Looking for some thoughts on book pricing.

[Bruce Hollingdrake]

Hi Guys,

I will be writing a post for the blog on how to price a book that you can't find listed anywhere.
I've sent an email to our contributing writers asking for some input and I thought I'd ask here as well.
Here's a copy of the email I sent and if you have any input just fire away right here. Thanks

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I'm going to be writing a post on pricing books, specifically  - 'How do you price a book that does not seem to be listed anywhere?'
* disclaimer - The idea comes from a posting at the Abe Books forum. I think turning this into an article and making it permanently available on the blog is worthwhile.

If any of you would like to provide a quick quote - not looking for anything too time consuming but if you'd like to add a line or two it would be appreciated.
Of course any quotes will include links in the article. If this works well and is not too much of a bother I may start doing it weekly.
Again I don't want to take any time from your busy schedules - just a minute or two for a quick blurb. Of course if you'd like to add more than a line that would be fine as well.

Bruce

[prying1]

Any idea when you are going to post it? - How much time do we have to get our ideas in order?

[Bruce Hollingdrake]

I was hoping to write it tomorrow.
I was just looking for a quick blurb or quote nothing too detailed.

Bruce

[Jungle Books]

This is a tough one, when there are no copies of a book anywhere it either means it's super rare or nobody wants it.  If I have the only copy of something and it is a decent book (typically non-fiction) my start point is $200.  Usually within a week or so a few others will crop up and you will settle into a market value.  I think those others were waiting for someone to set the price.

It usually depends on how rare and unique, but also in depend you think it would be.  Somewhere between $100 ans $200 is usually the best price point to start if you have nothing to work with.  Then keep checking AddAll and other aggregator sites and see if anything turns up to give you a better idea.

Some will say if it sells quickly you priced it too low, but who knows if it would have gone had it been more - so pocket the money and go out and look for another one.

That's my two cents on it.

[Baker Street Books]

In regards to finding a good starting point when you have the only known copy on the internet, are there any good resources where you can find the information about its particular print run??

For example: Book "A" was printed in 1970 and it does have all the usual indicators to show its a true First/First. But there are no other copies found on the internet. What do you do?

You could set a so-called high price of $200 and wait til others show up on sites like Addall.com or Bookfinder.com etc., then reprice accordingly.

OR

You would use a resource that would tell you how many copies were run on the first printing, explaining how rare your copy is ...if such a resource exists for various publishers.

If you had Book "A" and you priced it at $200 but later found out there were only 500 copies made and yours was signed by an above average writer, your price would most likely skyrocket. But without a good resource or other copies to compare against, you could easily & unwittingly underprice your gem of a book and end up leaving money on the table. 

Has anyone ever heard of such a resource? 

Kyle

[Bruce Hollingdrake]

Hi Kyle,

I've asked that question myself a few times in the past but have not yet found anything.
Wouldn't that be a great tool!

Let's do some digging on that one.

Bruce

[prying1]

I know how some small publishers work. They have the amount on the job ticket and for a while in their head. Unless it is printed on the book or someone noted it elsewhere along the way the info is pretty much gone. - For small publishers especially. - Notable authors the runs might make the newspapers like Rush Limbaugh's first book.

Welcome to the Monkey house is a good example of how errors keep the number available. 5000 copies on the first printing. Why so few and how do we know? It most likely should have been 50,000 copies because the author was a good seller.

Someone wrote up the order and dropped a zero. Talk of the error took the amount off the job ticket and into the publishing world (people love to talk of the errors of others). Otherwise it would not have been noted outside the company except perhaps in stat sheets that nobody would really care about at the time.

Going the other way there is a story (I personally know the print shop involved) that a major corporation  wanted 1000 little booklets printed.  When the purchase order was written up someone who was new on the job wrote out 1000 on the P.O. and another helpful individual told her, "You don't need to write all those zeros. Just put an M after the one because M means 1000. So she dutifully wrote the M on the P.O.. - After the 1000 she had already written. -

The shop was quite busy for a while printing up, collating  and stapling 1,000,000 booklets. In the end the major corporation was not only surprised when the booklets were delivered but also legally obligated to pay. They did get a substantial discount because the print shop did want them to continue as a customer...

 - I've seen on business forms the code - 15m/06 - which means 15,000 copies in, of course '06 but have never seen it used on books. Wish they would.

As far as a book or even an Internet site that would cover the run info on books it would be a never ending job just trying to run down the info and much of the info is lost. The book would cost so much and be so incomplete it wouldn't sell.

[wondalan]

I would generally try about $100 - $200 for a month or three and then if there is no interest put it on ebay with no reserve and a start price of about $40 (explaining that it appears nowhere online).  But then I only sell on eBay at the moment (other than in my shop) as I can't decide on the best option to take.  My choices are abebooks and amazon (both UK sites not US) if anyone can help.

I think the main consideration is whether or not you want to turn your stock over quickly and keep a fresh selection.  I personally don't mind making a decent, but smaller profit, rather than holding on to books to get the top price.  Normally this is because I tend to spill coffee on things that are around me for longer than 14 days.

I've found that if books come cheap you can attract a lot of custom from other dealers who don't mind holding on to books for years, meanwhile you are using your money to buy more books that may not be listed anywhere.