QUESTION: Is there a better way to get used books for resale than to pick them up by hand at library sales? For example, do you know of a case where good stocks were obtained from bulk library sales? Surely there are many libraries that would see the benefit of disposing of “unfiltered” books in bulk rather than waiting for them to be sold one at a time or not at all.
ANSWER: One thing I don’t mention on “The Home-Based Bookstore” is that I’ve pulled a lot of good books out of the library bins. The particular trash bins that I’ve pulled books out of had no trash, thank goodness, just books. I’ve gotten quite a few books worth over $ 100 each from the library trash cans.
So I think public libraries get a ton of book donations (and they have some discards that are valuable too) and they just don’t go to the trouble of trying to sell them all. So from time to time, I’ve thought about reaching out to libraries in my area and asking if I could handle their discards. The ones I wanted, I’d keep, the others I’d get rid of. I’ve just never gotten to do this.
On the other hand, many public libraries are starting to sell the cream of their donated holdings online. Whether that’s the way they want to handle their donations is up to them, but book finders have a harder time finding good books at library sales when stocks have been selected.
I know of a guy who started out as a part-time Amazon seller, who created a company to store the library’s book discards / donations, and the libraries received a portion of the proceeds, and I assume that the libraries get a tax deduction . I imagine it would involve a lot of paperwork and cleaning, but it is an idea to get scale.