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Why are books so expensive?


Lusty

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Just been looking around a second hand book shop on Koh Chang and a well used paper back has a price tag of 250bht! :yikes:

These same books can be had in England for 10-20bht in the UK in Charity shops and boot sales.

So why are they so bloody expensive?:dunno:

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I'm just glad to hear that someone IS actually reading books.

 

 

Too many gentlemen punters here rely solely on Fox News. And view life thru a distorted prism.

 

But this post is about books. Books that people actually read.

 

Nothing is like a good book. Or even a mediocre book.

 

Oh, except number 57 at Angels.

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Running a used book store is a very good way to loose money. Its pretty much the same as a surplus store: You buy discards, then they sit around for years or even decades until somebody stumbles across something you have, and they buys it. But its been sitting in inventory, occupying expensive shelf space all that time (and particularly expensive space if the shop is located somewhere a foreigner is likely to bump into it.)

 

More simply: Reselling books is an expensive proposition, and they have to charge high prices in order to keep from going broke.

 

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Fair enough ... but if the prices were not so ridiculously high, they might well sell a lot more. I almost always balk at paying much more for a battered used book than the cover price was for the copy brand new.

 

The way to make money selling used books is to buy at estate sales. When some serious reader snuffs it, like as not his TV addict relatives will unload the whole lot for not much money. Also, don't waste space on a lot of trashy paperback novels. Aim for a specific market.

 

e.g. A neighbour passed on while I was in Penang for a few days. His widow was going to throw out a very respectable library of computer and travel books. I would have jumped at the chance to have them, but another neighbour grabbed them in my absence. The neighbour didn't want to use them as I did ... instead he sold them to Khao Sarn Road shops for about 9,000 baht. :p

 

 

 

 

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