The Truth Teller Podcast with Lance
The best place to sell rare and valuable books BIBLIO
So I'm going to tell you guys a little story that happened probably. Hmm. It. It was before COVID, but, uh, It was when I was going around 10 teak malts, looking for. Old books that people didn't think had any value. And Azad an antique mall in central Texas. And I looked and I saw. Some, um, Books about the history of opera. And there are published and the eight. Um, mid to late 18 hundreds and there were. Still in pretty good shape. And, uh, there are five volumes, extremely well-made books. And the person wanted, um,$90. For the set. And of course, I didn't know as much as I do now about selling. Where antique books and such. And, um, I thought, okay. I'm going to go see if I get an can get them for 20% off. And I went up and asked the people to call them and they would not give me a discount. I went home and I thought myself, you know what? These books are nowhere. On the book search engines online. And they're probably worth 500 to a thousand dollars for that reason. And they may be something special that I could bring to an auction and have a mock shun them off that one of the big, uh, auction gallery. So. I went back and there were gone. Someone bought them. So here's a lesson to learn. And this is the lesson I learned from that situation. Um, there is. So there are two websites. Um, That most people know about for looking up books and they cover the entire world every. Single book collection, every single item that is for sale. In the world. At all the biggest, best. Hard to find bookstores and easy to find bookstores. The old school site is called book finder.com. They're kind of like the Craigslist. They haven't updated the site in centuries and it's clunky and old. And. I'm so glad there's something better now. The website. That is the shiny new. Ferrari. On the block. With the girl with a Botox lips and cosmetic surgery. That would be a website called Alibris a L I B R I S you can look it up on a Google. And Alibris is even better than book finder. And it's totally amazing. And, um, what you do is. If you look up a book and you make sure you look it up correctly with they have all kinds of different, uh, Information you put in. And, um, You know, title author year edition. Publisher, you can do it all there. And what Alibris is there? The search engine? That, um, we'll tell you where anything is, but Alibris is associated with a site. That in my opinion is the best site you could possibly sell. Rare collectible vintage, antique, extremely hard to find one of a kind books. And that website is called biblio.com B I B L I O. Dot com. And, uh, you can sell books on Beverly oh. And, um, man, I'll tell you what that site is, where people. That have a lot of money go to buy books. Because typically people that have a lot of money are ones. That are willing to pay up for things that there are other friends that have a lot of money don't have, and they probably know more about the book than you even know about it. And I'm think of it as these are the people that will. Be on the phone for an auction at Christie's or heritage auction. And they're the ones spending thousands of dollars embedding. On things that are worth a lot of money. And, um, So. Biblio. I believe they take 10 or 12% when you sell. But my recommendation. Is that if you're going to sell books on biblio. They're rare. Antique collectible. One-off. Um, things. That you look at and you're like, okay, this is valuable. This is not just a signed book, but this is a signed book of this edition. This printing. Um, maybe that book was an, a picture with a person holding it when they were signing it. And it's, it was in a magazine somewhere. Something, it doesn't have to be that specific, but that's kind of stuff that you might see on there for tens of thousands of dollars. And, um, some of the books to give you an idea. I have not listed them yet. It's on my bucket list. To, uh, put these books on, but. Just to give you an idea of something that I'm going to put on. I have. A first edition book. Written by the premier expert that has passed away now. That was like a historian of Fostoria glass. Back in the day. And I have a first edition book. Hard cover that is signed by the author. And there aren't any available anywhere. That's a kind of thing I would sell on biblio. And I would look on Alibris. And see what comparables are. And then what you do is when you build the listing. It's totally different than Amazon or eBay. Um, what I'm going to do is when I put a listing up, I'm going to take all the pictures, need to give as much info. As I can, because you can afford to put time into it because people are spending a lot of money. