MAKE MONEY FROM SELLING YOUR BOOKS A Beginner’s Guide

Auction houses,dealers and websites offer different routes to anyone looking to sell a book. Oliver Robinsonexplores the available options

The simplicity and mass-market appeal of e-Bay has spawned a new generation of booksellers. These pale-skinned technophiles might lack the expertise of waspish dealers and auction house sharp-suits but, nevertheless, share the same obsession with the bottom line. The internet is but one option among many. The biggest challenge as an individual seller is finding the right marketplace for your books. have Where you choose will depend on what you have to sell and your reason for selling. An internet site such as eBay may well be the best place for an attic-room stash of used books. For rare books or a substantial family library, however, there are other more lucrative avenues. Auction houses and dealers will happily take fine books off you. But they will charge you a premium for their services, and unlike eBay, the language of the book world is intimidatingly arcane. Who should novices trust, and where should they go to seek enlightenment and, more importantly, a sure buck?

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A Beginner’s Guide

THE AUCTION HOUSE

Most auctions are still a wholesale market where book dealers go to buy stock. At the very top of the market, however, auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s now also cater for private sellers. They have endeavoured to make the process of buying and selling at auction less mysterious and most will welcome consignments ranging from vast libraries to a single heirloom. With a bequest of fine or rare books, an auction house is therefore an excellent bet for the novice. Most auction houses have substantial press and marketing budgets. They are able to produce lavish catalogues and will a considerable database of potential buyers. “We can market books on a large scale in a way that dealers can’t,” says David Goldthorpe at Sotheby’s. The ability of auction houses to match specific books to a pool of specific buyers is key. “Auction houses are the most adept at finding the right target market for a book,” says Richard Caton at Bloomsbury Auctions. “They bring the best buyers to high quality vendors. If you’re putting in your modern first edition it will go into a specialist sale. The auction house will have a database replete with all of its modern first buyers.” For really rare discoveries the auction houses are able to mobilise national press and TV around the world. The imminent sale of a Shakespeare First Folio at Sotheby’s has reached audiences on all the primetime news channels and has also been picked up by the international press. The same kind of process, if on a smaller scale, will occur for unusual items or large family collections. As well as considerable marketing resources, the novice seller will also benefit from the auctioneer’s expertise. Crispin Jackson at Christie’s says, “You will be given advice on value

whereas on the internet if you have no prior knowledge of the book world, I don’t know how you would decide a price. And you might not know about the importance of condition.” Of course, at the auction house there is a premium to be paid for this knowledge and marketing know-how. They will take a cut of the sale from the vendor and the buyer. The commission for private vendors is typically 15 per cent. There might also be costs for insurance against damage or loss, and an illustration fee if it appears in a catalogue. Auctions don’t take place everyday so you might have to wait a while before your books are sold. But in terms of achieving a satisfactory price, auction houses have a significant advantage over dealers and the internet says Goldthorpe. “On the day of the sale, people compete for books so it’s not just one buyer as it would be if you sold to a dealer or posted it on the internet.” “If your concern is maximising your revenue from a collection then the auction house is by far the best place,” agrees Jackson. Auction houses are confident of attaining high prices because of the drama of the auction room. At home or in the office bidding on the internet, common sense will always prevail. But the charged atmosphere of an auction room can eliminate all traces of the rational world and force prices up which is always good news for the seller. It is also the most sociable way of selling. “Buying and selling at auction is good fun, it makes the whole process more interesting than lugging your books up to the Charing Cross Road and maybe being ripped off by an unscrupulous dealer,” says Caton. Most crucially, perhaps, for the novice vendor is that your best interests coincide with those of the auction house; your mutual goal is to achieve the highest price possible. “If you go through a dealer, the dealer has other costs to consider. It is not in his interest to pay top whack,” says Goldthorpe. By working out of self-interest the auction house is also working in the best and most cost-effective way for the vendor.

THE BOOK DEALER

Most auction houses will only be interested in selling expensive books or large collections. They don’t bother with lower priced items because it is too costly and time consuming to

catalogue them. More modest books are best taken to a dealer, or if they are simply used paperbacks then sold on the internet. Books in a specialist field will certainly be worth taking to a suitable shop. As London dealer Robert Frew says, “Within a specialist field you can do much better selling to a specialist bookseller who has a specialist clientele who will offer a higher price than an auction house can obtain.” Selling to a dealer, you will also avoid paying commission and it can save you a lot of time. One of the disadvantages of being a novice is that you are unlikely to be familiar with the terminology of the book world. A dealer will be able to describe the condition of your books, catalogue them and give you a fair price.

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