4 ms·

I prefer OPs method of digitalising the books. I'd feel bad for destroying the books and throwing them away instead of giving them away to some charity once I g

by dewey 14y ago

I prefer OPs method of digitalising the books. I'd feel bad for destroying the books and throwing them away instead of giving them away to some charity once I got my digital copy.

WalterBright 14y ago
At first I felt terrible about destroying the books. All I can say is one can get used to anything :-) What helps is noticing that the vast majority go used on Amazon for less than a buck. Not even charities want to deal with those.
- justin66 14y ago
  It's also sobering to ask the buyer at Half Price books how many of the books they actually plan to keep after they give you an estimate. A lot of them get recycled.
  - WalterBright 14y ago
    As an experiment, I took a carton of books to Half Price. They went through them, and offered to buy 3 of them for a few dollars. The rest they said they'd take for free, but wouldn't pay anything for them. They had limited shelf space, and the books that didn't sell quickly went to the recycler. The problem with selling books on Amazon is if it, plus packaging, is over 13 oz, you have to take it to the post office. This, of course, destroys any economic or environmental benefit to selling them for less than 15 or 20 bucks. Very, very few used books are worth that much. I do have some, and they've sat for sale on Amazon for over a year. Books less than 13 oz I'll sell for a few bucks on Amazon, but they rarely sell, either. So I cut & scan with no guilt about destroying the books. It's sad, but they are worthless.
    - cstejerean 14y ago
      Using FBA you can ship books in bulk to Amazon, which might make it more economical to sell some of the lower priced books without the overhead of individual shipping.
    - justin66 14y ago
      > The problem with selling books on Amazon is if it, plus packaging, is over 13 oz, you have to take it to the post office. This, of course, destroys any economic or environmental benefit to selling them for less than 15 or 20 bucks. It's clear that a lot of Amazon book sellers don't value their time as highly as you do. They're sitting on a lot of warehoused books and basically making their money off the difference between media mail shipping charges and the standard cost of shipping on Amazon.
  - mesozoic 14y ago
    They turn a lot of them into books by the yard to sell for decoration too.

by dewey 14y ago

I prefer OPs method of digitalising the books. I'd feel bad for destroying the books and throwing them away instead of giving them away to some charity once I got my digital copy.

WalterBright 14y ago

At first I felt terrible about destroying the books. All I can say is one can get used to anything :-) What helps is noticing that the vast majority go used on Amazon for less than a buck. Not even charities want to deal with those.

justin66 14y ago
It's also sobering to ask the buyer at Half Price books how many of the books they actually plan to keep after they give you an estimate. A lot of them get recycled.
- WalterBright 14y ago
  As an experiment, I took a carton of books to Half Price. They went through them, and offered to buy 3 of them for a few dollars. The rest they said they'd take for free, but wouldn't pay anything for them. They had limited shelf space, and the books that didn't sell quickly went to the recycler. The problem with selling books on Amazon is if it, plus packaging, is over 13 oz, you have to take it to the post office. This, of course, destroys any economic or environmental benefit to selling them for less than 15 or 20 bucks. Very, very few used books are worth that much. I do have some, and they've sat for sale on Amazon for over a year. Books less than 13 oz I'll sell for a few bucks on Amazon, but they rarely sell, either. So I cut & scan with no guilt about destroying the books. It's sad, but they are worthless.
  - cstejerean 14y ago
    Using FBA you can ship books in bulk to Amazon, which might make it more economical to sell some of the lower priced books without the overhead of individual shipping.
  - justin66 14y ago
    > The problem with selling books on Amazon is if it, plus packaging, is over 13 oz, you have to take it to the post office. This, of course, destroys any economic or environmental benefit to selling them for less than 15 or 20 bucks. It's clear that a lot of Amazon book sellers don't value their time as highly as you do. They're sitting on a lot of warehoused books and basically making their money off the difference between media mail shipping charges and the standard cost of shipping on Amazon.
- mesozoic 14y ago
  They turn a lot of them into books by the yard to sell for decoration too.