Sunday, January 31, 2010

A New Feature and a Thank You

Lian suggested that I launch a question and answer feature for this blog. It's a great idea! Readers can submit questions about series books, and I can answer them. This can be done by either asking the question in a comment or by contacting me on Bonanzle.

I decided to go through my old posts and find good questions that I have answered over the last couple of years. I will begin by featuring those questions and answers. If anyone can think of a good question, let me know.

I also want to take a moment to say that all of you are very much appreciated. In particular, I want to thank the 32 people who publicly follow this blog (see right sidebar near the bottom), the six to 12 people who regularly post comments in this blog, and the people who contact me privately through Bonanzle to make comments. You are what motivates me to continue to post new articles to this blog.

I have no way of knowing how many people regularly read this blog. I had a poll up awhile back, but it did not tell me much. All I know is that at least around 40 to 50 people are interested in this blog: my 32 followers plus the small number of others mentioned above. I know that others also read this blog regularly, but I have no way of knowing how many people since they either follow privately or through bookmarks. It could be just a few more people, or it could be dozens of people. Who knows?

If you are someone who reads this blog and you have never commented, I encourage you to do so. Sometimes people who are relatively new to collecting feel like their comments do not matter or feel intimidated. I remember feeling that way myself a long time ago. In fact, people who are relatively new to collecting have a point of view that is fresh and can often see things in a completely different fashion.

For instance, I now know that many people buy the Applewood editions because of convenience. They are confused about which books contain the original text, so they would rather pay a high price and be certain of getting the original text. I learned this information from someone who posted a comment to this blog.

So, please let me know what you think. I love the comments and greatly enjoy reading them. I often respond to them, although not always due to a busy work schedule. Even if I don't make a response, I really enjoy reading them. You are appreciated.

5 comments:

Paula said...

I have a question! Today I found a Nancy Drew book, that I had purchased in a lot on ebay, that had blue multi-scene endpapers and something about them looked odd. So I compared them to a book with normal blue endpapers and discovered that the direction on them is reversed! For example, if you look at the little scene of Nancy going up the porch steps (from Blackwood Hall), she is going up from left to right. In my book, she is going up the stairs from right to left. All of the images are reversed in this way, but the colors, print quality and everything else is as usual. Have you ever noticed this before?

I checked Jenn's site to see if perhaps this is what she calls Blue Multi-Scene I, but in both examples the images are facing the same way. The book is a 2nd printing of The Mystery of the Tolling Bell (according to Farah's 10th) - lists to Fire Dragon on the back, and Moonstone Castle inside. I have another 2nd printing of Tolling Bell with the same criteria, and it has the normal endpapers.

Ashley said...

Hi, I read your site through RSS feed to LiveJournal; I don't know if you see numbers on RSS. (And I just bought a couple of books from your Bonanzle booth). It's really interesting to see what has been going on with Bonanzle, since I haven't been as happy with eBay as I was a long time ago. Thanks for posting!

Chelsea said...

I follow through google reader and you have 41 subscribers over there! Thanks for not just the wonderful information, but for the community you're creating, at Bonanzle, on Facebook, and through your blog.

(Chelsea aka Cotton Nero A.x Books)

Jennifer White said...

I'm going to go ahead and answer Paula's question since it is going to be a week or so before I get all the old questions and answers posted. For the first time in a while, I have a lot of ideas for posts.

I don't think I have ever seen the reversed endpapers in person, but I have heard of them. If Junior is around, perhaps he will comment. I know that he has mentioned them. It is a printing error. In this case, I think it is an error that does not decrease the value, and it probably enhances the value slightly.

Upcoming posts (in no particular order):

A bunch of question and answer posts

My January Bonanzle sales

Thoughts on eBay's interesting fee increase announcement from last week

A review of the Percy Jackson series

Some are written, and some are not! I have work to do!

Gina said...

I just thought I would say hello. I have been reading your blog for a couple months but haven't posted before. I'm not a serious collector of books or anything like that, but back when I was in high school I used to pick up books from antique stores (Nancy Drew, Ruth Fielding, Outdoor Girls, Campfire Girls, etc) to read. I find your blog very interesting and insightful when it comes to these old girls series books!