Book Supplies
 

Books about books: Identifying first editions (by which we mean 1st printings of a first edition) is a never ending process of learning, and accumulation of references. A good first step is a pocket guide to identifying first editions, and a pocket guide to the "points" of problematic collected books. Zempel's Guide goes into much more detail. The other books referenced here are tales of adventures in the book world, each amusing and/or informative in it's own peculiar way.

Cleanup: A clean book is a happy book. Most price labels can be easily lifted by aiming a hair dryer and lifting slowly. After a quick vacuum or soft brushing, GooGone is great for removing sticker residue and light surface dirt from glossy dustjackets, not for use on matte finish jackets. Absorene is good for removing dirt from jacketless books and matte finish jackets, and the absorene dirt eraser is handy for cleaning embedded dust from page edges. Light pencil marks can be easily erased with a high quality eraser. More details and situations can be found in Jane Greenfield's excellent paperback.

Collectible Books: Better books may benefit from an archival cover to protect the dustjacket.

Packaging: Books need to be properly protected to get safely to the buyer. Bubble mailers are sufficient for light paperbacks and hardcovers. I add a piece of scrap cardboard to paperbacks to prevent bending, and put everything in a poly bag to prevent covers and dustjackets from catching on the bubbles as the book is being slid in and out of the mailer. Don't rely on the self-adhesive, tape over the flap. For heavier paperbacks and most hardcovers, wrap in bubble wrap and PLEASE use a box to prevent damage to the corners.

Scouting: Many booksellers augment their own knowledge of books with a lookup service using a PDA. A Dell Axim x51 with a laser scanner and a 2 GB SD memory card is all the hardware needed. An SD Card Reader is needed to just plug the card into a USB port and treat it like a disk drive. This makes the periodic dasta downloads much quicker and more reliable. ASellerTool (www.asellertool.com) is one of the leading services for providing market data from Amazon in a form used by the PDA. Feel free to use my username "sten" as a reference. (Yes, I also get 1 month of service free if you do!)

Other Office Equipment: Taking good photos of books can help them sell themselves, whether selling books on eBay or selling books on Amazon. A digital camera can be had for less than $100. A barcode scanner for the PC speeds up the listing process. A multi-function laser printer for cover scanning and geneal printing, and a thermal label printer for mailing labels. Most bookselling activities are performed online. A PC needs to be reliable, not necessarily super high performance. A decent sized monitor will make those hours spent in front of it much more pleasant.