Some Guy <noemailformethanks@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
> You'd have to have a library with a hefty collection of valuable books
> that keep being put out for sale at low rates, where almost no one
> except this bookseller comes and buys them, and the book sale is one
> that allows the bookseller access within the time frame required by the
> listing services for ****pping, which I believe is either 2 days or 3
> days for Amazon.
>
> Valuable books tend to disappear from library sales much faster than
> they are ordered online, but the returns from the eventual sale nearly
> always makes it worthwhile to snap it up right away for the astute
> seller. It's just too darn risky to do otherwise.
I addressed the issue of access in my reply to your other posting, so
let me focus on what you say about valuable books. The topic of valuable
or, rather, very expensive books arose in this thread in connection with
pricing strategies, and I don't really disagree with what was said about
that.
But maybe that isn't what you are referring to. Maybe you just mean books
that one can sell for much more than the $2 one is likely to pay for them
at the booksale and which might really be in demand through Amazon. If
such
a book actually comes along, I would agree that one should grab it. The
2-volume work of Kobaya**** and Nomizu on differential geometry,
absolutely,
they should simply spend the $2 per volume and buy it.
However, the books that this person was carefully going through and
checking
against Amazon were just the ordinary kind of stuff that one finds at
library
book sales. I think stuff like that tends to move more slowly. For the
most
part, it is not qualitatively different from stuff one sees being sold by
sidewalk book vendors and their stuff doesn't seem to change much when I
look
at their tables. Even there one does occasionally find some worthwhile
books:
I found a student edition of Demosthenes in Greek and a copy of Liddell
and
Scott and a book on Latin prose composition, all in reasonably good shape,
and took all the ones I didn't already own; but I buy books to read them
and
to use them for reference, not to resell or collect them.
> > Assuming there are some booksellers operating as I have described, it
> > is quite possible that they are not very successful. It is also
possible
> > that they are making enough money to make it worth their while.
>
> The latter case probably happens about as often as winged monkeys make
> their exit from one's nether regions. Having assisted a bookseller who
> was hunting for inventory at library sales in the face of other
> booksellers doing the same thing, I know that such a possibility is not
> worth considering for someone who's planning on eating based on the
results.
If you don't mind sharing your experiences, I'd like to know more about
how the bookseller you assisted operated at library book sales, and how
they operate in general at book sales.
> Or one could go to a library sale after finding out who are the local
> booksellers and seeing what is left over after they've picked the place
> clean.
I would recognize them by their laptops?
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions
and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near
Boston.
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