QUESTION: I live in Colorado and there always seems to be library sales in bordering states. Is it worth traveling to a sale?
Now obviously, I wouldn’t go to a sale that was advertising only 6,000 books. My question is, have you traveled a few hundred miles to go to sales? Is there a criteria you set, such as a sale must have at least 60,000 books?
ANSWER: I’ve traveled up to 250 miles for a sale, and my experiences have been all over the map. Some of them have been super, and I’ve gotten tons of books, and other sales have been an absolute waste of time.
Book scouting is somewhat like antique-hunting: Sometimes the biggest, most heavily advertised opportunities are a bust, but you strike gold in a well-hidden spot nobody else discovered.
The worst sale I’ve ever been to was one of the biggest (and, ironically, very close). This is an annual, heavily promoted charity booksale right here in my backyard in Virginia. In retrospect, I figured the reason they had so many books was they are still trying to sell the duds that haven’t sold in previous years.
Books don’t grow on trees, so if you’re going to be a full-time bookseller it’s essential to travel a bit. We’ve got to seize the opportunity when it comes; there are only so many sales. I’ve never had a firm requirement of how many books the sale needs to have, but I do like to know there’s going to be at least 10,000 books available, going by the listings on Book Sale Finder.
My typical book sale trip is only about 15 miles. Most of the good sales are on Fridays or Saturdays, usually at the same time. So I try to hit all the sales happening during my area on a weekend. Nowadays I reserve my long-distance trips for weekends with no good local sales. The grass isn’t always greener somewhere else, but …
I’m always on the lookout for books, even while on vacation. It’s great if you can write off part of your travel costs as a business expense. If you’re interested in book-finding road trips there’s a great little book about it called Bookstore Tourism.
One Comment
I’ve done 320 before! nuts! I use Book Sale Scout more and more because I get more data. Like whether or not the library has skimmed the inventory- the comments are helpful, but few leave them.