Some authors might complain that books shouldn’t be sold on the secondary market since authors don’t earn royalties on used books. I understand that sense of loss, but as is the case with libraries, used book stores are a great place to discover authors and their work.
Our town has two used book stores, though I tend to favor one with convenient parking. Here, a customer can’t go in and say, “Do you have a copy of Such and Such book?” and expect them to look it up on the computer and find it. You have to go to the stacks yourself, find the category, and poke around. At least the books are sorted alphabetically by the author’s last name, so finding a particular book isn’t impossible, if it’s available.
I don’t tend to be much of a treasure hunter, but when I do have some time to devote to perusing their selection of used books, I find that this book store gives glimpses of our area’s current activities. For instance, I recently found three identical copies of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I surmise that either a book club or a class – perhaps an AP high school course or local college – assigned this modern classic.
Sometimes books offer a sense of their personal history. “To Jane, August 1975” makes me wonder about Jane, what her relationship was to the giver, and about her opinion of the book. Our store clerks seem to be picky about the books they buy, because I never see a book with lots of highlighting and comments in the margins.
The Religion section is always interesting, with books offering insight into many faith traditions. Our store can be counted on to present an assortment of Bibles. I often wonder why a Bible would be handed off to a used book store, though one clue is that most of the Bibles here are made from inexpensive materials. Presumably leather-bound editions are keepers. But was the Bible from an estate? Or a version its owner didn’t especially like? Or did the Bible end up in the hands of someone who simply wasn’t interested in Christianity, or had fallen away from the faith? Or maybe a devout Christian just had too many Bibles. I know my children will become owners of a plethora of Bibles upon my death. I wonder if they’ll keep them all…
We have a lot of commuters in our area, so I’m not surprised by the thousands of available novels. Surely these stories helped many a commuter pass the time on a long train ride. Our store labels Christian fiction as “Religious Fiction.” To me, that sounds like a snooze-inducing category my grandmothers might read. I wish the label made our books sound more exciting. Oh, and on my last excursion I found The Thrill of the Hunt, one of my old Heartsong Presents titles, in the Religious Fiction section. I won’t make a cent, but I certainly hope someone buys it!
Your turn:
Do you like to shop at used book stores? Does my description remind you of your local store?
What is your favorite book you have bought secondhand?
Have you discovered authors through secondhand books?
“Do You Love Me?”
One of my favorite book swaps is on a cruise ship.I do this the first afternoon I board a ship. Past cruisers leave the books they’ve read for the next group of cruisers. It’s intriguing to see the foreign language titles and many Brit authors. Not much is ever left in the line of kids books. Don’t know if kids are not aware of the practice, or they don’t like to let go of their books.
Here in New Zealand we tend to call them second-hand bookshops, although that’s a bit of a misnomer: some of the books are new, and the creases on the spines show many are more like tenth-hand. I love browsing.
My favourite used bookshop is in Auckland, because it specialises in Christian books. They’ll take requests – if you want something, they’ll let you know if a copy comes in.
As well as second-hand bookshops, we have a couple of annual second-hand book sales run by charities such as the Rotary Club or the Lions. The biggest is held in an empty kiwifruit coolstore (warehouse) over Easter weekend. It’s huge, and you see people arriving with huge wheelie suitcases … and leaving with them full.
Tamela,
This was such a fun post to read. It brought back memories of spending lots of time in my hometown library. The picture reminded me of the basement of one of the local libraries. The library has an on-going used book sale there, with CDs and DVDs available also.
I buy both new and used books. A lot of the titles I’m interested in are out-of-print, so I go to the libraries, Goodwill, St. Vincent de Paul, Thriftbooks.com or Barnes and Noble.com. Barnes and Noble works with used book stores around the country, and I’ve found some out-of-print books through them I couldn’t find at the libraries, Goodwill or St. Vincent.
Probably most of the new books I buy are Bible Studies. Used fiction books are an affordable way for me to try out an author or genre before deciding to spend more money on a new book by that author or in that genre. If I don’t like the used book, I figure I haven’t lost much and I can put the book in the “To Donate” box.
One of my favorite used books (from a library) is Great Possessions by David Grayson. He writes of his enjoyment of nature. I believe the copyright is 1920.
I love used books stores, they’re filled with treasures waiting to be discovered. Some authors, may not like the idea of not getting paid for used books. But to me it’s not about money, it’s about sharing your sharing your talent with the world and leaving the footprints of your soul on the page of every book you write. That’s why I write.
I do shop at used bookstores because I enjoy finding a “treasure.” I qualify my treasure hunting by looking for books, especially art history books with book plates. Long ago, the reproductions of artworks on the bookplates were quality tested against the original artworks, thus are “true” images. I also enjoy finding Nancy Drew books from the 1950’s, again the artistic illustrations are interesting. My fav is a art book from the Hermitage in Russia with bookplates prior to WWII. (You might know that much art was lost during the war and I have some book plates of the lost art.)
I do pick up a “beach” read or “airport/airplane trip” read sometimes. I had not considered that the author’s do not directly benefit from the sales, however I do believe they benefit indirectly by having their work circulated. I have picked up used books, read it, liked it then became a follower of that author. But your point is certainly worthy of consideration.
I used to live near a city that had a lovely used bookstore in a huge old downtown building with multiple stories, odd little staircases, and rooms upon rooms of books. After several years of shopping there it was still not unheard of for someone in my family to stumble upon a room or nook that we’d never seen before. My kids have wonderful memories of the place, and through it we were all introduced to older, often out-of-print books that we would never have stumbled upon otherwise.
Nowadays I am more likely to buy used books from online vendors. The consideration of whether a book’s author will receive a royalty from my purchase is a valid one. I make the decision on a case-by-case basis. Because I write historical fiction, many of the nonfiction books I read for research are older; sometimes they are out of print and not available new, or newly issued in a better format, or back in print in an ECCO print edition. Sometimes I buy new books by authors whose existence I learned of while shopping at a used bookstore. Altogether, my reading life is far richer for the experience of browsing through secondhand books.