Book Pricing – How to Determine Book Values Part 1

A question I get asked a lot when people find out we sell used, modern first editions, and rare books on eBay is how we set our book pricing, or, in other words, how do we determine book values for the items we sell (and sometimes buy for our own collection).

Whether you’re going to sell books you own, going to search for books to sell, or just want to insure what you have for its actual value, you need to have some way to figure it out, don’t you?

To answer the question about book pricing, I tell them it’s part art and part science.

With millions and millions of books out there, some valuable and quite a few that aren’t (at least not from a resale or even collecting point of view), you need to have a good working knowledge of authors, titles, and trends before you dive in. There are quite a few online resources you can use to help you determine book values, part of what I call the ’science’ part of the process.

However, no one can teach you to have a feel for future trends – I think it’s one of those innate abilities you either have or don’t have – but you can discover what’s currently hot and use that to figure out what the books you have may be worth and try to apply it to what may become hot.

By the way, note I said ‘may be worth’ – that’s where the art part of determining book values comes in. A book is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it and finding that person is more than half the battle… Other extremely important book pricing factors include ‘condition, condition, condition,’ with rarity, popularity, topic and presentation coming in right behind. Another deciding factor is just who and how many people are actually looking for that title at THAT moment. In fact, the rarer the book and the more valuable, the more you have to find a way to make sure the right people with enough money see it if you want to actually get top dollar.

Most of that you’d think was common sense, but I see so many books (and other stuff) offered for sale where the seller hasn’t taken any or all of that into consideration (and probably wonders why they can’t seem to make any money selling online!)

So, if I haven’t scared you off yet of wanting to learn how to figure out what your books may be worth, then check out the next entry Book Pricing – How to Determine Book Values Part 2, where I’ll give you info on the online resources available for doing just that.

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