Reading Writing and Collecting Books

Reading Writing and Collecting Books

My favorite bookstore, I Love a Mystery, has gone out of business. I was tempted to say for good but there is nothing good about it.  It teetered on the razor’s edge of disappearing once before and, after a hiatus, it sprang back to life. I don’t think that will happen again. 

The staff has been wonderfully supportive of me as a writer and I want to thank them all.  The store has been home to Sisters in Crime Border Crimes chapter, which has been a great resource and a fun group to attend.  It has sponsored authors’ signings for many talented writers promoting new books.   I’ve had the chance to hear authors I admire. Along with many other patons, I will miss the store and the staff.

With the store going out of business and putting its stock on sale, I found myself looking at the books through three sets of lenses, i.e., as a reader, as a writer and as a collector.  As a reader, I wanted to pick up volumes from authors I enjoy, I wanted to try out authors I have only heard about and I wanted to audition authors I don’t know at all. Unfortunately, not having a store of my own, I could not buy the entire stock.

Being a writer I wanted to buy books from authors with skill sets I can study. Sue Grafton’s characters are deftly drawn.  Ann Perry calls the past to life. Carl Hiaasen writes with surrealistic passion. Lee Child never lets up in pacing. Nancy Pickard draws the reader in from the opening paragraph. Scott Turow, and John Lescroart make we wish I had been a lawyer. Carolyn Hart and Adrian McKinty show how the craft of writing can rise to an art form. 

The most difficult point of view for me was to evaluate books as a collector.  First edition, first printing books are the usually the most collectable, especially when signed by the author.  But indicators that a book is a first edition and first printing vary between publishers and some publishers have changed over time how they designate edition and print run number.  Some book have preorders that exceed the initial print run so there may be a second print run for books before the release date.  A book initially published by one publisher may have a second first edition when printed by a second publisher. 

Like with coins, stamps and historic weapons, condition of an item is very important and hard for the non-professional to judge.  What a professional buyer will pay for a book is a percentage of what he or she will sell it for.  How long it will probably take for re-sale, storage cost, upkeep and profit margin all lower the how much a professional will shell out for a book. 

Rare books are not necessarily valuable books.  If I type and print out one copy of pages nineteen through thirty of the phone book, I will have a very rare document. However, due to the lack of demand, the document would be worth less than the value of the paper it is printed on. 

Putting the owner’s name on the flyleaf, an author’s endorsement to a specific person (unless that person is famous), torn or faded covers, shelf wear, clipping off the price, or any other “imperfection” reduces the desirability of a book.  As a collector, one of the worst things you can do is to read the pristine book you just bought. Don’t even think about snacking or drinking coffee while reading.

In my role as a reader and a writer I have read beloved books until they fell apart. I have folded pages, underlined passages, spilled on pages and even (shudder) loaned books out to others.  Needless to say, my collector lens constantly needs polishing.

Note: I will be on vacation when this blog comes out so I may not respond to comments but I will read them.