Day 124/365 Book Lots (And Lots and Lots and Lots)

Another hot humid Virginia Saturday -and another round of book sales. Actually this time one book sale, and two church rummage sales where I bought all their books (just about).

This is where I like to find my paperbacks. After 10 years of selling all my books on ebay, during late 2008 I pulled all my single titles off (moved them to Amazon), and now I only sell boxed lots of specific authors or genres on ebay. (That green hardback, sitting on the edge, is about to be quarantined with dryer sheets and sealed shut in a zip lock bag -the title is: Thomas Jefferson American Tourist by Edward Dumbauld, 1946. It's a personal purchase, albeit a stinky, musty one).

I don't know about you, but when I find a good author, I want to read ALL their books. And I want to read them NOW. There's nothing I like better than finding out a good book is part of a series, and, better still, that the series has all been published, and I don't have to wait for the next installment.

Boxed lots are the perfect answer for impatient readers like myself. Like Sue Grafton and her alphabet mysteries (A is for Alibi, B is for Burglar, etc)? Look for my boxed lot on ebay (price includes shipping). If I don't have one up, email me, and I'll see what I do have. I lack the energy to have all of these sets sorted by author, photo'd, and listed at one time - there's approx 7,000 books out there - but there's a good chance I have the authors you're looking for.

Price-wise it can't be beat. Prices usually start around $13.99 and can go as high as $99.99 (includes shipping). A box of 100 large-print westerns for $99.99 (these are hardbacks and generally sell new for no less than $15.99 each - so buy them boxed and used -and save yourself $1500.

Currently, I've got a couple lots of 100 assorted mysteries listed at $69.99 - but the retail value is approximately $4.99 each minimum, so buying the boxed lot saves you around $430.00

All this financial figuring came about because on the way home it dawned on me I bought 230 books this morning, and the retail value would be approximately $1380 (I guessed an average new retail price of $6 each).

Holy cow.

Judging from the pictures, any fan of Lilian Jackson Braun (The Cat Who mystery series) will shortly be making out like a bandit, likewise Robert B. Parker mystery readers. Somewhere in here is a box of Tom Clancy, Elmore Leonard, Marian Babson, Richard North Patterson, James Lee Burke, Clive Cussler, Edna Buchanan, and of course, homeschool classics (just in time for stocking up for the coming school year, or summer reading).

Next week will be romance batching week.

I really have to watch the romance books - they breed like rabbits.

The Very Virile Viking, The Hunky Highlander, The Captivating Cowboy or The Panting Pirate - you can't leave any of them alone for a minute.

Day 102/365 My Life Is An Open Book

Or 10,000 open books anyway.

It's Big Book Sale Season again (versus Monthly Book Sale season). Wednesday was one of our two annual setups for a library sale in a county just north of here. Meaning we hauled home 7 boxes of books that day, including lots of military history for DD.


Today, after letting our backs recouperate a couple days, we went back for the Box Sale. At a library sale that's usually the last day, when all the remaining books are sold by the boxful for a set price, in this case $2.00 per box. I LOVE BOX SALES!

And there's always good books that have been missed. Today there were 15 boxes of good books. Lots of paperbacks, and even a few vintage hardbacks that were donated at the last minute, so the main crowds missed them completely.

Of course I rescued a copy of The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon (my favorite author, out of many favorite authors). I have a policy of buying copies of her books whenever I see them - paperback or hardback - leaving them in a library sale or thrift shop would be too much like leaving good friends on the shelf. As a result that means I have at least 10 copies or more of each of her books. Several complete sets. Sets with dust jacket artwork from around the world. At least one complete set that is signed by the author herself. At least three sets that have been adopted out to carefully vetted adoptive homes. I retain visitation rights, with no prior notice.

Lots of history here -several of these will go in the homeschool classic lots. By the time I am done sorting paperbacks, my eyes are swimming and all the books look the same.

Except those irritating oversized paperbacks. Not quite trade paperbacks, but longer than regular paperbacks. They pack easily........nowhere.

I want the name of the guy who thought those were a good idea.

Day 10/365 One of My Obsession.......Book Sales

Yep.

