Have ebooks killed the second-hand paper book market?

[Tarana]

I have a fondness for books, but the reality was that I could no longer read them. I need larger and better spaced text. The novels are all gone although I keep finding stashes from my late sister as we gradually downsize stuff. By this time next year, Mom and I should be down to 3 SMALL bookshelves of mostly cookbooks and needlework books. Heck, I have away all the dictionaries already. As to DVDs and CDs, we have two custom bookshelves for those and there are now spaces, albeit limited due to the closure sale from Audiobookstand.com. Our situation is different. My Mom is 84 and I'm likely to move to senior housing myself a year or two after she passes, so having less now will be better in the long run. She totally loves her ereader.

[crane3]

I still have 2 unfilled bookcases of printed books as well as a bunch of "coffee table"(?) books; the big coffee table books are nice & heavy & are at the bottom of the bookcase for stability & anchor. Just too lazy to get rid of them now.

Some time past my favorite used bookstore closed; they stated the the cause of closing was the legislated increase of the minimum wages & health. I do believe that as they had high school(?) students working part time to help maintain the books; there lots of books for all categories. At times one had to go past books on the floor to get to the shelves; the books on the floor were books not 'cataloged' or listed somewhere.

The bookstore was very large & they took in books for trade! The store was also useful for teachers to order books (new) for their students. The closing was noted in a segment of the local news & definitely mourned by many.

[GtrsRGr8]

This is only anecdotal evidence.

I still like to haunt the thrift stores, used book sales, etc. and (please keep this a secret! ) buy used paper-based books. For quite a while now, I've been told by, for example, the thrift store managers, and other thrift store employees, that they have way too many books. They speak in terms, for example, of "mounds" of them (that may not be anyone's exact word, but that is the gist of what they say) in the backrooms. And the shelves "on the floor" are, many times, stuffed with used books. They get far more than they are able to sell. I could share much more.

This glut of used books seems to correspond with the surge in ebook sales about 10 years ago. That's just my impression, I have no empirical evidence to share.

The nice thing about that is that it is a buyer's market. Thrift stores, at least, have to repeatedly have sales/"specials" to get rid of more of what they have. I'm still a lover of dead-tree books and I almost grieve when I think of all of the books that they probably throw away, simply because they have no more space for them "on the floor." But I enjoy buying them at the concomitant great prices--that is, until I try to find more space in my house to put them.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

This is only anecdotal evidence.

I still like to haunt the thrift stores, used book sales, etc. and (please keep this a secret! ) buy used paper-based books. For quite a while now, I've been told by, for example, the thrift store managers, and other thrift store employees, that they have way too many books. They speak in terms, for example, of "mounds" of them (that may not be anyone's exact word, but that is the gist of what they say) in the backrooms. And the shelves "on the floor" are, many times, stuffed with used books. They get far more than they are able to sell. I could share much more.

This glut of used books seems to correspond with the surge in ebook sales about 10 years ago. That's just my impression, I have no empirical evidence to share.

(

Oh, your stories are backed by many other industry news sources in the US and UK. It's not just a few areas but rather the baseline.

Most people simply don't hoard books.

There's an entire industry built around the flood of excess used books floating around; those in the best conditions feed the penny book market while the rest feed recyclers or landfills. But it's not really about ebooks. If anything, ebooks marginally reduce the excess. The flood doesn't primarily come from digital adopters purging their libraries but rather from casual readers disposing of their bandwagon "bestsellers". The flood is full of copies of things like 50 Shades, Bridget Jones, The Goldfinch, Brief History of Time, etc. That's why so many books go to the bulk disposal chutes: there's only so much demand for used copies of the specific titles. Warehousing costs money and not even the penny book industry has a use for so many copies.

Its the circle of life of dead tree pulp. From cellulose they come and to cellulose they return. If they're clean enough for recyclers.