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 2 - Where To Find The Books (continued)

Another avenue of finding hard to find books is doing a Google search. I have found a few books this way. For example, I had been trying to find a copy of 100 Year History Of Shorin Ryu Karate by Frank Hargrove. I had found copies for $100 or more. But by doing a Google search, I found an individual who was selling various martial arts books on his personal website. I emailed him, and paid for the book using PayPal. I managed to get the book for under $40. I have found deals on other books using this method as well. Keep in mind the old adage of Caveat Emptor or Let The Buyer Beware. If the deal seems too good to be true, it might be. In the case of the Shorin Ryu book, the seller was selling only martial arts books on a martial arts related site. I was reasonably confident he actually had the books. Buying books from an individual can be riskier then buying from a store. So you must use your own judgment and weigh the risk with the rewards of such a transaction.

Before purchasing books on eBay or Amazon, be sure to check the seller's rating and feedback. If the seller has a lot of negatives, you might want to refrain from ordering from that seller. If the seller has 1000 feedbacks, and only a few of them are negative you can generally discount the negative feedbacks. On the other hand, if the seller has 1000 feedbacks and a third of them are negative, you might want to walk away. I will usually read some of the negative feedbacks to see what the complaints were. On Amazon as you are looking at the used book listings and you see one seller has a rating of 4.8, and another has rating of 4.3, if the books are of similar description and there is only a few cents difference, go with the seller with the better rating.
On Amazon also, you can read through the feedbacks to see what kind of problems people have had. I know from personal experience as an eBay seller, and an Amazon marketplace seller, that the majority of the people don't leave feedbacks. That buyers that have had a problem are more likely to leave a feedback then someone who had a glowing experience. Another thing I know is that some buyers for whatever reason are hesitant to leave the highest rating of a 5, and will leave a rating of 4 instead. It is strange to have a buyer leave a feedback saying book arrived quickly in described condition and then leave a 4 out of 5 rating. I am not sure what more they expected out of the transaction. But keep this also in mind when viewing feedbacks.
I have been buying stuff on eBay for years, and have rarely had problems. And when I have had problems, most of them have been worked out with the seller. And as a frequent buyer of books from Amazon marketplace, only a handful of the hundreds of transactions have yielded any problems. These problems also were easily worked out. The most frequent problem I have on Amazon is where I order a book, only to be emailed by the seller that Sorry, the book has been sold. My money is refunded, so I haven't lost anything, but it can get frustrating when you get a lot of orders cancelled. And on a few occasions I have missed the chance to buy a particular book on eBay thinking that I was already getting it from Amazon, only to have the order cancelled after it was too late to bid on the eBay auction. These cases have been especially frustrating.
I have also on occasion has some suspicious encounters when attempting to buy books from an Amazon marketplace seller. In one case I was using my bookstealer.com tool, and one afternoon when I ran it, it showed that a bunch of hard to find martial arts books had been recently listed on Amazon. I know they were recently listed as I have ran the Bookstealer program just shortly before and these books were not there. When I clicked through to the listings, they were all from a single seller. I ordered four of the books that I was interested in. About half a day later I received an email saying that the seller was canceling the order saying they had "jumped the gun" and had mislisted the books. Then a couple months later, Bookstealer again notified me that a bunch of bargain books were recently listed on Amazon. I recognized many of the titles, and after looking at the listings, saw it was the same seller. Again I ordered 4 books, and again the seller cancelled the order saying they did not have the books. I do not know what this seller's game is, but I suspect that there is something unethical about it. Maybe they are harvest email addresses or something, I do not know. But they have gotten some negative feedbacks for it, not only from me but other thwarted buyers as well.

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