June Listing Update - High Selling Costs and Pricing

I wrote last month that I haven't been doing well because of five bad reactions to treatments or medications.  I figured out late last week that my continuing problems are likely due to a sixth bad reaction.  I quit that medication on Saturday, and I hope things will start getting better.

I have photographed books for eBay, but I struggle with motivating myself to list them.  The books I'm planning to list are harder to find.  They include some international editions, some library bindings, and books signed by Harriet Adams.  But how to price them?

My costs have gone up and up.  I need to start pricing a good bit higher for desirable items that are more likely to sell.  The eBay fees are steep, and the Etsy fees have increased to the point that Etsy is only slightly cheaper than eBay.  The cost of postage has increased a lot.  Media mail is often only narrowly cheaper than ground advantage, and sometimes media mail is higher.

Packaging costs have increased as well.  Shipping boxes are a bit expensive. 

I'm not interested in selling person-to-person on Facebook.  My transactions need to be streamlined; eBay and Etsy do that for me.  For that reason, paying the high fees is better for me.

As I mentioned, I've pulled out some desirable items to list, most especially some library bindings.  The library bindings are mainly the green APC Nancy Drew books, but I truly don't know what the correct price point is.

I feel like the books could be priced from $20 up to over $50 each.  Some books have the original text, and others don't.  One book is the bright green APC binding which I dislike but others covet.  The bright green APC binding shows up much less often.  That book should probably be priced above $50.

I also have a few of the multi library binding, and I have no idea how to price them, either.  I have less of an idea than I do with the green APC binding.

I thought about auctions, but I dislike auctions both as a buyer and as a seller.

I feel like my best option is to use fixed-price but price on the high end and then wait it out.  If the books don't sell within whatever I consider a reasonable amount of time, then I will gradually lower the prices.

Selling on venues like eBay has become incredibly expensive, but I'm glad people are still willing to pay the fees.  I find eBay to be a great place to shop, and I hope people continue to use it.

Jennifer's Series Books on eBay

Jennifer's Series Books on Etsy

Convenience Fees and the Hierarchy of Booksellers

For some collectors, the thrill of the hunt takes precedence over completing a set.  For other collectors, completing a set as soon as possible is more important than the thrill of the hunt.

Collectors who find the thrill of the hunt to be more important are more likely to desire lower prices.  The collectors whose greatest desire is to complete a set quickly are more likely to pay higher prices. 

From my 2020 post about my purchases at the library book sale:

This is how I look at it. If the book is there and at a price that I can afford that is not completely insane, then I will purchase it if I need it.

For example, let's say that a book sells online for $10 to $20 on average.  Keep in mind that postage often must be paid in addition to the selling price, so the $10 to $20 book might be more than that.

Sometimes the book might sell for $5 online, but postage gets added to the total, so that book will end up being around $10.  Tax is now paid by a majority of online buyers, so there's that as well.  Online prices once were not taxed, which made online purchases cheaper.  That's not the case these days for most of us.

Let's say I am in a store and see the book I described above for $25.  The book is in nice condition.  I can examine the book in person and see all flaws.  I am there, and the book is there.  I will purchase the book if I need it.  I don't worry about how I might possibly find the book for $10 to $15 someday.  Someday might never come.  I have the book in hand, so I purchase it.

This is a convenience fee.  The bookstore sourced the book for me.  I walk into the store, and I decide to pay their price.  I might pay a little more than if I were to wait for a better deal, but the higher price includes a convenience fee. 

I've mentioned convenience fees several times in the past.

From my 2019 post about Japanese series books:

When the books were mentioned on Facebook, some people questioned why the prices were so high.  Some thought that it would be better to go to Japan and find the books.  Assuming that the books could be found, one still has to pay airfare, lodging, and transportation.  The books would not be cheap once the other costs were factored in.  Of course, if one were to be going to Japan anyway, then the cost of the trip would be irrelevant.

However, this is assuming that the books can actually be found in Japan.  I have heard about collectors who have traveled to other countries and tried to find series books as they vacation.  They usually cannot find any, or they find very few.  The international editions are not just laying around waiting for one of us to show up.

I consider it far easier just to buy the books than to try to travel to Japan to purchase them.  If some of the books are priced a bit high, then that cost is a convenience fee.

Here's another quote from my 2020 post about my purchases at the library book sale:

Most of the books seen in these pictures will be sold eventually.  The prices will be marked up, but I deserve that.  For those who might think I shouldn't do that, consider my true cost for the books.  I paid for a library membership.  I took the day off work and had to pay for my substitute.  I waited in line for hours for the sale to start.  I shopped at the sale for around three hours.  I went back the next day and spent another hour at the sale.  I drove round trip 25 miles each day when I attended the sale.

