|
This is how books circulate.
Does any one of you do what I do?
I would buy a new book from Amazon. When it arrives, spanking new and creaseless, I would be very careful in handling it, treating the book like a treasure, trying not to crease or damage it.
I recently accidentally bought The Creep Show - a comics book and a copy of the original IT by Stephen King. When both books arrived, they were spanking new. The book "IT" appears to be in its original uncut version as it is at least 130 pages more than the one I had in stock. The one I had in stock was an old book I collected in the 80s.
To protect the new books, I ended up plastic-wrapped them both and putting them both on my bookshelf.
Then I went to ebay to buy those crummy old used books that they sell the whole bunch as a lot, but the lot has that same book that I have just bought from Amazon. So I bought the lot to have the used books as my reading books.
Now, I may end up with some extra used books, some of which are already in my collection. I would wheel them off to the used bookstores in Toronto to sell them. So much fun!!!
Now, I'm sure those used book stores will advertise on ebay again to sell them by the lot. So, there you go... That's how books circulate, and they are priceless!!!
~ Sandie May Joyce, 07/21/2022
|
Miyanna
I'm in the same boat as you are regarding the book sales - I don't know how to market myself. I enjoyed writing the stories, but that's about it.
"Writing is a hard field for making money," I remember someone told me when I announced to my folks and colleagues at work that I was planning to be a writer.
Unfortunately, we have a weird family that only favors a few who are very successful and that they would outshine everyone else's success and achievement. I don't mind that because I do what I do to make myself happy. I enjoyed writing stories, in fact, more than I do in poetry. I think I suck in poetry. I feel that storytelling and writing give me a wide range of imagination to write and tell, and that's what I enjoy most. It's like I am a creator of a world that belongs to me.
I don't look for my family to praise me, which they seldom do. In their eyes, my sister was the one who was the smartest and who would outshine everyone else in the family.
However, my dad DID tell me before he passed away that I was doing well. He had often celebrated my promotions at work or any little success I had ever since he and my mom chose to come to Canada to be with us. My dad would call for a trip to Chinatown to pigout whenever I received a promotion at work.
I gave my books away at Christmas, signed and dated with personal greetings as gifts to my friends and relatives. I rarely heard from my relatives about how they felt about my books, except for Uncle Red - my husband's uncle. He praised me for how I wrote my story, especially the dialogues. He said they sounded so real. So, I was happy about that. Uncle Red is my mother-in-law's brother.
I have always liked collecting hard copies of books. I am not in favor of online reading. Holding a REAL BOOK in my hands to read is a much-preferred form of enjoyment. Well, at least, for me anyway.
Old books are valuable, especially those from the Book Club edition and the first editions of books. They are worth more money than the ones sold and resold in the stores and online. Some sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay, and some even exceed a thousand.
My daughter and I have been books collector for the longest time. My daughter collected many historical books, some of which are the first edition written by the people who were truly there while the events were happening. She's got one old book of the first edition about the French Revolution, written by the original guy who wrote the French revolution. I believe that book may be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. She has a lot of vintage first editions, gifted to her by the owner of the world's largest bookstore, which had closed down several years ago. She was a friend of the owner because she was a frequent customer of his bookstore. My daughter liked chatting with him because he was very knowledgeable in history. Too bad the largest bookstore in the world had to close down because our PM Trudeau hiked up the taxes, and with 68,000 sq. ft., the owner would have to pay a lot of taxes which probably would exceed the number of his sales. Trudeau has made a lot of businesses close down. So bad!
Thank you for your response to my article!
Sandie
I am thinking, since all my books are already on eBay, that I should perhaps sell my books is that of those outlandish prices I see at a reasonable price signed by me and delivered. But I haven't sold anything on eBay, only bought the painting for charity 11 years ago that I have since returned to the University gallery.
However, I have a lot of old books that I inherited from my cottage in West Virginia and brought all the way here to Houston. Plus some first editions of classics from monthly book clubs that I got from my grandmother after she died but have never read. I'm just not a book reader, trying to hold a book, straining my neck causing pain and numbness. I just gave up after my doctorate reading books so much. All of them from a desktop. Just a few from AD of the many I have. Computer reading, even the best, puts me sleep.
Knowing that most of my family would not want the books, I'm getting ready to sell them on eBay. We'll see how that goes.