Book Guy

Same here! He's my # 1 Collection focus over the years though I rarely buy anything anymore.

I like TRUE STRANGE as well. I have the Elvis and I think one other, though I don't see it here. Might be wrong

Display copies? Hung on the wall? The kid bought them for a discount when the next issue arrived?

My best years in business were the pandemic years and this year is still above average. So things went wild in Books too. Also eBay has come of age as a site to sell books with. eBay outsells Amazon and ABE combined for me. The key in the current market (to me at least) is to be more careful about what Books you invest your time in describing, photographing etc. I'm becoming more ruthless on what I pass on-even after I've already paid for it. Unless there is some buying pressure on a Book, I don't want to carry it. Or at least it has to be unusual, scarce, rare in a jacket etc. Otherwise I don't bother to put extra effort into trying and just donate or discard it. This was not my habit in the past, or rather I was more willing to give these marginal books a chance. Also online I don't handle anything below a price of $15.00. And I'm sure that price point will continue to rise. Even at that price point I don't carry much-only items I have a long history of selling and I know will move fairly quickly. And you can't raise the price of slow books to match an arbitrary price floor. There has to be, or seem to be genuine desire for the Book at any particular price. Also, I rarely 'Overprice' deliberately just to see if there is a market for something. Lastly expensive Books punch above their weight-as should seem obvious. They pull in more money for the same amount of work. So I try to have as many of those as possible. I was somewhat surprised about how well Stephen King still sold. I got a lot of his Books recently, sometimes in multiple copies, mostly sharp. It had been a few years since I handled a large number of his Books. Usually they trickle in one at a time, usually with reading wear etc. So I was surprised at how much the prices had risen (Pandemic!) so I experimented with the prices on these by pricing them higher than I would have considered 3 years ago but not in the nosebleed environs of the top priced copies. They sold pretty well and I was uncertain any would sell at those sort of prices. So he's still solid for me. Another example is LONESOME DOVE. I sold 2 (maybe 3) copies of nice copies in jackets at $200 or so. It's a common Book and its time is somewhat past. None sold overnight but each took a month or two to sell but it showed there was still ample demand. A walk in Bookstore is almost a thing of the past. Younger people still want Books but what exactly they want is not fully formed yet. For example if they like Beat Lit, they might desire to own First Editions or conversely be satisfied with a 1972 paperback reprint of ON THE ROAD considering it to be a Vintage 'Beat Era' artifact. Time will tell.

Absolutely not true! I bought a nice collection with lots of Literary First Edition material about 4 months ago and have been selling the heck out of it. Steinbeck, Hemingway, Stephen King, E F Benson (in jackets), Faulkner, Sci Fi more and more and more. What they have in common is that they are popular authors in good condition with jackets. Usually 'classic'; Authors and not 80's-90's flavor of the month. USUALLY according to my database, they sold for a lot more than they sold the last time that I had one. I was somewhat shocked at how much really nice copies of 'middle period' Stephen King sold for. However, that said I was never at the absolute top of the market. Dealers who sold at the elite level may be having trouble finding customers, but I don't have experience in that realm. I bought a large collection of Military & Western Americana about 18 months ago. Western America is becoming increasingly hard to sell given cultural & demographic changes but they also sold surprisingly well albeit at 'reasonable' prices. California County Histories did well. Military still has a strong readership. In both areas I only bothered to list books that had some demand behind them and didn't bother with the true low end of the market. I've done this for about 50 years so I have a good eye for what is common and what people actually want. I am semi-retired so I didn't try to 'push' the prices and that along with careful selection is the key. It is a stock-pickers market right now. You list the right books t the right prices and they sell just fine. That being said, your larger point is true. What has collapsed is the middle of the market, both middling demand and middling prices. Also maybe middling condition as well. Demographic and generational cohort changes are playing themselves out but the final resolution to that is probably past the end of my career so I don't worry about it. If I buy something that sold in the past, but now there are simply too many copies online or most especially too many CHEAP copies, I don't bother to list them, just donate them to a Thrift. Part of that has to do with my short time horizon. Ten years ago I might have listed them and waited. Not anymore. I will also note that if not for my most recent purchases my monthly sales would be tepid at best, but that's always the way it is. What sells best is always your newest material. After you have it for a while everybody who is currently looking for a copy has seen yours and you are just wishin' and hopin' until somebody new enters the market. That's always been the way it was. People who have walk-in shops seem to be doing less well than me and your analysis is probably spot on for those people. Having a bricks and mortar Bookstore seems hard nowadays. For people who are mostly comic collectors and not that interested in Books, I'll point out that Books and Comics sell differently from each other. There is a very strong emotional/psychological will to buy for comic collectors, a deep and ready market for 'keys' and history of fevered speculation and (mostly) rising prices None of those really apply to Books in the same way. Most Books (except say 'necessary' or 'useful' Books like Textbooks, repair Manuals etc) seem to be bought almost on a whim! There has always been some speculation and flipping in the Book World, but really a tiny fraction of what is common w/ comics. In short: pick the right books and price them reasonably and they will still sell. The percentage of the available Books that are 'right' is a diminishing percentage of what's available though. I would agree with you that it is a fading business, more like an Antique business than the Book business of yore. However it's still viable and will continue to be.

Wow! TWO Scuba Covers!

WOW! Great Stuff! I've never seen any of them. Lots of True Crime. Was that typical of Canadian Pulps? I loved the CRACKED DETECTIVE and HISTOIRE! Mystery Fiction Canadian Pulps must be quite rare. Wow again!

Another winner! New York City has certainly suffered on Comic Book covers!

More Everett lurching about

Floating eyes again

I really love the walking through walls covers of which Atlas did a lot!

A colorful and lively cover, but maybe not very effective for this sort of Mag.

Companion Mag to MYSTIC I guess.

A good cover idea, but too stiff and not creepy

Sexy 50's housewife! Could be a Slasher Movie poster.

I like the portrayal of Alternate Universes. At least that's what I think it's showing...

I think MYSTIC is my favorite title. Not because the contents are better, I just like that there was a comic named MYSTIC! Literal BIG FOOT (Print) Cover here to go with the other Bigfoot/Yeti theme covers.

The Wodehouse I see around. I sold a copy earlier this year. The others are pretty hard. There won't be much buying pressure on them as they fly under the radar of genre collectors so the prices might be reasonable. Other than the Wodehouse it looks like the others are French Authors in translation. An Editorial idea that didn't pan out?

The later Ace Double westerns seem to turn up fairly often. Almost nobody collects them or collected them back in the day but I still see them around. The Mysteries almost uniformly have great covers. The earliest D Westerns also have very Pulpy Covers, but they are Westerns so I just don't care much emotionally!

Maze AND Floating Eyes cover!

An imaginative depiction of dreaming.

Clean copy, but a boring cover.