My final cost is higher than the sum total of my sales receipts.  Keep that in mind when you peruse the listings of online sellers.  The sellers have to source the books, and much time and effort is involved, in addition to the cost of acquiring the books.  The buyer pays a convenience fee to the seller, who did the legwork in finding the books.  I am eternally grateful to all the sellers over the years who have found good books that I ended up purchasing for my collection.

From my 2023 post about my eBay and Etsy sales:

A few of you suggested that I begin selling books on my website due to the low eBay and Etsy sales.  I'm not interested in doing that.  I choose to sell on eBay and Etsy so that I'm not responsible for driving traffic myself.  If I were to set up a store on my website, I would have to do a lot of advertising.  That's worse than my current setup.  The cost of selling on eBay and Etsy is not a concern.  Convenience is more important than avoiding the fees.

We all pay convenience fees in certain circumstances just because it is easier, including when we buy and sell books.  Every buyer or seller of books fits somewhere within a broader hierarchy.  This hierarchy heavily influences the pricing of books.  In fact, the prices of more expensive books would collapse if not for this hierarchy, and the aggressive actions of the high-end sellers cause much resentment among buyers and sellers who are lower down in the hierarchy.

Low Tier Booksellers

The lowest tier is where the books enter the secondhand marketplace.  Some examples are thrift stores, flea markets, garage sales, estate sales, and library book sales.  People who purchase books from any of these venues have found the books "in the wild." 

The people who make these purchases are not necessarily the lowest tier of seller.  They can fit anywhere in the hierarchy from low to fairly high.  These sellers are likely not the very highest tier, since those sellers typically source their books from other sellers in the hierarchy.

Low Middle Tier Booksellers

Next are antique shops, the average used book stores, chain book stores like Half Price Books, and online sellers like Thriftbooks.  

High Middle Tier Booksellers

Some used book stores cater more to the upper middle class.  These stores will more likely use names that include words like "antiquarian" or "fine books."  They will have higher prices but are not necessarily out of range for the average person.  However, some of their prices will give the average person pause and many will avoid buying the books.  Online series sellers at this level are ones like Bluff Park Books.  Some of the prices at Half Price Books are also at this level.

High Tier Booksellers

These are the high-end sellers.  Their clientele are wealthy, as in millionaires.  Booksellers at this level price their books too high for the middle class.  We can't purchase their books.

All booksellers purchase books from sellers at their own level and from all sellers who are at lower levels.

I didn't mention eBay and other online marketplaces, simply because the sellers on these sites span all levels.  Most online sellers are low and middle tier but some are also very high-end sellers as well.  That's the beauty of the online marketplace: There's something for everyone.

Most buyers and sellers of series books probably fall under the low middle tier.  This level certainly fits me the best.  

Lockwood & Co. Book Series by Jonathan Stroud

The Lockwood & Co. book series was written by Jonathan Stroud.  It was published by Little, Brown Books.

1.  The Screaming Staircase, 2013
2.  The Whispering Skull, 2014
3.  The Hollow Boy, 2015
4.  The Creeping Shadow, 2016
5.  The Empty Grave, 2017

Publisher's summary of The Screaming Staircase:

A sinister Problem has occurred in London: all nature of ghosts, haunts, spirits, and specters are appearing throughout the city, and they aren't exactly friendly.  Only young people have the psychic abilities required to see and eradicate these supernatural foes.  Many different Psychic Detection Agencies have cropped up to handle the dangerous work, and they are in fierce competition for business.

In The Screaming Staircase, the plucky and talented Lucy Carlyle teams up with Anthony Lockwood, the charismatic leader of Lockwood & Co, a small agency that runs independent of any adult supervision.  After an assignment leads to both a grisly discovery and a disastrous end, Lucy, Anthony, and their sarcastic colleague, George, are forced to take part in the perilous investigation of Combe Carey Hall, one of the most haunted houses in England.  Will Lockwood & Co. survive the Hall's legendary Screaming Staircase and Red Room to see another day?

This is an upper middle-grade series.  It's not quite young adult, but it's definitely not for younger children.  At times, the books are quite creepy and scary.

The time period in which this series is set is never stated, but it appears to be an alternative modern reality.  Spirits began appearing in England approximately 60 years before.  Though never stated in the books, the onset of the spirit infestation apparently hindered the development of modern technology.  The characters have no cell phones and no computers.  Most all technology is never mentioned.  

