Crafts:

Many buyers do not take the crafts section seriously. This is unfortunate for them and great for us. Books on quilting sell fast and have real value. There are many older out of print books that sell for well over a hundred dollars.

Medical:

Medical books are notoriously expensive. This value passes through to us as used book retailers. There is a trade off though; medical books may be slow to sell. It is easy to begin filling your shelves with two hundred dollar books that may not sell for several years. This is where you must weigh the balance between cost, return, and your storage space.

Fiction:

Buying fiction is a much more difficult skill than scanning codes on nonfiction books. You will need to educate yourself about collectible and first edition fiction. To do this we recommend that you add a couple of books to your home research library.

The first, useful while scouting is Bill McBride’s, A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions. This is a hand portable reference that covers most of the topics you will need while scouting. It’s inexpensive and will pay for itself immediately. No bookseller should scout without it.

The second is Edward N. Zempel’s, First Editions: A Guide to Identification. Zempel has created the best research tool available, dealing with first editions. Zempel’s guide has become the industry standard and we strongly recommend that it be added to your library before you begin listing first editions.

We don’t recommend that you use a scouting tool to work your way through the fiction section. There are simply too many books without value to have to sift through. The key is to educate yourself to identify the books with value when you glance across the shelves.

Next lesson, Doing your research.