This guide is meant to educate owners, and sellers of privately owned book collections, on the realities of the current book market.  People have the tendency to have an inflatted value of their book collection, but the cold fact is: supply and demand always sets the prices. In this guide I will answer 10 of the most common questions about the value of books.  Most of this information I have learned as a bookseller. I have researched, looked at, and handled new and used books for nearly ten years.  I have also done my homework. There are a lot of great resources on the Internet to get information about how to determine the value of books.

At this time I specialize in childrens books, new and used, hardcover books, CDs, DVDs.

1. Do all books have some value?

Reality is: no.  If you were to stand in front of a bookcase full of books, say 100, one or two of them will have enough value to make it worth  the effort of trying to sell it. You can do a quick check by going to an online book seller and enter your ISBN number.  A list of that book will come up for you to see the current price range.  You will quickly see that there is a glut of books for sale on the internet.  You will also see that many of those 100 books are dollar books, and many are ten cent books.

2. Do old books have value?

Reality is: not really. A hundred years ago there was no mass media like we have today, but there was a strong desire for content like we have today.  People wanted a source for entertainment, news, information, and books were written quickly to satsify the market.  Many of those works were produced so poorly that nobody would want to read them today, let alone collect them.

3. Do all signed books have value?

Reality is: A small percentage do.  Highly collectible authors make up a very small percentage of the signed books on the market.  If an unsigned book has value, the signature may get it sold faster, but unless the signature is collectible on its own, it's unlikely it will increase the value of the book. 

4. Do all first editions have value?

Reality is: not really.  The reason is most books were not good enough to demand another printing, and so they only exist as a first edition. Friends of the Library book stores have shelves full of new, hardcover copies of first editions on sale for fifty cents to a dollar.

5. Do bestsellers have value?

Reality is: If you were to check the online bookselling sites you will quickly learn that many of the top selling books today will be selling for $1.00 within a few months.  The reason is: oversupply. Best sellers are printed in huge numbers to satisfy the market's initial demand, but once that market is saturated, the suppy overwhelms the demand.  Thrifty readers wait several months to purchase their copy of a best seller and then find new, hardcover copies in excellent condition for fifty cents in a thrift store.  This is also true for childrens books, CDs and DVDs. Suppy and demand always sets the price of books on the market.  When the supply is high, the price of books is low.

6. Are scarce books valuable?

Reality is: Only books that are scarce AND in demand have value.  Most scarce books have little or no value because the original market did not demand large printings.  For example, an uncommon How To book published three hundred years ago may not have been wanted by many people back then and is still not wanted by a lot of people today.  I'm sure you are beginning to realize that suppy and demand always sets the price.

7. Do big books have value?

Reality is: they may be big and beautiful but they do not have much resale value. Some people call them coffee table books.  Most big books are very common. They are often mass-produced reprints that began their retail life on disply tables at the major book retailers.  The quickest way to determine if the book is a coffee-table-book reprint is the absence of a price on the inside of the dust jacket.  They may be big and beautiful but most of them will  not bring a big resale price.  Most likely you noticed that the discount tables in book stores are full of market down big books.

8. Do encyclopedia sets have value?

Reality is: almost nobody wants them any longer.  The internet has made the encylopedia outdated.  That may be hard to take if you paid hundreds of dollars for the set orginally, but time marches on and changes happen quickly.  The cold fact is that sets of encylopedias, in new condition, fill the shelves of used book stores.  Today you can pick up a beautiful hard bound set of encylopedias for ten to twenty dollars. I see them all the time. Now everyone can go to Wikipeda and other online excylopedia services to start their research project, and it's free.

9. Do collectible books in bad condition still have high value?

Reality is: Rarely.  Condition still ranks as the number one critical factor in setting the value for a collectible anything, especially a book. No matter how old the book is, collectors expect the most and see no reason to accept poor condition at any age, unless forced to by absolute sacrcity.

10. Are big collections worth more?

Reality is: Only if the individual books have value.  Anyone can accumulate a large collection of books.  Matter of fact, if you do not guard your shelf space, your shelves will fill up with books before you know it.  If a collection is specialized, it may have appeal to the right buyer, but there has to be a interested buyer. A pile of near worthless books has as much value as one near worthless book, it's all about supply and demand.

This guide is meant to present the cold fact of todays book market.  If your books do not have much resale value you can always denote them to a thrift store or Friends of the Library book store and get a tax receipt.  Don't throw them away.  Some of your books may have resale value.  If you don't have the time or desire to research the value of your books contact me new-vision-2008. Visit my eBay store: Books for Eager learners.