This last week has been both long and busy which seems like a contradiction since busy days tend to fly by and long ones plod. But Eric is in Indiana for a trade show and I am holding down the fort here which means my life shifts back and forth from frenetic to ordinary with the few inevitable stops at BORING. I never much liked that stop called Boring – there’s nobody interesting to talk to and you can’t even get a decent glass of wine.
The good news is that every night at five-thirty the phone rings and there on the other end of the line is the voice that even after all these years still makes me believe that God’s in Her heaven and all’s right with the world. Mostly we share minor events back and forth, report the day’s sales in both Ohio and Indiana, and laugh at the latest antics of the little guys in Michigan. But Saturday was a red letter day because THE MAN BOUGHT SOME BOOKS! The surprising part of it is I had previously made an offer for these books by mail some weeks ago, but the owner felt he could get more for them elsewhere and declined it. As it turns out, he couldn’t, so he brought them to the show in hopes that the offer still held. I can’t remember how many volumes there were – I think maybe a dozen for which I offered $200 – so I was very pleased. Only a couple really gave me palpitations, particularly one on powder horns which I’ve had before, but in this late summer of our book acquisition discontent I’m practically tap dancing on the ceiling with joy to have them.
Of course the bad part is that once the books get here at the end of the week (this is a looooooong show and will be almost immediately followed by another Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Long Show (a gold star for anyone who knows where that was borrowed from) it will take me exactly one day to list them. ONE DAY! And then I’ll be back scraping things up off the closet floor again hoping to find a gem instead of a dust bunny. However, I do have a singular line of defense -- I’ve once again returned to my old hobby of ferreting out online bargains. It’s fun to shop in your pjs and fuzzy socks fortified by a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and a mug of mint tea so hot it would burn the varnish off the floor. Not only is the world your book sale, but you’re never crowded, never have to endure the great unwashed (I mean that LITERALLY!) and never have to nail your selections to the floor to keep them safe. AND you don’t have to wait in line for three hours, and nobody rushes you, elbows you, snatches books from your hand, or, as at one memorable sale, shoves you into a box of books and causes your lower back to go into spasm.
On the flip side, online inventory building is a very, very time-consuming process unless you have Bookthink’s handy software to speed it up, which I don’t, but am considering springing for. I’m not sure how it works exactly, but I suspect you fill in the parameters of what you want and it crawls all over ebay, alerting you if it makes a match. (Is this right, Kristian? If not – here’s your chance to SELL this thing!) As it stands now, I’m just sitting on the dock of “the bay” hoping to snag a bargain. I had a good one on the hook this afternoon, but it was an auction and I forgot about it until the book sold at a price so ridiculously low the seller is probably drowning his sorrows as we speak. I did remember an auction last week though and got a drop-dead gorgeous set of children’s books from 1910 – twelve beauties, like new in their original wooden carton with the title stenciled on the box and the original postage stamps adhered to the back! Even weighing in at 26 pounds, I got a great deal on an unusual item which will be perfect for shows in the spring if I don’t break down and list them before then.
As for ebay, I already know what you’re thinking. I’m supposed to be mad at ebay, which I am, but here’s the thing. Refusing to pay their ever-burgeoning seller fees for declining sales and drawing the line at jumping through flaming hoops like a trick monkey is one thing. But profiting from them is another. Business, after all, is business. And I'm sure they'd be the first to agree.
2 comments:
Hello Tess:) Although I have been busy enough buying books in the real world as of late, I have definitely used BookHunt to add to my inventory, as well as my personal collection. I have found some wonderful deals on bookends (for my booth at the Antique Mall), local history and perennial hot sellers. I have found that it works especially well in your areas of specialization and with Buy it Now items priced to sell. Also, I use it in conjunction with AuctionSniper, which I also highly recommend if you don't already use:) Let me know if you have any more specific questions, and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. Oh yeah, another nice feature is that you can set it to pop-up on your desktop at specific time intervals as new items are listed, so that you are the first to know.
Thanks Kristian. This is great info -- not just for me, but for readers too. I think I'm going to do BookHunt. I don't care too much about AuctionSniper, though who knows? I could be a later convert. I'm usually the one busy buying in real life too, but right now I'm in the dead zone. I appreciate the help as always!
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