kevin_standlee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kevin_standlee) wrote2009-02-08 08:37 pm
kevin_standlee) wrote2009-02-08 08:37 pm
Entry tags:
Not Good Enough
This afternoon, while doing various errands, I went by Half Price Books with two Bankers Boxes full of hardcover SF & F books. This represents a couple of shelves of my book case. Most of them are Turtledove alternate histories. I asked how much they'd give me for them. They offered $15 -- about fifty cents each, I think -- and were willing to go as high as $17. I thanked them and rolled back out with the books. I'd be better off donating the books to BASFA at that rate, albeit not all at once; I've seen what happens when too much auction material chokes the club at once. Instead, they may go into storage when I move, if it turns out I won't have enough shelf space in wherever I go.
I don't bear the folks at the store any ill will. I understand the stresses they're under. I used to act as a buyer when I was assistant manager of a comic book store. We typically offered people 25% of appraised value for cash, or more if they wanted it in trade. Assuming they put these books on sale at half cover price or so, they were offering me less than 10% of cover, which I deem too small an offer. I could get better value by donating the lot to charity and taking the tax deduction, which would be based on the books' cover price.
(That does, however assume I had enough deductible items to justify itemizing deductions, which I do not. I would have done so last year if I'd kept better records and had counted the mileage driving to and from Denver as a trip jointly done for SFSFC and Denver's non-profit, I think.)
I don't bear the folks at the store any ill will. I understand the stresses they're under. I used to act as a buyer when I was assistant manager of a comic book store. We typically offered people 25% of appraised value for cash, or more if they wanted it in trade. Assuming they put these books on sale at half cover price or so, they were offering me less than 10% of cover, which I deem too small an offer. I could get better value by donating the lot to charity and taking the tax deduction, which would be based on the books' cover price.
(That does, however assume I had enough deductible items to justify itemizing deductions, which I do not. I would have done so last year if I'd kept better records and had counted the mileage driving to and from Denver as a trip jointly done for SFSFC and Denver's non-profit, I think.)
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(Anonymous) 2009-02-09 05:29 am (UTC)(link)Of course all of this depends on a number of factors such as where the store is located and what type of customers visit the store. There might be another store in the Bay Area which is interested in them however I would call first but considering the value of your time it may just be easier to donate.
One of the problems that has hit used book stores is that due to internet searches they are competing now with someone in a small town in Nebraska who has overhead that is a fraction of what a Bay Area store has. Plus the growth of books in electronic formats is another area.
Fred Moulton
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http://www.bookbuyers.com/
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It's too painful.
But you never get back the full amount. I still miss giving up my Alan Lee Giants book, Mouse & Kelly and Twentieth Century Foss and a few others when we moved off the mountain. I don't' like giving up the books.
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