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This reminds of Book Off, Japan's biggest used book store. They use special machines to slightly shave off edges of books[0], so that the books appear newer. [

This reminds of Book Off, Japan's biggest used book store. They use special machines to slightly shave off edges of books[0], so that the books appear newer. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_Off#Operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_Off#Operations

crooked-v 7y ago
That trick with the edges is a pretty good value add, since a lot of people don't really care about the actual age or history of the book, they just want their bookshelves to appear neat.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Theoretically I think it could actually extend the life of books, assuming a clean fresh edge is less likely to propagate tears than a rough battered edge which might have stress-concentrating nicks. Then again, pages tearing doesn't really seem like a particularly common failure mode for books.
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    What you're saying applies to materials under stress, not paper
    - catalogia 7y ago
      Right, tears usually happen when you're turning a page.
kristianp 7y ago
How does a chain of second hand bookshops succeed in this day and age? Is it because manga are more like magazines in size and regularity of purchase than novels? I'd love it if there was something like that in my country.
- m4rtink 7y ago
  They seem to be doing very well - they have huge multi floor stores in big cities and smaller more modest stores about everywhere else - we even saw one at the edge of pretty rural Izumo during a bus ride! In general I think there are three main reasons for their success: 1) Price - older books are dirt cheap in Book Off. You can get artbooks, drawing books, manga, fiction, non fictin, even games, cds, dvds for often fifth of the price or even elss. A manga volume that sold for 600 yen will be there for 100 yen for example. Also, you could get even really rare books sometimes, that would cost much more than even their original price on ebay and other auction sites. 2) Japanese still use a lot of physical media. You will still encounter shops full of DVDs, bluerays, music CDs, console and game software on physical media. You don't really see that very often in the west anymore. So that likely translates to books. I am not really sure about the reasons for this - could be an interesting study. :) 3) Like for many things, there is a complete lifecycle for books in Japan. You can buy a new buy while knowing that when you finish reading it you can sell it to Book Off or similar used book chain, tobrecover part of the cost. Then you can buy a new book, rinse and repeat. Could be even related to japanese flats being in general pretty small, so people in Japan might be more inclined to sell books once they are done with them to save space. This book lifecycle is something I'm really missing here in Europe. You buy a book, read it to the end and then what? There are small "old book" shops, but they mostly have pretty expensive rare old books and seems to be pretty snobbish about what they accept. No way they would accept your one year old SF book you just finished reading, so that someone else can enjoy it while you buy a new one for effectively less. AFAIK people work around this by selling books via social networks, but this really doesn't come close. Nothing beats comming to Book Off, unloading a bunch of read books for some money and then just browsing for all the gems hidden on the endless shelves. I've ligerarly bought many tens of killograms of books from Book Off. Thannfully, the airline (Alitalia) allows 2 x 23 kg luggage per person, otherwise I would have been rather screwed. :D
  - frostburg 7y ago
    If Alitalia means thay you also live in Italy, maybe Libraccio? I don't know how selling to them works, but I often get (random) hard-to-find books at a decent price there.

crooked-v 7y ago

That trick with the edges is a pretty good value add, since a lot of people don't really care about the actual age or history of the book, they just want their bookshelves to appear neat.

catalogia 7y ago
Theoretically I think it could actually extend the life of books, assuming a clean fresh edge is less likely to propagate tears than a rough battered edge which might have stress-concentrating nicks. Then again, pages tearing doesn't really seem like a particularly common failure mode for books.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  What you're saying applies to materials under stress, not paper
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Right, tears usually happen when you're turning a page.

kristianp 7y ago

How does a chain of second hand bookshops succeed in this day and age? Is it because manga are more like magazines in size and regularity of purchase than novels? I'd love it if there was something like that in my country.

m4rtink 7y ago
They seem to be doing very well - they have huge multi floor stores in big cities and smaller more modest stores about everywhere else - we even saw one at the edge of pretty rural Izumo during a bus ride! In general I think there are three main reasons for their success: 1) Price - older books are dirt cheap in Book Off. You can get artbooks, drawing books, manga, fiction, non fictin, even games, cds, dvds for often fifth of the price or even elss. A manga volume that sold for 600 yen will be there for 100 yen for example. Also, you could get even really rare books sometimes, that would cost much more than even their original price on ebay and other auction sites. 2) Japanese still use a lot of physical media. You will still encounter shops full of DVDs, bluerays, music CDs, console and game software on physical media. You don't really see that very often in the west anymore. So that likely translates to books. I am not really sure about the reasons for this - could be an interesting study. :) 3) Like for many things, there is a complete lifecycle for books in Japan. You can buy a new buy while knowing that when you finish reading it you can sell it to Book Off or similar used book chain, tobrecover part of the cost. Then you can buy a new book, rinse and repeat. Could be even related to japanese flats being in general pretty small, so people in Japan might be more inclined to sell books once they are done with them to save space. This book lifecycle is something I'm really missing here in Europe. You buy a book, read it to the end and then what? There are small "old book" shops, but they mostly have pretty expensive rare old books and seems to be pretty snobbish about what they accept. No way they would accept your one year old SF book you just finished reading, so that someone else can enjoy it while you buy a new one for effectively less. AFAIK people work around this by selling books via social networks, but this really doesn't come close. Nothing beats comming to Book Off, unloading a bunch of read books for some money and then just browsing for all the gems hidden on the endless shelves. I've ligerarly bought many tens of killograms of books from Book Off. Thannfully, the airline (Alitalia) allows 2 x 23 kg luggage per person, otherwise I would have been rather screwed. :D
- frostburg 7y ago
  If Alitalia means thay you also live in Italy, maybe Libraccio? I don't know how selling to them works, but I often get (random) hard-to-find books at a decent price there.