Sunday, September 14, 2008

Book Sale Finds!

Obsessed with reading like I am? Sick and tired of paying too much money for a book to read it once and then leave it on a shelf? Me too. I love books and finding new authors when I can, but I hate paying over $20 for a hard cover book or even $10 to $15 for a paperback. Luckily as consumers we do have options. We can always visit the library and borrow books for free. Or course with this option you have to give them back sooner or later. We also have the option of I told you about it HERE. If your like me you and enjoy owning a good book you can combine the two for the best results. I read a book from the library and if I wish to own it I’ll request it on . It’s a nice system, that’s working for me.

Another way Matt and I get cheap books is by visiting our local book store’s big 4th of July sale. We discussed it HERE.

So how in the world did I get all these books for $6? Shown on the left is our most recent Library book sale haul. Matt and I picked up 80 books for $6, that’s a little more than three cents a book. What a steal! We did so by visiting our local library’s book sale on the second day, $3 bag day. All the books you can fit into a bag for $3, its enough to make me tremble with excitement just thinking about it.

These types of sales allow me to find books by new authors I wouldn’t normally buy, some older but popular books and on occasion a book that’s been on my to buy list for a while but hasn’t been purchased yet. On average I normally find one of these books per sale.

Or course someone as OCD as me can’t just visit a book sale and pick up books, I fill my bag in layers with a well thought out system. I start the sale out by filling my bag with any book I see that I know I want or one that looks like a good read. If my bag isn’t full I head to the craft section and look for books I can get projects from or to sell online. Lastly I top off the bag with young children books (box car, babysitter, Goosebumps). We don’t have young children but I’ve found these books are great to list on for easy credits and I give any duplicates to co-workers with the appropriate aged children. They always seem to be appreciative and it only cost us a few pennies.

A sampling of what you’ll find in our stash this trip.
Bottom layer – My books: Left Behind (1 through 3), Bridget Jones Diary, Air Frame
Middle Layer – Craft books : Martha Stewert Great Parties, A family circle book from 1988
Top Layer – Filler: Goosebumps, Boxcar Children, Baby-sitter Club, Girl talk

Looking for a sale in your local area? I use Book Sale Finder to figure out when we have upcoming sales. You can also visit your libraries website directly to learn about sales they are hosting. Happy book hunting.

Our next sale is at the end of October at our second favorite library in the area. I can’t wait to see what we find.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love book sales! Like you I'm a little on the OC side when it comes to browsing books. I'll circle a table of books several times before I'm satisfied that I've gotten everything that I wanted.

Have you seen www.booksalelist.com ? It looks like they've just opened but it promises to be a really good resource for finding book sales. I like the map feature.