Morman Books highly collectible...

I found a large cache of Mormon Books at a sale this weekend... These are books that I look for... Because they sell at fairly high prices... Especially if they are older, small printings...and are now out of print...

Some of these books are absurdly high priced on line... I usually "low ball" a scarce book if I did not pay that much for it...just to move it... I'm more than willing to leave some money on the table...if I can find one buyer willing to pay a fair price...

Many of these Mormon books were printed locally in the Salt City City region...

Some of the books I acquired yesterday were from the Kimball Family library... They had the Kimball's embossed stamp on them... Kimball was the president of the Latter Day Saints... Some of the books were inscribed by the authors to Kimball...these are especially interesting... Most were on esoteric aspects of Mormon life or Religion...

Many Mormans are avid book collectors...and I'm sure many of these books will be sent back to Utah...eventually. Sam Weller's bookstore in Salt Lake has a large rare book operation that includes many Mormon books...

How these books get out of Utah is a real question... But Mormons do travel on missions...and Mormon collectors are found in every state...and overseas... So finding a large collection of Mormon books outside of Utah is not that rare...

Today's selling... #1

A vintage cookbook on crepes... A pamphlet from the Zuni area of Arizona...A book on the History of American Courtship (dating)...to a university library in Nebraska...

Cookbooks will sell..the more specialized the better... Although this sale surprised me as it was a older book...

Pamphlets from various national monuments and parks...and other similar ephemera...do have a following... this booklet when to the East coast...not the the Southwest...

The History of Courtship to a small university library...is typical of library purchase of an odd titles and out of print book...with some unique social content...

Back to Used and Rare...

I've been off Used and Rare for sometime... Mainly tied up with other blogs and with my on-line book selling...

Then I lost the email address and the password...both...! And had to search for some clues among my papers...

Finally found the things I needed to restart this blog...

Have about 8000 books for sale on Amazon now...and shooting for 10,000 this year...then I want to cull the pile to get rid of some of the dregs...and not go over 10,000 if possible...

Better to have 10,000 good books...than just a general inventory of margin listings....

How to search for "lost books" in your on-line inventory.

Whenever I have a hard time finding a book in my inventory...I quickly assume that there is something "tricky" about this book.

It's "hiding" from me for some reason.

I just finished a longish search for a large tradepaper book that I "knew" had a black cover...

OK? So I "assumed" it had a black spine as well....

I even looked up a picture of the book on line...Ebay is best for this because almost every seller uses photos in their listings.

Still no luck...

So I assume that the book is tricking me somehow...

Then I drop back to the technique of literally touching each book as I "scan" it visually.

For some reason this use of an "extra sense" helps me focus and avoid the "error" of visual scanning.

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Result:

Yes the book had a black cover...and it was reasonable to assume that the spine was also black...which of course is the only thing I can see on the bookshelf

BUT IT WASN'T!

The spine was white!!

An all black book...suddenly has an all white spine. Go Figure.

Anyhow. Bottom Line.

If a book is "hiding"....

Get the ISBN and go to Ebay or Addall or ABE and look the book up. Look for a picture and also the books dimensions.

And even then DON'T just assume that a black book has a black spine!

It may be white...because if your mind is Hell bent on "finding" a black spine on the book?

You're not going to find that book!

Until you get rid of preconcived notions on what you're really looking for... Always a problem.

How to store books in your on-line inventory...

After you get a certain number of books in your on-line inventory you have to figure out how to find the ones that have sold...

At first this is not a problem... You simply go to your bookshelves and look for the book.

But later, after you have about a thousand books in your inventory, this "scanning" method starts to break down... Suddenly every sale becomes a panic to "find the book"....

The rows and rows of books all start to look the same...!

OK...here's an idea. You can break down your inventory by catagory and subject matter...easy enough.

For example...

History. Science and Nature. Lit Crit. Cooking. Fiction. Biography. Children's. Business. Travel and Places. Americana. Arts and Decorating. Psychology. and so forth...

You might also seperate out your mass market paperbacks (MMPBs) and the oversized books...since these tend to disrupt the order on the shelves and create confusion.

Fine...so far.

But what happens when your Biography and Fiction section balloon to a thousand books each...!

Suddenly you're back with the same problem of scanning huge rows of books to find one title...

Then, you can take each catagory above... and break down even further...

History becomes... American History-Pre-Civil War. American History-Post Civil War. American History -20th Century...

European History can be seperated...by country.... if you have enough books to merit that... Asian History. African History. Medievel and Ancient History are seperated out too.

The various War Histories can be seperated...perhaps, WWII and WWI.... Korean and Vietnam. Etc.

So you keep "granularizing" your topics and catagories....

As long as your shelf space holds out...

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Now, there is another way to tackle this problem....

I call it the "Bin System."

It's a bit more professional and probably less work for the larger on-line opertion.

In the Bin System, you buy a lot of clear plastic bins...mainly those 56 quart "Sterlite" bins that are available at Target, Kmart, etc...

Then, as you "list" books on-line...

You put a SKU number on your online listing reflecting which "bin" the book is in...

This SKU data will be visible on your Sale Notice from your "selling venue" like Amazon, ABE or Alibris.

So, you are dividing your books up by "bin number" or "location" ....not by title and topic!

Thus, any given bin can have books about cooking, war history, biography etc...

The KEY of course is to remember which book is in which bin...it's a nightmare situation othewise.

But once in operation...you no longer have to "scan" long rows of books for one title! Because many books are obsure and hard to see ...or faded on the spine occasionally.

For book operations over 5000 books .... I think bins are the way to go...

They will stack nicely and take less space...but can be heavy, so don't buy the really big ones...stick with the 56 or lower quart size... They are light, damp and vermin proof...always a plus.

For operations under 5000 books you can still organize your books topically...and probably find things fairly easily...

Thus avoiding the panic attack that comes from selling a book and realizing that you just CAN'T FIND IT!! Your worst nightmare as an on-line bookseller...

More on this "nuts and bolts" topic later...