I am in the process of moving from my tiny, bookshelf-filled apartment to a real house. When the movers came to take our stuff, they found a couch, a bed, a dresser, a desk, a couple of lamps, six bookshelves and almost 30 boxes of books.
Yeah, they hated us.
As I was packing up the 30 boxes of books, I came up with a sort of filing/boxing system:
* Favorites
* Keepers
* Really nice hardcovers I’m keeping anyway
* Textbooks and other reference books I use a lot
* To Get Rid Of (as soon as I find someone who will take them, because I don’t know if I can bear to throw books away)
* Books I haven’t read yet but fully plan to (there were several boxes of these)
* Books I haven’t yet read and, let’s face it, am not going to
The movers were vastly amused by these categories.
In the last category, I marveled at the numbers. I have ARCS from BEA in 2006 that I haven’t read. These are books that, in many instances, are no longer in print. (I have an ARC for a novel that is about 10 novels back in this author’s back list. Pretty good career she’s got going. I’ve only put out three books in that time.) I never read these ARCs. I’m never going to read them. I’m never going to read any of the books I put in this box. And in a month or two, they will be donated to a library sale or similar, or they will be recycled.
Recycled, having never had their covers even cracked.
I know this is the fate of millions of books per year. Remaindered, coverless, pulped. I’ve heard that often, half a paperback author’s print run is doomed to this fate. If you’re a bestseller, they may even overprint you to create volume in the stores the first few weeks, expecting a higher return rate from their massive print run.
As a lover of books, this always makes me quake. I know that one copy of the book is nothing. If I recycle my copies, the story doesn’t go away. There are hundreds or thousands out there. The author, at least, must have a few copies lying in a box in her basement. But this one never got to fulfill the purpose for which it was made. No one ever curled up with it on a couch. No one ever dogeared the pages or broke the spine. No one dripped tea on page 47, or gripped the pages so hard during the climax that her fingernails left little indents on the margin. No one stamped, “From the library of” inside the first page then lent it to her friend, 80% certain she’d never see it again and would be forced to go out and buy another copy because she couldn’t bear having it not be part of her collection.
Woe, oh woe, to the readerless book.
On the other hand, I only have so much attic space…
No related posts.
Diana do they ever donate these books to underprivileged libraries at all? Or maybe send them to libraries in Africa or Asia etc etc? It seems such a waste to do that to books. I’m with you, books tend to be more important to me than pets at times.
You don’t need to send them overseas. There is, undoubtedly, a women’s shelter or a homeless family shelter somewhere near your geographic location. Women in these shelters need to know there are good men out there and they really can live happily ever after. For the love of your gender, DONATE!
Lately, I’ve become enamored with PaperbackSwap.com. It cuts my book clutter like crazy (I, unfortunately, have stacks of books on the floor until my husband deigns to build me the shelves he’s been promising for two years), and whenever I hear about a book I must read, I can usually get it from another member there. It’s pretty awesome for the books I’m not willing to keep.
The ideas before me are great. Here’s another. You might contact the author. She could use those old books for promotional items, even old books.
It is hurtful to think of those unwanted, unread books. We have two groups in our area that collect books to send to the troops overseas though I’m not sure if there’s a big demand for romances in that. Our library has a big book sale at the end of each summer where you can donate books to help them raise money. I have way too many on my own shelves so I’m not qualified to give advice to anyone else. I want to keep them all.
Susan, I’m almost positive it was Cindy Gerard who was (or might still be) sending books overseas to women in the armed forces. Some of her books ended up with several young men. If I’m not mistaken, she became really close to them as a second type of mother.
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Natalie, I’ve actually had really bad luck with libraries. Most are so inundated that they don’t want any books, or they won’t take romances, or they won’t take paperbacks (even for fund drive sales) or insert-reasoning-here. Ditto women’s shelters. I’ve just had crappy luck with attempting to donate.
CT, regarding Paperback swap, I feel kinda bad about that given the already ridiculous market for used books and how that cuts into an author’s sales. As an author, I don’t feel right taking the few pennies we get out of other author’s hands. Especially since most of these books are GIVEAWAYS or ARCS. No way am I letting those into the general population.
About donating to military overseas — an excellent idea. I know a lot of authors who have a wonderful military fanbase. Most of them write romantic suspense or SF.
I’m lucky as my library loves to get the boxes of books I donate every year. They use most of mine in the book sales they have each month, but I’ve seen several on the shelves as well. I actually sold lots of my old books one time in a yard sale(kicking myself now, but I was yound and broke). It gets to books out to people and you can even donate any money to a book drive or literacy fund.
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This is less philanthropic than donation, but Powell’s.com will buy used books in exchange for store credit, which you can use to buy more books you actually want.
I love the overseas idea and I’m sure they love receiving them.
Another thought is to do a giveaway on your blog. Box of books, could be anything in the box, doesn’t matter if they’re older or newer.
I think Allison Kent did this and people seemed to love it.
Also, what about nursing homes. I know some are perhaps to old to read, but there are others who would love them.
opps, sorry about that Alison. I didn’t mean to add the extra L.
Yep, I think it is Alison that does give aways like that. Maybe you could do an enter to win this box of books, winner pays shipping? I know I’d be willing to pay for shipping on a box of books rather than seeing them recycled.
Bookmooch.com is a wonderful place for geting rid of the unwanted books and finding those you want. A few duplicates I’ve found have found me new books and a few authors I’ve gone on to buy a lot of their books.
Bookmooch and bookcrossing work nicely, it’s great sometimes to pass on stuff you’ve enjoyed and stuff you don’t want to someone who does want it, spreading the joy in a particular author sometimes.
Yes, sometimes it might stop people from buying a particular author but sometimes those books are out of print and it’s one way of helping other people find some out of print works they want to read.
I use paperbackswap. Believe me, it is not keeping money from an author’s hands in my case, because there is no way I could afford to buy all I’ve swapped
And oddly enough, I still frequent Amazon and Books A Million as much as ever! I would recommend it. However, it won’t allow you to swap ARCS, so you’d have to find another place for those. Also, some popular books have so many copies listed that it’s highly possible that no one will ever request yours. I’m running into that right now. I can’t sell them on Amazon, either, because there is a glut there, as well. So I might look into sending them to soldiers. My brother-in-law goes for his third tour at the end of next month. Of course, people often think the soldiers want copies of Maxim, stuff like that, but he said the most popular magazines, the ones that get passed around, are those that deal with fishing, hunting, boats, cars, electronics, stuff like that. I hadn’t thought about sending books, but DH has a lot of SF/F that I bet people might like.
I still can’t bring myself to admit there are books currently in my possession & on the TBR list that I won’t eventually get around to reading. Despite my nearly 1,300 (and ever growing) wish list, despite the vows to devote more hours/days to my own writing, despite the overwhelming number of new books published every year…nope, I still refuse to conceive of not reading all of them. (I wish I were–at least at little bit–more in touch with reality like you).
You could give them away in contests! We love contests! And then we could read them.
Just one note on Christie’s idea about Powell’s. There are a few disadvantages with selling used books there: First, (most relevant in your situation) they rarely if ever buy back romance novels. At least the store near me refuses to take them, possibly because they have so many copies already. But if they’re out of print, it could probably still work for you; 2) you’d get more money (that includes what you could get in exchange) if you sell them yourself online.
That said, Powell’s is great if you won’t ever sell them by yourself and you manage to have copies of books that they’ll take. And, if it does turn out you can’t donate them somewhere worthwhile and don’t feel like selling them, please do consider Jen’s suggestion for a contest!