One of the continuing problems for secondhand book sellers is when people want to sell you books.
There’s the people who bring loads of books in any kind of condition; good, bad or just awful, and expect you to pay retail prices for them. They just miss seeing that you still have to pay for expenses and storage and don’t forget that you actually want to make a profit. I’m actually not sure what they’re thinking at that point, but it isn’t about the book seller making a profit. I sometimes bargain with them for the books I want for me, but generally suggest they sell them on eBay or Oztion themselves as it’s not worth my while to pay the prices they’re asking.
Then there are the people who insist on trying to tell you their books are fabulous. They might be in fabulous condition as if they haven’t been read, but are a-dime-a-dozen and not worth paying anything at all. They might be fabulous titles but are in such dreadful condition that they only place for them is the recycling bin. The Book Shop Blog makes this last point very nicely hence the title of this blog.
There are two things that hurt me the most when people offer me books. One is when they’re great books and I just don’t have the cash due to being in a poor cash flow situation and the other is when I have to turn them down due to having no space. It’s just one of the problems I face due to working from home. I might blog about working from home another time after the Doctor Who meeting at our place on Saturday.