Another post from William Smith of Hang Fire Books
**********************************************
I’m a magazine addict. I have a perpetual 2-3 foot pile of semi-recent mags in every room. I like to let them build up and then read 5 or 6 issues at once.
Since becoming a bookseller I’ve expanded my magazine reading list quite a bit. Now I include academic, art and special interest journals that I previously couldn’t/shouldn’t afford. These periodicals have a much longer shelf life than your typical People or EW, so when I’m finished with a careful read, I resell them.
In the listings I include: titles of feature articles, books reviewed, staff writers, and anything else of note. I tend to price them at slightly more than the per-issue subscription price, but slightly less than the cover. They frequently sell to overseas regions where the magazines aren’t on the rack.
True, I don’t make much by doing this, but I do offset the cost of my addiction and I frequently discover authors, artists, personalities that I should watch for while bookscouting.
Good subject areas for this practice are: high-end architecture, pop-culture history, single author/artist studies, film journals, mags with in-depth interviews/career retrospectives and more (fiction and poetry journals…not so much). If you’re serious about making a return on your investment check back issue prices on ABE (a year or two back) before committing to a subscription.
A couple of William’s other posts: Worthless Books in your Inventory | Keeping Shipping Expenses down
please list in detail your method for finding time to read. i have been a bookseller 30 years and never find the time to finish reading all the magazines that arrive in my house. they just provide insulation
I know what you mean, I’m a couple of issue behind in FineBooks & Collections, still..I think I’ll try out William’s idea with an architecture mag I’ve had my eye on.
I only have one magazine subscription and I schedule reading time for it in with my book reading.
The only magazines we get in my house are catalogs that sell overpriced and cheaply made goods to my wife.
Finding time to read is definitely a difficult thing. But a good way to offset the cost of addiction.
What older I become, the less time for reading.
Restriction of other cases. Here’s my way to find time to read. I will not sleep or thumb, but will read. Sorry for my english…
I’m an information junkie: blogs, podcasts, magazines etc. I find if I subscribe to a magazine I have a hard time keeping up to date, but if I buy them one at a time I am finished and anxiously awaiting the next one. Maybe the subscription makes me take it for granted. Anyway, where/how do you sell these? Do you mean like on ebay?
Thanks,
EC
Ahhhh… It’s refreshing to meet a fellow magazine addict. I’ve been collecting magazines in much the same way, and the only way my wife was going to allow this obsessive magazine hoarding to continue, was if I at least attempted to sell some of them.