For many years I’ve been making a twice a year round trip of 460 miles to a university town of about 17,000 people in Minnesota for their semi-annual AAUW book sale.
The sale has never had a preview and always starts at 10:00 Friday morning. I usually leave early Thursday morning and poke around the antique shops and malls between here and there. I stay overnight in a motel, grab breakfast in the morning, and if I’m in line by 8:00 there are usually roughly 10 to 20 people in line ahead of me. By the time the doors open at 10:00 there are 200 plus people waiting in line to get in.
They always have between 25,000 and 35,000 books with nearly all of them priced between $.50 and $1.00. If they feel they have something special, it gets priced at $2.00. Most years this is one of the three most productive book sales I go to.
Their next sale takes place in a little more than one month and a few days ago I received a notice of the sale in the mail.
The notice I got was pretty much a carbon copy of what has been sent out for the last five or six years except for one line at the bottom that has never been there before. It states:
“4 local booksellers are allowed to come in the day before the sale for an hour.“
This may be commonplace in other parts of the country, but I’ve never seen it around here in the Midwest. How about you?
It’s also got me thinking. The town has two small antique malls but the nearest used book store I’m aware of is roughly 75 miles away. So, if these are actual local dealers they are most likely selling on-line and that poses a couple of questions.
1. I’m guessing they are paying for the opportunity to have this early access. How much are they paying? How much would you pay for an opportunity like this?
2. If they are on-line sellers that would likely indicate they will come armed with scanners. How many books can four people go through in one hour using scanners?
3. Is it any longer worth the drive and the expense of a motel room to go?
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January 8th, 2009 at 10:52 am
That’s pretty interesting. It also seems like this is information that would better be left unsaid.
My guess is that four people with scanners can do some damage in an hour on the good inventory. If it was me, I’d skip the fiction, cookbooks, travel and children’s books and go straight to the textbooks.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:32 am
It also depends if they mean 4 people or 4 companies. Someone with 4 or 5 student assistants could really go thru their inventory.
Also, How are they connected to the booksale? If any of the booksellers also help to sort the books then all bets are off.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:44 am
I think I’d go this year and see if it makes a difference in what you find. A lot of people will probably be put off when they see that added notice and skip the sale and you might do better than ever! (my glass is always half full! LOL!)
If the sale is going to be conducted in this new way, and it has been a reliably good sale and a good source for books for buyers (readers and resellers) in the past, I think the people in charge missed an golden opportunity to generate revenue by not offering this access to anyone willing to pay for it and may very well cause hard feelings in previous customers.
Seems very short sighted to me.
January 8th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
@ wufdude
I’m guessing they could do some serious damage also. I know I’d gladly pay $50 or $100 to for an hours time the night before the sale actually opened.
@ jhflanagan
No idea how they would be connected. They might be local people who just sell on-line, but it’s also possible one or more might be brick and motar dealers from somewhere also.
@ kimbers
I’ve always been a “glass half-full” person too, so I will make the drive and see how things go. I’m sure there will be worthwhile books still there in the morning when they officially open. Just not as many.
And you are right. The organizers would likely be money ahead if they held
a 2-3 hour preview the night before and charged $5, or even $10, to early buyers. With the number of people in line when they open each year, I’m sure plenty of them would be willing to pony-up a few dollars to get in the night before.
We’ll see how it goes.
Gary H.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Gary,
!!
If it were ‘me’ …I’d ABSOLUTELY contact them ahead of time (read as : NOW!!) and tell them that you’ve been a good customer…for years…and wonder why they are starting this elitist/proprietary action ‘now’ …and then I’d simply say: ‘I think ‘I’ should also be allowed that ‘preview’ (you do NOT want to state the value of this opportunity…at ALL!!)as well…and as a matter of fact, what IS the ‘criteria’ you use to decide/choose who the other earlybirds ARE…?!?!? I would wait for THEIR reply….and then see if you can see any REAL advantage/power the idea of PAYING for the privelege, would have… If you think it would be the DECIDING factor, then by all means, make the offer !! Of corse, you’d want to make sure that they UNDERSTAND the amount of travel/$$ you alREADY spend….just to attend ! I believe that you WILL get on that advance ‘list’ ….