of good routes to ride my bike on.

Drop them into a charity shop if you don't want them, I regularly buy books from them as it is cheaper than library fines. I also bought a literal shelf full of books from a charity shop when I moved house so I could appear clever to the birds I brought back.


Personally, I keep all books, getting shot of them is wrong.

As regards authors, that depends on the deal. MrsA says 10% of net receipts if they are very lucky. It depends on type of book. I'll ask my author friends. MrsA on books worth upwards of £100 staggers it highest being 12%, that then gets split between the authors. She says 10% is good. Watch the Sky Arts program. She's talking at me about it now.

I'm not inclined to have them take up space when the odds are 99% I'll never read them again. They're not all going, mind. I have a small sub-set of books that are a bit dear to me so they're staying on the shelf. The shelf just has a lot more space now.

Huh?

Not necessarily their own. I used to frank all my personal mail in several of my old jobs

Also, your books are probably shit. I use a law book which was on sale at over £240 as a door stop as it is out of date now. Unless it's up to date and specialist, it isn't wirth a dime.

Might be difficult to conceal if you were bringing hundreds of books into work every day.

My books are horribly out of date. They just sit there and the fiction doesn't update itself or anything. It's so low tech.

Here's one of my author friend's blog posts on charity book shopping. His stuff is worth a read, he's one of the cleverest people I've had the pleasure of knowing. You should buy his book, too, about teaching in problem schools.

Charity shops put 90% of the books they're given straight in the bin anyway.

His book is £2.99 on amazon right now.

Not my one. They're very keen on books, and even had spare shelving!

What about local schools/universities? Or even the local library, they might be interested in taking them off you.

Many do, yes. In my experience.

Tried to sell off my university books earlier this year. Had intended to keep hold of them (like how my parents still have their undergraduate books from the '70s), but just conceded I won't be able to afford to do a Masters degree ever, so researched how much I could trade the books in for. (Note I did a degree in an obscure subject, so the textbooks were expensive and rare in the first place.) Amazon's trade-in service only recognised one book from the ISBNs(!), and offered less than a quid for it.

Ironically, Amazon offered me over thirty quid for an old A-level Biology textbook.

Fatbrain recognise the ISBNs, but only one book they offer money for, in this case £3.73. It's sixty quid for a new copy on Amazon. Better than nothing, I guess...

Of course, if you invested in Games Workshop books of the early 90s, you're minted. That also goes for the limited edition novels from The Black Library.

Kindle!

Wow, volume 3!

Books that cheap are worth buying to burn, yeah.

Buy some book shelves and keep them.

The lovely pub down the road has a book-swap shelf. I just whack anything I don’t want on there, and take nothing in return. I’d rather someone get some use than effectively bin them with a charity shop/misc service.

An idea like that'd never work in Shipley.

Carve them up.



or make a den.

I might take it along to a friend's car boot stall and give it one attempt at punting it to the public, then take the remains to the charity place.

You do that, champ!

Replies on this forum are either flippant, sarcastic, or some form of in-joke. I'm seeing this on nearly every subject, and it disappoints. Has everyone become incapable of making a serious and sincere post?

Edit: Actually, maybe it's just certain people...

To me your original post was more of a statement - "When did books become worthless because i've just found this out"

I've not posted in the thread yet because i found this out a few months ago when i tried to clear down my books and found if i was lucky i was getting a few pennies for them on ebay and even then one or two 'heavy' books and their limit on what you can charge for shipping did away with the whole profit.

Books (unless signed or first editions / r@re) are pretty much worthless - if you dont want them then give them away or stick them in the recylcing bin - online and E-books have contributed to this but at the same time the supermarkets getting involved a few years ago and selling new hardback books at around 1/3 of their 'list price' when new probably didnt help much.

On one of the recent Nerdist podcasts they have Scott Sigler on and discuss just how f**ked up the whole book industry is right now and what authors are trying to do to make a living (its worth a listen - link below)

http://www.nerdist.com/2012/04/nerdist- ... tt-sigler/

I have about four boxes I don't want. Do Fatbrain do an app I scan them all with?

Not that I'm aware. The only reason I did mine is because I have a barcode scanner and could race through them. They do let you add multiple barcodes at once though, up to a limit at about 10 at a time.

Sorry to disappoint such an articulate debater.

I just washed my clothes in hot sauce! Now my bottom's big!

Derp books are made of wood. Derrrrrp. I am disappoint. Derrrrrp.

I think I liked you better when you were off flouncing.

I liked you better when you being gangfucked on EvE,

Haha, and yet strangely that actually never happened. Try harder.

Save them for your car boot if you're still going to do one.

No, seriously, I did. I felt awful for you during that whole saga. Today I simply called out your snipe at me on this thread. Anyway, regarding flouncing, Mr Pot would like to call Mr Kettle black again RemovedByRequest.

Tut. TUT!

This is because you're posting bizarro nonsense for seemingly no reason. What's it all about?

Hello. I'm Dimrill. Pleased to meet you.

Hmmm.

TUT!

I wish Scott Steiner posted on this forum. He’d put you all right.

Here's my real thoughts on the subject matter:

Outside of a specialist publisher akin to Games Workshop/Black Library... possibly the Cthulhu stuff of Arkham House, yes second hand books are cheap. As I done said befooah.

Worst beatbox ever.

That's all I'm looking for, man. All else confuses me.

I sold my copy of The Selfish Gene overnight for about £3. Better than nothing.