Book Sales

How it all got started

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Just the good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm. Beats all you've ever saw, been in trouble with the law since the day they was born. Straight'nin' the curve, flat'nin' the hills. Someday the mountain might get 'em, but the law never will. Makin' their way, the only way they know how, that's just a little bit more than the law will allow. Just good ol' boys, wouldn't change if they could, fightin' the system like a true modern day Robin Hood.

Thunder, thunder, thundercats, Ho! Thundercats are on the move, Thundercats are loose. Feel the magic, hear the roar, Thundercats are loose. Thunder, thunder, thunder, Thundercats! Thunder, thunder, thunder, Thundercats! Thunder, thunder, thunder, Thundercats! Thunder, thunder, thunder, Thundercats! Thundercats!

Ten years ago a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem and no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-team.

Best Books for Booksellers

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Check out these great reads:

Bookselling for Dummies (For Dummies S.) by Tere Stouffer Drenth and Kate Whouley (Paperback - Dec 9, 2005)

The Mathematics of Bookselling: A Monograph by Leonard Shatzkin (Paperback - Dec 1997)

Selling Old Books the New Dot Com Way: Your Guide to Starting and Running an Internet Bookselling Business by Suzanne F. Pitner (Paperback - April 2000)

Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption

Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption by Laura J. Miller (Hardcover - May 1, 2006)

Look for these while scouting at book sales and estate sales.

Be a book scout at book sales

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A bookscout is an individual who hunts for books in various locations and then resells them for a profit.

With the boom of the online bookselling industry, the number of bookscouts has increased dramatically. Many people are leveraging the power of sites like eBay and Amazon to sell their used books online. As people continue to take up this occupation, as both traditional and home-based businesses, the presence of bookscouts has increased.

In the past, bookscouts typically sold their books directly to bookstores, but many bookscouts now sell their books online. Bookscouts often look for books at venues like estate sales, garage sales, bookstores, thrift shops yard sales, library sales. Library sales, in particular, used to be extremely difficult to market. With the advent of the internet, and searchable book sale directories, book sales have become increasingly accessible.

Prior to the Internet and online bookselling and auctions, many bookscouts were able to find valuable books on the shelves of bookstores. The ability of bookstore owners to look up prices for free on the Internet has made this type of scouting very difficult and only the best bookscouts can scout stores.

Bookscouts, themselves, have their own tools to look-up prices on the fly. Services using cell phones, scanners, and/or PDAs make looking up the market value of a book very easy - no matter where you are.

What About Bookselling?

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The history of bookselling in America has a special interest. The Spanish settlements drew away from the old country much of its enterprise and best talent, and the presses of Mexico and other cities teemed with publications mostly of a religious character, but many others, especially linguistic and historical, were also published. Bookselling in the United States was of a somewhat later growth, although printing was introduced into Boston as early as 1676, Philadelphia in 1685, and New York in 1693. Franklin had served to make the trade illustrious, yet few persons were engaged in it at the commencement of the 19th century. Books chiefly for scholars and libraries were imported from Europe; but after the second war printing-presses multiplied rapidly, and with the spread of newspapers and education there also arose a demand for books, and publishers set to work to secure the advantages offered by the wide field of English literature, the whole of which they had the liberty of reaping free of all cost beyond that of production. The works of Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and indeed of every author of note, were reprinted without the smallest payment to author or proprietor. Half the names of the authors in the so-called "American" catalogue of books printed between 1820 and 1852 are British. By this means the works of the best authors were brought to the doors of all classes in the cheapest variety of forms. In consequence of the Civil War, the high price of labour, and the restrictive duties laid on in order to protect native industry, coupled with the frequent intercourse with England, a great change took place, and American publishers and booksellers, while there was still no international copyright, made liberal offers for early sheets of new publications. Boston, New York and Philadelphia still retained their old supremacy as bookselling centres. Meanwhile, the distinct publishing business also grew, till gradually the conditions of business became assimilated to those of Europe.

In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the Low Countries for a time became the chief centre of the bookselling world, and many of the finest folios and quartos in our libraries bear the names of Jansen, Blauw or Plantin, with the imprint of Amsterdam, Utrecht, Leiden or Antwerp, while the Elzevirs besides other works produced their charming little pocket classics. The southern towns of Douai and St Omer at the same time furnished polemical works in English.

Used Books

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Find used books -

A used book is a book which has been owned before by an owner other than the publisher or retailer, usually by an individual or library. Used books typically become available on the market when they are sold or given to a second-hand or used book shop. Some new book shops also carry used books, and some used book shops also sell new books. Though the original authors or publishers will not benefit financially from the sale of a used book, it helps to keep old books in circulation. Sometimes very old, rare, antique, or simply out-of-print books can be found as used books in used book shops.