It was book sale day.

Again.

We *did* donate 5 boxes to the sale, but then somehow managed to come home with another 5.

For those lucky enough not to enjoy this particular family hobby, here's how it works, for an ebay bookseller.

The night before, I load empty boxes in the back of the van, then the boxes of books we are donating to the sale, then our own two-wheeler to move the boxes. Then I remind child that we'll be getting up very early the next day to get to the sale.

The next morning I spend approximately 45 min dragging child out of bed, because she stayed up late in spite of needing to get up early.

Then we make a quick stop at the post office to ship books and another quick stop to get breakfast and something with either caffeine or sugar (or both) in it. Then we drive anywhere from 20 min to an hour (this morning's sale was the one with the hour drive).

Sometimes we are just attending a sale, but once a month we set up the sale for our local library, and twice a year we set up a sale for another county 's library (DH works in that county system, so we got drafted). That sale is this morning's destination.

Now, the last sale was at the end of March, so we thought there couldn't possibly be that many books donated already and it would be a quick set-up.

Wrong.

Someone's house apparently exploded with books and they sent them all to this branch. There are boxes and boxes and boxes of books, possibly the most they have ever had at one of these sales (and we've been doing this set-up for the last 7 years). Two hours into the setup, there are still 69 boxes of books remaining in the storage shed.

The first step is to set up all the tables and guess-timate which way the
wind blows with the donated books: will there be more fiction this month, or more non-fiction, or more paperbacks? Tables are designated, signs are made, and the sorting-of-the-books starts. Every box appears to have at least one of every type of book in it, so you either run all over placing books on their tables, or you make tall piles of teetering books, and everyone walks in the little paths between them.

Usually we have some "volunteers" from the local jail to help haul books in but not this morning. My daughter commandeers (and those of you who know her totally understand the use of this word) two 12-year-olds and trains them in on how to pack boxes on the 2-wheelers, how to maneuver it over the ramp, and how to drop the boxes off in the sale room and come back out in an orderly manner. She is the Stalin of the book shed, the Napoleon of the 12-year-olds and the Churchill of the labor force when negotiating for snacks and cold water. All 150 boxes are moved inside in an efficient manner, pretty much because she expects nothing less.

Unfortunately, the boxes are unpacked and sorted in a much less efficient manner, partly because book lovers are doing it, and we keep seeing books we like and paging through them, and talking about them, and recommending them to the other book lovers, who are busy paging through other books, and talking about them, and recommending them to us.

As a result there are books filling the tables, books filling the chairs,
books still in boxes, books that have been sorted and put into new boxes, which are then triple-stacked underneath their appropriate tables, which are already loaded with books.

Plus this sale has tons of VHS videos, books-on-tape, boxed sets of records, all sorts of magazines, but oddly only three sets of encyclopedias, only one box of National Geographics, and no boxes of large-print Harlequins.

And there's still people walking in with more bags of books to donate.
I'm thinking someone should lock the door.

Today's volunteers are all old-timers - everyone knows what they are doing, and it gets done, more or less. About mid-afternoon, someone mentions how odd it is that the sale profits are going to pay for the children's summer reading program, but everyone volunteering actually lives in another county and none of them even have little children. This leads to a spirited discussion of why none of the parents of the benefitted children have bothered to show up. No resolution of the topic, just a spirited discussion.

So why do we volunteer to do this? Simple. My name is Carole and I am a book addict. I am also an ebay bookseller, but if I am totally honest, I would still go to book sales even if I wasn't a bookseller, because I simply cannot resist a book, any book. History, biography, gardening, romance, philosophy, homeschool stuff, non-fiction, horror, science fiction, fantasy, old leather-bound books, you name it, I'll suck it up. Daughter grabs all the military, weapons, martial arts and religion books (that combo just begs for a psychological evaluation I know).

One of the perks of doing the set-up (other than the chance to get up early and drive for an hour and move 150 boxes of books) is getting to shop and buy while sorting books. Translation: we get all the good stuff.

That's how we ended up bringing home 5 boxes of books. It's all the good stuff. That's where it is. At our house.

Along with the other zillion boxes of good stuff we already had.