Comments | fashion_piranha: Essay: Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman

fashion_piranha

Essay: Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman

Oct 10, 2010 13:32

Original essay here: http://www.slate.com/id/2268000/pagenum/all/

Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman
I spend 80 hours a week trawling junk shops with a laser scanner. I don't feel good about it.
By Michael Savitz
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010, at 10:18 AM ET

I make a living buying and selling used books. I browse the racks of thrift stores and ( Read more... )

books, bookseller, news

Comments 6

juushika October 23 2010, 17:22:01 UTC

That was unexpectedly fascinating.

janicu October 23 2010, 18:11:14 UTC

I've seen these guys too. I think that knowing these guys are buying books to make a profit, not for pleasure, bothers readers but in the end they're not really doing anything wrong. What does bug me is: the noise of those scanners! Beeep. Pause. Beeep. It is really irritating!

fashion_piranha October 23 2010, 18:14:01 UTC

Yes. Oh MAN is that sound annoying!

deathjoy October 23 2010, 19:52:16 UTC

I've never seen the scanners in particular, but I know of a few people who will browse resale shops for things of value (including books) to sell on ebay/amazon etc. It's a good way to earn some extra money. I've done it myself. If I see a popular book at the salvation army for 50 cents and I know I can get 5 bucks on ebay I'll pick it up to sell.

elfbiter October 24 2010, 11:21:58 UTC

I know a lady who goes to flea markets to buy barbie dolls (that are worth next to nothing in Finland) and sells them for profit in eBay. And i may pick up an foreign-language book for pittance because I can exchange them for something more interesting over the 'net.

elfbiter October 24 2010, 11:19:28 UTC

There doesn't appear to be people like that in Finland even thought that I know many people in used book sales and the Old Books Fair are there for making a living. Still, two owners of local secondhand bookstores are disliked for their "business sense"; the other one keeps his prices very high which means that the average local prices of the used books have increased because otherwise the guy just comes in, buys the book and then puts in for sale in his own store (that has increased the cost of old E. R. Burroughs books to high heaven, for example). The other one at least used to boast about the amount of money he makes by _selling_ books and once, when he was was visiting another store, tried to buy the books a potential customer was selling to the store for _himself_ (not a an appropriate behavior ( ... )