Stealing Books-A Bookscout's Guide To Book Collecting

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Sections
  Introduction
  Chapter 1
  Chapter 2
  Chapter 3
  Chapter 4
  Chapter 5
  Chapter 6
  Chapter 7
  Chapter 8
  Appendix 1
  Appendix 2
  Appendix 3
  Appendix 4

Chapter 1 - What To Collect (continued)

You may find a book that you know is value, and buy it with plans to resell it. I started collecting Pat Conroy books after I bought a first edition copy of The Great Santini at a garage sale because I knew it was worth money. I had planned to sell it, but after listening to a book-on-tape of it from the library, I started collecting Pat Conroy books. The same thing happened when I found a copy of Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen at a used book store for $30, when I knew it was worth about $300 at the time. After listening to the book-on-tape, I started collecting Carl Hiaasen books.

I started collecting John Dunning books after having read a book club copy of Booked To Die that I bought someplace.

For the most part, pocket size paperback book really aren't that collectible, or at least valuable. You can find many common titles on Amazon listed for prices well under a dollar and even as low as a penny. Most serious book collectors, the ones who will spend serious money, collect hard cover first editions, or non-fiction soft covers. Since price is a product of supply versus demand, mass market paperbacks tend not to be valuable. But as with most things in life and book hunting, there are exceptions. At one library bag sale, I bought a large quantity of pocket size paperbacks with the intent of reselling many of them. Sure I am not going to get rich, but I should be able to sell some of them for enough to pay for the three dollar bag, and make a small profit which would help offset some of the costs of my own book collection. One paperback I picked up was titled Target by Stephen Hunter, and it was a movie tie in book. The book looked like it was brand new. I didn't remember grabbing it, and was wondering why I had bothered assuming the book was going to be one of the many listed on Amazon for a penny. But just to be thorough, I looked it up on Amazon, and the cheapest copy was priced at $80. I was very cynical of the price, thinking that it couldn't be right. So I looked it up on bookfinder.com, and found similar prices. So I listed the book on Amazon for $100, and sold it within days.

Make a small booklet of collectible books. First look for authors that are collectible then look up their first so many books. A good place to start with this is Thomas Lee's book 20th Century First Edition Fiction: A Price and Identification Guide. Find the ones that are valuable, say that are in fine condition are worth over $100. Set a minimum price that you are interested in looking for. Say you're looking for a particular author, look at their earliest books. In most case, their first book is likely to be the most valuable and their second book the next most valuable. Then write down what the cost of that book would be, what it sells for in the retail used book stores. You can look that up on bookfinder.com. Then before you go off book hunting, periodically, just scan the list to refresh yourself on the author's names. Now when you go off to the used book stores, as you're scanning the titles, if a particular author's names seem familiar, you can take a closer look at the book, and you can pull out your booklet to see if the book is listed there.

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