The youth carry rapiers, which they use to fight ghosts.  Vehicles do exist and are used, both automobiles and trucks.  The books are modern but without the more modern developments of the last 30 to 40 years.  It's like the books are set during the 1970s.

This series is has quite a few typical series book tropes.  Even some of the titles are reminiscent of series books, especially The Screaming Staircase and The Whispering Skull.  Throughout the series, the skull is most commonly referred to as "skull" as if a proper noun but not capitalized, but it is also sometimes called the "talking skull."  That is reminiscent of a Three Investigators book title.

The main trio consists of three characters, a girl and two boys.  One member of the trio is overweight with the typical jibes made about his eating habits.  

And of course, the skull.  The skull is an important character, and in fact, he's my favorite character.  I love him.

The trio has a rival, who is very annoying near the beginning of the series.  The relationship changes somewhat later in the series, which is interesting.

The trio spends a lot of time investigating before attempting to dispatch the spirits.  They need background information in order to come up with a proper plan of attack.  Typically, the site of each haunting had a traumatic event occur years before, like a murder or suicide, and that event is the cause of the haunting.

The spirit problem is part of an overarching story spanning all five books.  Clues are gradually doled out as the series progresses to its conclusion.

This is an extremely good series.  I greatly enjoyed reading the books, and I felt a bit lost after I finished the last one.

The series was also adapted to Netflix and aired for one season.  I watched the Netflix show soon after I read the books. The show is good, but the books are far scarier.  

I also watched the Netflix series The Irregulars, which is another show in the same vein.  I really enjoyed The Irregulars.

Keeper of the Lost Cities #1 Signed First Printing + Upcoming KotLC Posts

Over a year ago, I posted about my quest to find all of the Keeper of the Lost Cities books in first printing copies.  I found a first printing of #2 early last year, and that left me with just #1 to find. 

It took a year to finally get there.

In late March, I found two copies of #1 in first printing copies, one of which was signed.

It was pretty exciting to finally find a signed copy of the true first printing of #1.  The series was unknown at that time, and it's been apparent from my online searches that the first print run of #1 was quite small.  

Also, I've been kicking around some other theories.  This has to do with some characters mentioned/featured in #9.5 Unraveled.  This post will be designated as spoiler-free, so I'll be vague.  If you've read Unraveled, then you know that late in the story Keefe has an interaction with a character on the streets of London.  I think I've figured something out.  It just clicked yesterday.

I have two new Keeper posts written.  One involves the KotLC fan echo chamber where the "group think" ideas are all that can be discussed.  The other one explains what I now think about two certain Keeper characters.  I may not get those posts published for a couple weeks.  Whenever I have new thoughts, I like to mull them over and edit them until I have them the way I want.  

All of my past Keeper posts are linked from this page:

Keeper of the Lost Cities Summaries, Reviews, and Theories

The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan by Gia Cribbs

The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan was written by Gia Cribbs.  It was published by Harlequin Teen in 2018.  

Publisher's summary:

No one wants me to tell you about the disappearance of Sloane Sullivan.

Not the lawyers or the cops.  Not her friends or family.  Not even the boy who loved her more than anyone.  And most certainly not the United States Marshals Service.  You know, the people who run the witness protection program or, as it's officially called, the Witness Security Program?  Yeah, the WITSEC folks definitely don't want me talking to you.

But I don't care. I have to tell someone.

If I don't, you’ll never know how completely wrong things can go.  How a single decision can change everything.  How, when it really comes down to it, you can't trust anyone.  Not even yourself.  You have to understand, so it won't happen to you next.  Because you never know when the person sitting next to you isn't who they claim to be... and because there are worse things than disappearing. 

Sloane Sullivan lives with Mark Sullivan, who isn't a relative at all, but he's been her constant companion for the last six years.  Sloane and her father were forced to go into the Witness Security Program after they witnessed a murder by mobsters.  Mark is the U.S. Marshall who was assigned to them.  After Sloane's father committed suicide, Mark felt compelled to watch over Sloane firsthand.  

Due to the continuing threats, Sloane and Mark have been forced to flee and change their names many times.  Sloane is now partway through her senior year in high school and has just arrived at her latest school.  She is desperate to make it to graduation so that she can be free of WITSEC, keep her current identity, and head off to college.

Sloane is shocked to find that she knows a student at her new school.  Jason was Sloane's best friend in childhood.  Sloane must decide whether to tell Mark the truth or keep Jason's presence a secret while hoping that Jason doesn't recognize her.

