Ooooooh, nice.

Virginia DeBolt — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:05:31 -0500

Didn't know about Powell's Books. Gotta go check 'em out!

http://www.webteacher.ws/ http://first50.wordpress.com/

selling books to the internet

CadyM — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:12:42 -0500

That's a good idea. I felt overwhelmed by both the idea of doing a garage sale and of trying to sell them one at a time on Amazon (or eBay for that matter), so once I had finished the "immediate cash" thing of schlepping bags of books in good condition to the used bookstores around here I was really happy to find that Powell's Books will buy them online. (and they pay for the shipping!) It's only store credit, but there are always more books I want to buy with that anyway ;)

As a former book buyer

Virginia DeBolt — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:51:21 -0500

who has downsized everything in life, including the book collection, I want to point out that you can sell books in good condition on Amazon for considerably more than you'd get selling them at a garage sale. At a time when many people are looking for ways to earn a little extra to cover the rising cost of gas and food, a large book collection is worth money.

Find your book on Amazon and click the button that says Sell Yours Here. You set up an account and start selling.

http://www.webteacher.ws/ http://first50.wordpress.com/

The Number (and the number of books in my house!)

CadyM — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:27:50 -0500

The Number: A Completely Different Way To Think About the Rest Of Your Life

by Lee Eisenberg

I was very proud of myself because when this book caught my eye in a local bookstore recently, I raced down the street to check it out of the library first. I have had a lifelong habit of buying first and deciding later… often much later. In fact, over the past year and a half, I’ve gotten rid of at least three hundred books that I never read, or read and didn’t like enough to re-read, or never finished. A lot of this was codependent book-buying: I had so many books that I thought I should own, so that I could convince other people to read them. You know, Important Political Books that would make them see why they should think a certain way, usually about things like race in America or class in the 20th century or women in the workplace. And I had even more books that I thought I should own because, well, they seemed like “my” kind of books. I thought that they “proved” something about me - like that I had the right ideas about race or class or gender or sexuality or…. It took me years to look at why I actually owned them and accept that it clearly wasn’t for reading.

Those were the books that I wanted to want to read. There was a whole other category after that: books that I wanted to finish or to like. I wasn’t trusting my feelings about them. What if I got rid of one and then realized I desperately wanted to read it? What if I got rid of something that I didn’t know I would really like? Worst of all were the books that I really wasn’t sure about. All the ones that looked like they might be good, but which I had never gotten around to reading and didn’t feel that motivated to try. A whole lot of these were books that had seemed really exciting in the store, but which turned dull and uninspirational as soon as I got them home. Could it be that it was just the thrill of the chase, of picking out and spending tons of money on books, that made me want them in the first place?

Well, I was finally willing to face reality. And I still have hundreds of books. I’d say at this point they break down pretty much into 60% comfort books that I love to read over and over again, 30% books that I haven’t read and think I would really enjoy if I could bring myself to try them, and 10% reference sorts of
books. I lean very heavily toward comfort reading, whether it’s books that I have read before or books I know I will love and am excited about trying. Facing a book that looks good when I flip through it, but which I know nothing about, is like trying to psych myself up to get into a cold swimming pool. Sure, most of the time I love it once I’m in there and can’t wait to go back, but it’s really hard to overcome that initial bump.

I guess it’s a kind of fear, fear of the cold plunge or the inhospitable novel. And thinking of it that way helps a lot. I can separate fear and reality; I know that there’s nothing I actually need to be afraid of in starting a new book, because I am also finally willing to put down a book that sucks instead of trying to struggle on through. If I refuse to buy into that bump of fear, I can see that I am just trying a new book on for size to see if
it meets my needs. I can see that I have the power to make sure my reading needs get met; I’m not at the book’s mercy. And I like thinking of it from that angle, like I’m challenging the book to pull me in and give me what I want. It puts the power back in my hands, instead of giving me the illusion that I’m at the mercy of a bad book.

The Number was a good book, with some important information. It’s about the amount that we need to retire, about what different people do with retirement and how that is changing, about how different people save for retirement and how that is changing. One of the big points I took away with me, which he makes
repeatedly, is that a whole lot of people don’t start thinking about planning for retirement until they are about 50 - and that for many people, that is way too late.

(Read more....)

BlogHer - The Number (and the number of books in my house!) - Comments

Ooooooh, nice.

selling books to the internet

As a former book buyer

The Number (and the number of books in my house!)