Binging On Books

I’ve had a cold the past couple days which is why I haven’t been lurking over here. I never really took to the couch, just sort of dragged around doing what needed to get done. Otherwise I spent most of my time sneezing and trying to buy books on ebay. Usually I’m rather lucky with this, but in the past couple days I bid on six and got none. One of them I really wanted too – a gorgeous, and I do mean gorgeous early copy of Cecily Barker’s The Flower Fairies with a DUSTJACKET and 72 plates rendered in saturated color. I took the bidding to $150, but lost in the last couple seconds. My only consolation was that the “winner” did too because the reserve wasn’t met.

So this morning, in a fit of desperation (no estate sales this weekend), I hit ebay again with a new tactic. Instead of trying to hold my ground on the higher end stuff, I decided to bid the minimum on stuff that would either be a.) great for the mall or b.) profitable online, but of interest only to a small audience which means a slow turn-around. I left five bids which I will not change. This time it’s a deliberate crap-shoot. I figure it’s kind of like buckshot – shoot a bunch of it over there and some of it’s bound to stick. I know what you’re thinking because one of you already mentioned this to me. Why am I feeling bereft of books when we just bought that mountain of boxes from the House of Torture?

The short answer is I know for a fact that they contain only a small number of additional online titles (I had sequestered some and already listed them and all that’s left to be found are the sequestered ones I hastily packed after the explosion) and a larger, but by no means huge, amount for the antiques mall. The rest go straight to the store. Even the ones for the mall, though reasonably plentiful, don’t get me out of the woods because they are ALL military and I’m loathe to turn my booth into Wars-R-US which means it will be a gradual process. (Whoa! I just won four auctions -- a town history for online, ten magazines which could go either way, an antiquarian title on the Brownings in Italy for the mall, and a coal mining equipment catalog from 1935  for online. NOW we’re talking! If I get the last one, the antiquarian two volume leather set of essays, I’ll be batting a hundred, or a thousand, or whatever it is you bat when life is good.

Lest you think all I did yesterday was hang around on the internet, I did add some new listings too. As I’ve mentioned many times, the fastest way to jumpstart your sales is to add new titles. You may not sell those, but you’ll sell something else at least. I don't know if it works that way everywhere but it does on ABE and of all my current sites ABE loves me best. Except for an $80 book about a Hessian mercenary in the American Revolution and a $30 book on the Dobama Movement in Burma, I confined myself to adding magazines and paper this time. I had been stockpiling books for the antiquarian show, but in a moment of hysteria after Christmas I listed a boxed set of six fantasy novels by Andre Norton from the Witch World series which contained a rare Witch World map. I thought I was safe because even though I was the only one who had the map I was twice as high as everybody else at $75. You got it – they sold yesterday on ABE after being online a mere twelve days.

There’s no question that books sell faster than magazines and paper which is why I HAVE to engage in this buying frenzy. I have a ton of magazines and paper and a scarcity of books. However, magazines and paper HAVE been selling on ABE this week. Two customers bought multiple issues of the very elegant Double Gun magazine, one bought ten china painting magazines, and I just sold a 1925 travel booklet for an around the world cruise for $35. So no complaints.

Meanwhile I expect the buying binge to continue, especially since I won my final auction just this second for the two volume leather bound set. Buying online isn’t the easiest way to replenish your stock, and it’s definitely not as cheap, but there’s one big advantage. I COULD be huddled in some estate sale line tomorrow shivering in the snow, or I could be here in my sweats sitting in my fabulous purple chair drinking coffee from my favorite mug with the green pear on it.

Truth is -- I'd rather go to an estate sale.