This book has several plot twists.  I guessed one of them very early in the story.  If you're knowledgeable about certain things, then you'll pick up on it, too.  Other twists took me quite by surprise.

This book starts out very suspenseful, and then it slows down.  For the longest time, the story focuses on Sloane's relationships with her three new friends.  That part goes on and on way longer than it should.  I would grade that part of the book as just overall good with some parts of it very good.

After that lengthy stretch, the story ramps up going into the climax.  The last one-third of the book is outstanding.  Just really, really good.  The book ends with a very satisfying conclusion.  If you decide to read this book, you won't be disappointed by the ending.  It's always good to know that.

Collector Negativity Impacts the Hobby

This post was written on June 29, 2024.  I chose not to publish it immediately, and then I forgot about it.

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The series book hobby ought not to be stressful, but somehow it is.  I wrote about collector negativity in August 2023.

Collector Negativity and Criticism of Other Collectors

If you missed that post, you really ought to read it.

I opened the post with these comments:

I am concerned that the ongoing negativity has already driven many collectors away.  I know for a fact that the negativity has reduced participation in the groups.  I know this because of comments made to me via private messages.

1.  I am aware that some people never post in the groups because they are intimidated by certain people.

2.  I am aware of proposed projects that were canned because of negativity. 

3.  The bullying that began on the old Applewood message board and in the alt.news.nancy-drew newsgroup in the late 1990s continues (click here for more information), although it usually occurs outside of the groups.  I saw evidence of this bullying in my Facebook newsfeed as recently as October 2022.  They still haven't stopped, and they do drive others away.

Recently the Nancy Drew Book Fans group on Facebook acquired a large number of new members, apparently over a thousand.  Some of them found their way to the Collecting Vintage Children's Series Books group.  The numbers were much lower, something like 100 or so, but still more than usual.  Most of them were members of the Nancy Drew Book Fans group, and the Collecting group must have been suggested to them.

I periodically post cover art, and I wanted to do something for those new members.  Choosing Nancy Drew was obvious, and I felt it should be one of the original 56.  I tend to gravitate towards certain covers, and if I'm not careful, I post the same ones over and over.  I wanted to choose Tolling Bell, Crumbling Wall, Moss-Covered Mansion, and some others.  However, I've already posted those.

I wanted to post something I hadn't posted before, and I wanted something that would garner a positive reaction.  I choose The Moonstone Castle Mystery, because I have a positive view of both the cover art and the story.  I felt sure that others would as well.  I was wrong.

I learned very quickly that The Moonstone Castle Mystery's cover art is disliked and that the story isn't good.  I want to be clear that I didn't care about whether people like the book and cover art.  My issue was something else.

The problem was that my post was intended to be positive and a gift to new members from the Nancy Drew Book Fans group.  

I was disappointed that nearly every comment on the post was negative or critical.  My plan backfired, since I apparently chose the wrong book.  Now I have no motivation for posting cover art images.  Do I really just have to select Tandy artwork to avoid negativity?  

Again, no one did anything wrong.  The problem was that a "group mind" set in, caused by the very first comment being negative.  Everyone else followed suit, and positive comments weren't made until one person made a positive statement in order to bring some positivity to the comments.  Yes, the positive comment was purposeful as was my response to it.  

No doubt I feel far worse about it than I otherwise would have since I've had a difficult month.  I'm likely being a bit irrational over it, but this is a good example of how easily feelings can be hurt. 

Mainly, I just want to let others know how important it is for posts about books to contain at least some positive comments.  It's absolutely fine for people to give their opinions, even if they are negative.  It's just a downer when nearly every comment is negative, especially for a book that I never knew was disliked!  I wouldn't have chosen The Moonstone Castle Mystery if I had known better.

I also want to remind everyone of this portion of my post from August 2023:

Collectors often poke fun at cover art and illustrations, but sometimes this is taken too far with little concern for how others feel.  Around 20 years ago, the cover art of a certain Judy Bolton book was ruined for me because a few other collectors went into great detail explaining what was wrong about how the illustration was painted.  I see their comments every time I look at the jacket, and I used to love that jacket.  I still like the jacket, but I would have preferred not to have had the flaws pointed out. 

Altered book covers can also ruin our enjoyment of the original cover art.  I can think of one altered cover that is captioned in such a way that it points out what is wrong with the cover art, therefore ruining it forever.  That one is a Hardy Boys book that I will never see the same again.  The altered art is amusing, but it ruins the cover forever.

Criticism of cover art is tricky because it can forever ruin the cover art for some other fans.  Do we really want to do that?

