old books...

clb776

hi not sure this is the right place but i have come across some old books and wondered where is the best place to get a value on them? and then where would be the best place to sell? some of them are form the 1800s and others early 1900s, others are just random books! I know ebay is a good option however, i dont think they allow charging postage for an item!

Crowqueen

What are they?! :T - I love old books and although I've just completed my first trilogy and am about to start on a masters research course (next week!) I am researching for fiction writing. There are a lot of these items on eBay and they command some good prices. Not promising anything but take a look through the antique books category...

Most of the best places to sell impose postage caps, allowances or delivery-inclusive prices - it's how to keep sellers from massively overcharging, unfortunately. However, eBay allow a goodly amount for posting antique and collectable books and the normal book cap is £3.25, so this shouldn't be a problem unless you were planning on charging for time and petrol, which is frowned on as it makes you uncompetitive and should be paid for out of what you get for the items.

It was the case for a short while that they imposed free postage on books - which meant that you just charged the cost of the postage to the item price anyway - but they jiggled around with it.

Myself, if I'm selling at a BIN price I usually do the inclusive postage thing anyway - one price up front for the buyer - but at auctions I still lean towards a separate postage price.

eBay is by far the best place - a lot of the other smaller sites are going to be bereft of buyers, and Amazon and GreenMetropolis etc are both more suited for modern books as they mostly work on a catalogue system.

MissGivings_2

lucky you!

If you go with the books to a respected second hand bookshop they may give you an idea of prices. (and may offer you a good price there and then.)

Researching what others are selling in the category on eBay is extremely useful to learn what similar types of books are fetching, what will sell and successful methods and wording to use for selling etc

Be extremely careful about your description. It's distance selling and buyers expect you to describe very accurately each and every flaw and mark and the overall condition with good clear pictures too.

You can offer an attractive low or free postage and add that to a price you're happy to sell at, no less.

Best Wishes

madison-nyc

I manage a charity shop and use http://www.abebooks.co.uk/ check values , you can sell on there too , I never have though so not sure of fees etc.

porto_bello

I think you will probably find that to get the best price for the older books at least, it may be worth approaching the antiquarian booksellers.

It's worth shopping around though: I was once offered £10 by one seller for an illustrated set of childrens books, which another bookseller later paid £80 for. They each know their markets and whether they can sell something on for a profit.

soolin

Also never equate old with valuable. My most expensive books sold have all been less than 30 years old- even now i still have a box of books from the turn of the last century sitting here under my desk- all absolutely worthless. They went up on freegle but were never collected (twice) so I am just waiting for my next Oxfam run to drop them off.

Crowqueen

porto_bello wrote: »

I think you will probably find that to get the best price for the older books at least, it may be worth approaching the antiquarian booksellers.

It's worth shopping around though: I was once offered £10 by one seller for an illustrated set of childrens books, which another bookseller later paid £80 for. They each know their markets and whether they can sell something on for a profit.

To that end, it's best to look somewhere with a good market for books - a richer town like Henley or a university town such as Oxford is going to have better pickings than somewhere without that big market.

Soo - what sort of books are they?

chickenphil

If you look the book up on amazon books this often gives you a good guide price. Selling on Amazon is more expensive as they take various percentages of the book price, and the P&P price plus a sales commission. I have just come across the listbooks.co.uk website which allows you to list books with a suggested price for free. The buyer contacts you to arrange method of payment. There is no commission and a rating system for you to comment on sellers. I get the impression this is more commonly used for more recent books. There are numerous local auctions where you can set a reserve price but these normally charge 10 to 15% commission, there is no guarantee that you will get a good price there. good luck