[net.books] What happens to old books?

keithl@vice.UUCP (Keith Lofstrom) (07/13/84)

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Recent changes in the tax laws require publishers to account for books
in warehouses at wholesale prices, rather than a fraction of wholesale
as they had in the past.  The result is that it's cheaper to throw books
away after a couple of years than keep them around in case someone wants
them.  Good for bestsellers and textbooks, and frequently reprinted books.
Bad for reference books and classics.

Your tax system at work.
-- 
Keith Lofstrom
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larryk@tektronix.UUCP (Larry Kohn) (07/13/84)

Old books end up at Crackerbored Farms where they're turned into
   PHEWREENA OLD BOOK-WORM CHOW.
                                   Sorry, couldn't help myself.

wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (07/19/84)

For locating out-of-print books at any price, most used-book stores participate
in a search service, where you pay a couple dollars for a search fee and
they inquire amongst a nationwide network (not electronic, unfortunately)
to see if anyone has it and for how much. I've seen some ads of dealers who
say they will do it for no search fee. (I believe in a recent New Yorker.)
Most charge a small fee, though.

For out-of-print nonfiction at reasonable (remaindered) prices, the
Barnes & Noble Sale Annex has mail-order catalogs. They are somewhat
like Publishers Clearing House, but tend to have a higher class of
material, in addition to the usual run of sale books. (That latter
includes those available year-in, year-out at the same supposed
discount price, about half or more of the stuff on B. Dalton's and
Waldenbooks' sale tables.)

There are quite a few mail-order remaindered book dealers; I went
to the library some years back and looked up a long string of
addresses, wrote postcards to many, and got on a lot of mailing lists.
Use some sort of business name and you may get some good deals, if
you can get together with co-workers and friends to put together
an order for a large number of items -- often you will pay 50% of
the discounted sale price in that case.

Now for a related topic: What happens to last month's magazines?
When I was young, many years ago, there were several used-book
stores which commonly carried recent but out-dated magazines,
which had the top strip of the cover torn off, for 3/$1.00 or
suchlike. I haven't seen this situation for years. I know most
of the hole-in-the-wall bookstores were forced out of business by
rising rents or taken over by porno-shop chains backed by mob money,
but the magazines are still coming out each month and the unsold
copies get pulled off the shelves at countless newsstands. SO
WHERE DO THEY GO? 

True, old Times and Newsweeks have little or no value, and could
probably be best recycled into paper pulp. But there is a thriving
market in back-issues of craft and hobby magazines, "men's" magazines,
and such special-interest publications. I've bought many an old copy
of firearms or electronics magazines myself -- there certainly is 
demand for these at 50 cents or less each, as opposed to the 
currently-overpriced cover prices on most magazines. So why is no
one filling this need? Where is free enterprise when we need it?

I solicit postings about the mysterious fate of all this valuable
printed matter. Let us know what is going on here...

Will Martin