These are, after all, children's books.  The cover art is often excellent, and we mostly love the stories.  However, the books were never intended to be great literature, and the cover art was never designed for display in a gallery.  We should keep that in mind.  

Finally, I want to mention that when I look at cover art, my opinion is formed by how pleasing the overall effect is.  I don't look at minute details and consider whether people were drawn proportionally.  I don't consider how well certain parts of the artwork were done.  Do I like the appearance of what I see?  If so, then I like it.  I reflect no deeper than that.

In closing, I am left wondering what the new members thought.  Did any of them leave the group?

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It's now nearly a year later.  I went back through my feed to the Moonstone Castle post, checking every post.  The Moonstone Castle post was the last time I posted a Nancy Drew cover.  The negativity killed my enthusiasm.  Why should I take the time to create a post when it might not go well?  I haven't cared to do it again.

Recall this past statement of mine, quoted above:  I know for a fact that the negativity has reduced participation in the groups.

The negativity further reduced what I post in that group, and I am the founder of that group.  How unfortunate.  

If the last year had been better, I probably would have overcome my reluctance to post cover art by now.  With how things have been, I haven't had any desire return to doing that kind of post. 

One post gone wrong ended my cover art posts.

May 2025 Selling and Blog Update

Since the middle of January, I have had five bad reactions to medications or treatments.  This is why my blog posts abruptly stopped.  The posts that published this spring were written early in the year before things got bad.  

I have reached a point to where I'm beginning to look at blog posts again, although I'm not quite back to where I feel like finishing posts.  I have a small number of posts that were finished a couple months ago, and I will set them to publish soon.

I have four more days before I'm out for summer break, and I desperately need to be free.  My symptoms are better today (Sunday), but they will immediately worsen again tomorrow.  I have no control over the stress.  Once I'm out for summer break Thursday afternoon, I can work towards getting myself back on track.

One of my goals is to chronicle all of the bad reactions of these last few months and detail what I have figured out.  I decided awhile back that this blog isn't the place for all of that.  Some of you do read those posts and find them interesting, but I feel that they should be separate from this blog.  For that reason, I created another blog a couple months ago. 

I searched this blog's archive and copied all of the relevant content into the new blog.  I left the original posts here, but I created posts in the new blog and backdated them to match when the content was posted here.

The new blog is solely about Hashimoto's disease and Sjӧgren's syndrome.

My Hashimoto's and Sjӧgren's Experience

Once I feel like working on posts again, I will summarize what has happened and will place the posts in the new blog.   

I also have many books that need to be listed on eBay and Etsy.  I will get around to listing books sometime in the next one to three weeks.

On this final weekend of the school year, I find that my thoughts are beginning to clear.  I'm starting to work on some things that I have neglected.  It helps that I have only four more days.  I just have to finalize grades, deal with all the begging and pleading, get everything packed away for summer break, and survive the chaos.  It's a lot, but the end is right in front of me.

Using Ozone on Musty Dana Girls Books

On March 6 on Facebook, I wrote:

I have another bulk lot of musty books.  This time the books are tweed Dana Girls books with dust jackets.  These books have a moderate musty odor.  The odor is not the worst I've smelled, but it is fairly strong.  I use an ozone generator in a closed box on the porch of an outbuilding.

I had a deadline of the next evening for finishing up with the ozone treatment because of incoming rain.  I also had to work. 

I got the books set up in the box with the ozone generator and started it at around 7 PM on March 6.  The ozone generator has a three-hour timer, and I reset it at around 10 PM.  The next morning, I started it again for the third round before I left for work.  When I got home that day, I started it on the fourth round and then a fifth round.  I then got the books inside before the rain moved in.

The books were treated to ozone for 15 hours total, and I knew that I overdid it a bit.  The books smelled extremely strong of ozone, so much so that I couldn't tell if they were still musty.  Logically, I knew that they weren't still musty, but the ozone odor was so strong that I couldn't distinguish exactly what I was smelling.

I moved the books to the garage, which is mostly climate-controlled.  The books would be fine.

I cleared enough space on shelves to get the books fanned open.  I checked on them a week later, and they still smelled unpleasant.  I periodically checked on them, noticing that the odor was improving.  

April was a terrible month, so I didn't check on them.  Today, I finally did.

As of now, the odor is soft and is a pleasant remnant ozone odor.  The books have no musty odor.  The ozone odor will continue to fade, but it's now down to what people would perceive to be similar to a "new book" smell.  

If I had treated the books to ozone for a shorter period of time, it wouldn't have taken as long for the ozone to fade.

For more information, view this post:

Using an Ozone Generator to Remove Musty Odor