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell them, I'm going to say. I'm good at finding books, but there are a lot of things that don't know about books. So if you're a collector and you need a specific measurement or a specific picture, Or if, if you found this book somewhere and it's sold at a certain price and. You know that. It is not valued at what I have valued at. Reach out to me, we can work something out. I want you to get a fair price. For the product. You can write all that. And, um, they have, uh, something where. People that are dealers all over the world are collectors. Um, They will give them like a 15% discount. On different books. And, you know, what. Um, That Fosse story at glass book, I think I paid like 10 cents for it. And a big box of books in a. Was it Pennsylvania or Ohio? And, um, I'm guessing it's probably worth between two and$300. But I've no way to know that. So, That's why when you make full, this thing is a, all these different things say, Hey, if you know what this is worth and you know, more than I do about it. Show me, show me the proof. Of the selling price and we can work something out. You know, I'm not trying to rip anyone off. Um, this is kind of an art form pricing things. Um, something else I have. Um, So I was at the, um, I was in central Texas and I found three books. That everyone passed up all the. The mindless people that only scan barcode, say couldn't find anything on it. And I went up and I scooped up three of these and I look in them. And I find out. That they are by the author that wrote that famous great white shark. Um, book and a movie was made after they just had part to come out about this last year. Called the Meg. And, uh, megla Dawn or whatever. And, um, I looked in the three books and they're a series. Of 2,500 numbered limited edition 25th anniversary. And my three books are all in like new condition. And all. All three of the numbers are in the top 10. Out of that entire series. So. You know, eBay tends to be a race to the bottom. So what I did was I'm like, I'm not going to discount them on eBay. If someone wants to pay, they can pay. So I made a listing on eBay and I put$350 in each one. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to transition them and put them on biblio. And, um, You know, I have a lot more freedom. Of communication. I can tell people, Hey. I forgot these three books. If you're a big fan, let's work a deal. And, um, You know, you can do them. Biblio biblio is a place to sell them on eBay. People are looking to get a deal. And a lot of people have bad experiences buying books on eBay. So they're gun shy and once they have a bad experience, they don't go back and eBay's been losing a lot of buyers and they've been losing a lot of sellers. So income's, biblio where people are gonna look at and say 350 bucks while. I've got one that is in the top 100, I pay two 50 for it. And then I look at my price. Hey, three 50. I'll do it. But you're not going to find. Typically those kinds of sellers on eBay. He's just not going to find them. You got a lot of bombed. What I call bottom. Dwelling scum suckers that are trying to take advantage. Of sellers. Of course that's not everyone, but there are people. That you know, I have a Booklist sit there for three 50 and they offer me$15. You know, Just ridiculous stuff. I know. I don't even respond to people like that. Anymore. They're idiots. But, um, Yeah, biblio.com. Um, If you're listening to this podcast. And you want to reach out to me and, uh, You know, you go on Alibris you look it up, you put all the information incorrectly and you cannot find your book. They, you know, what. I go to biblio sign up. Take. You know, 10 pictures of it, the date, the addition that can condition all the angles and everything make a really good personable. Listing. And put it on biblio. That's where that's where you put your gold, you know, they're not going to sell real fast. But, you know, what, if you have. Uh, situation where you've got like 30 to 50 books and the minimum price. It's like 150 to 200 bucks on a book and, you know, that's where people go for them. Thank you for this way. 150. Times 50. That's 7,500 bucks potentially that you have just sitting, taking up one little section of a shelf. You know, those books are specifically on that website. You get an email, someone says, Hey, this says you work out a deal. I mean 7,500 bucks and they only take up one little row on a shelf. You know, That's the kind of thing. That's exciting you to sell something, you get an email and you're like, wow. I just made 200 bucks. And I put that time in. But, you know, when people are paying more, you put more time into it. You it's like fine wine. Some people collect fine wine. They're willing to pay up for it. And if you have. That fine wine. And there was a one buyer that's looking for it. Make a deal with them. Cash it in and then take that money and flip it and build it and build it. You know, we, we need to find ways to make money in this crazy economy. Um, yeah. I said the word economy. I'm not going to get into politics, but he one that knows me knows I could go off on that for a long time. But anyway. Yes, biblio. Dot com. Is the website. And the website. To search to see. What the value of your book is, is Alibris a L I B R I S. Okay guys. Some more golden nuggets. For you. And, uh, you know, what. Try to find some of these really. Unique books. You might find them at a state sale. You might find them. Wherever. But, um, Yeah. I mean, it's literally like you've paid two bucks for a book. No one has any idea. It's valuable. You'll look at. Look at it. You think yourself? Wow. I can put this in my little. One inch wide. Spot on my bookshelf and this'll pay off in the future. And it's all because I know about it. And the other people don't and it makes you feel pretty good when you run into a situation like that. All right guys. Oh, look at that. This one's about 15 minutes. All right. Talk to you later. Bye.