Selling books

Thanks for this, I have been thinking about selling some books from a previous career and previous studies ... I'm working in a completely different sector now, and now intention of ever returning to my previous line of work. I could do with the space (and the money) ... thanks for sharing your wisdom.

I've only ever found ebay good for selling uni textbooks, which hold their value.

I'm lucky that I live near to Bookbarn International, which will stock the books for you and provide you a percentage of the profit when they sell

I don't have any educational books (all far too long ago I'm afraid!) but I do have hundreds of good quality fiction books. I do look at my groaning book shelves and think that I should sell them so, if I ever decide I can bear to part with my library then I will bear this in mind.

I've always fancied a Sony Reader, but never justified the cost. I get the feeling it would be easier to read - in some chairs you just can't get comfortable reading a book.

Maybe that's just me.

Should note, in addition to the above, that at around £5 to £10 I don't think ebooks are good enough value yet either.

I've probably just watched too much Star Trek, hence my yearning for a nice posh e-book reader

I read an article (which I can't find at the moment) where some industry idiot was justifying the high charge for e-books, claiming that manufacturing costs are a 'tiny' amount of the price you pay.

I can't believe that, given that it's not just manufacturing, there's also the cost of transporting and the shop's cut. There must be a fair margin, otherwise how do major retailers and supermarkets discount so heavily?

Once you've converted the text (simple since it's all held digitally now anyway) and uploaded it to a server there's nothing else to do other than pay the author royalties each time it's purchased. They're just justifying clawing back some of the margin they've lost in recent years

After using Project Gutenberg for a while and having to squint at ebooks on my mobile phone, I found myself once again looking at prices and specs for a Sony Reader last night... my wife keeps asking me for idea for birthday and Christmas (they're pretty close together in my case) so I might ask for some money towards one...............

Star Trek may have given us some unrealistic desires, but who in the 60s would ever imagine that we would walk around with communicators in our day to day life (mobile phones), electronic pads (touchscreen pdas and mobiles that you will happily sign for deliveries on), huge flat viewscreens (LCD TVs), in ear wireless headphones (bluetooth technology), hyposprays (they actually already have these available, needles are just cheaper).... so who knows what the next breakthrough will be?

I've actually taken the plunge and book a Sony Reader. I couldn't help it, I played with it in the shop and couldn't resist. And so far I absolutely love it.

My wife, who at first didn't understand why I had bought it, is currently curled up on the sofa reading the latest Dan Brown novel...

Chutpah - does it have a bright screen light? That might stop me from falling asleep and mean I actually read something. I don't seem to read at all these days as I keep falling asleep - sheer exhuastion of children/life etc!

It doesn't have a screen light at all! It's one of the reasons that the battery lasts so long (three readings of War and Peace supposedly....)

It is meant to look as close to a real piece of paper as possible.

Mind you, the more expensive Touch version does have a backlight, I'm not sure how powerful it is though (I have the Pocket version)

The pages themselves look exactly like paper, you just get absorbed in it after a while. Weight is practically none existent, and I like the fact that I can lie on my side and read it without being uncomfortable. Sometimes I just sit it on my knee and tap the 'turn page' button when I need to... practically hands-free.

I took it into work and got a fair few comments, people seemed impressed (turns out that my bosses son wants one for Christmas, so he wanted to see it up close) although it meant I couldn't get as much reading as I wanted!

Price.... well..... some might say it's expensive. I paid £179, but I've already got hundreds of free books and there's thousands more out there, so I suppose you could argue that in that way it pays for itself a little.

Wow - I would have to do a lot of sucking up to get a relative to buy me one of those for Christmas. They do actually sound good though. It's when you mentioned the weight, or at least lack of it, that a light went on in my head. Yes, it would be great to lie in bed at night when you're tired reading without having to struggle to hold up the book. Hmmm. Something I may get around to looking at later on in life when I have won the lottery or some such thing ...