Lately I have been selling books from my library using Amazon’s Sellers Account service. It almost feels like I’m getting away with something!
Amazon (and other bookstores, but especially Amazon) have dug so deep into my wallet over the years, and now I get to sell some back. Of course, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch — they take a horribly punitive (it seems to me) fee for using their billion-dollar selling machine so I can get rid of old Oprah and O’Reilly books. But, it is a fun on-line business. These books have been sitting in a storage unit, some for two years. I tried to give some away, and even got myself set up with BookCrossing.com to “free” some of my books. But selling is more fun, I have to say. But, I still have a rule: if it sells for less than a dollar on Amazon, I free it instead. I like the BookCrossing.com concept, very much.
So, here’s what I do: I list a book, wait for an e-mail from Amazon’s automated minions (sometimes mere minutes after) excitedly announcing the sale, and then package it up to some exotic domestic destination. Yesterday a nice lady (I know she’s nice because she bought my book) with a 5th Avenue address in Manhattan bought my Chicago Manual of Style. (is that a geographic irony?) I think she works for a Silicon Alley dot-com, maybe, from the company name. Earlier this week a nice fellow from Cupertino bought my TCP/IP Implementation manual. I imagine him as a dedicated engineer working for some networking startup (the address is a business park too small for an established company), who might use the book for developing a secret new networking appliance. And just last night a nice lady (see above for explanation of attribution) from Wisconsin bought my Harry Potter book 3. I hope she likes it as much as I did.
I use a low-tech method to send the books: I wrap them in plain brown paper, and I address them by hand. Amazon has some rules about what you’re supposed to put on the outside, so I carefully write “Your Amazon.com Marketplace order” on each one. It reminds me very much of sending a QSL card to a ham radio contact — someone with the same interest as you, receiving your little token of an electronic transaction through the mail. Since the books are heavy and could be a munition, I must go in person to the Post Office and hand them to the clerk. I find this diversion to be very satisfying, and even quite relaxing. So much of my interaction with other people is conducted electronically, and a personal exchange seems so natural and refreshing by comparison. And yes, there is a double irony that an electronic sale of a physical book must be completed by manual means. The local Post Office clerks have come to know me, since I’ve been visiting them two or three times a week. They are very helpful, and gave me the web site address of the new do-it-yourself postage system. If I used it, I would not have to stand in line, they say; instead, I could leave the books with their postage already applied (using the web site) on the corner of the counter. I don’t think I’ll do that, however. I like going to the Post Office. I’ll explain some other time, but in my family there is a long-held and very deep tradition of fascination with public offices. My visits to the Post Office satisfy that odd need.
Looking at all the books I’ve acquired over 10 years or so (in some cases more) is an anthropological study of me. For many of them I think to myself “Why did you buy that? What were you thinking?” Many are the result of that time-honored hacker tradition of becoming interested in a technology and making a visit to the bookstore to buy the O’Reilly book to understand it. Some are the result of my fascination with language (Learn Spanish in 10 days. The Idiot’s Guide to Learning French!) A few are novels, usually John Grisham or Neal Stephenson or Tom Clancy. I’m either eclectic or easily distracted — I know I never met a book I didn’t like. I remember once telling Karen that when I walked through a bookstore books stuck to me without me noticing. I was joking at the time, but I think it was my subconscious trying to tell me something!
Back to the reason I am doing this — I suppose Amazon has catalyzed my first step into the twelve step program for bibliophiles: yes, I have a problem — but I’m dealing with it by selling off the ones I really don’t need. Moving twice in two years can make you question why you have a library, and whether you really enjoy it as much as you think you do. Perhaps there is a Bookaholics Anonymous, and if there is I might have needed to go a few years ago. For now, selling books Amazon gives me what I need.
Oh, look! The Amazon minions have sent me another e-mail One of the Oprah books just sold!
Sold — ship now! Resistance : A Novel [Paperback] by Shreve, Anita
