Film and TV and Books - An Antique Books Guide

This post is simply to raise your attention to the power and value of a book influenced by Film or TV.
If you owned a copy of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell in first edition form then three years back it may not have raised even £5. Yet when the 2012 film was released, first editions were selling for around the £200 mark - purely because the film had induced a sales hype.

This effect can been seen everywhere - in Harry Potter books, in Hobbits and Alice's. But this effect is not limited to TV. Famous series such as Game of Thrones have books that grew substantially in value after the franchises were launched on TV.

Always be on the look out for books of upcoming films.
Here's a list of a few on IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/movies-coming-soon/

My advice would be to try and buy a copy of The Book Thief signed by the author - that one is almost certain to rise when the film is released next year.

How Much Is My Book Worth? Advanced PHOTO GUIDE for antique book selling/ buying + values

Finding the Value of your book

Here is the updated guide for valuing books, antique or otherwise.

The latter part of this post focuses on more advanced websites.

This is a guide to show you how to simply and effectively find the value of your book(s). It was meant I hope it helps!

Throughout my blog I've written much about a website named 'AbeBooks.co.uk' and I shall show how to use this one first in finding the value of nearly all books ever published.

Firstly, type in the address for AbeBooks - the home page will appear as seen below

Now click 'More Search Options' and the screen below will appear for you.

Type in any details you have about the book although sometimes being too specific can be a bad thing here.

Remember that there can still be different editions printed within the same year/ by the same published.
It is also important to note that the search is rather unforgiving so make sure you enter your search correctly.

I often put the publication date in the keyword search for ease.

Click 'Find Book' and a list as seen below will appear

Remember that there are many different editions/ impressions and it sometimes takes some detective work to find your exact copy. Look for publisher, number of pages, the publication date and sometimes even appearance.

One you find your copy click on the book title and you be brought to it's specific page.

One thing to bear in mind is that AbeBooks prices are often idealistic. On occasion there will be reasonable prices at the lower end of the price range but people will always seek to get the highest price for their book and some of the higher priced copies may be either rarer editions or just idealistic pricing.

Now onto eBay.

Go to the home page as seen below and search for you book. Again don't be too specific.

The search will come up in the usual way but what you need to do is scroll down...

And click 'Completed Listings' in the left had side filter bar.

Now you will be shown a series of listings that have already run their course. 

     If the price shown is green it means that the books sold for that price.

                                     If the price is red it means ti didn't sell for that price.

If you exact edition isn't shown then don't worry - eBay listings are sporadic and it may be some time before your exact book come for sale.

The completed listings however should give you a fair estimate (alongside AbeBooks.co.uk) and help you choose a price to start your item at should you choose to sell it.

One of the more advanced book search websites is 'www.bookfinder.com'.

The home search page looks like this:

As usual, fill in the details you have for your book. Like before I would recommend only giving the bare minimum in terms of details so as not to over complicate the search

The results will appear as seen below:

The search feature for this site brings up search results from a range of other websites so the results may appear a little complex.

For example in one search result the book may be titled just 'Alice In Wonderland' whilst another might be titled 'Alice's Adventures In Wonderland'. This is simply different websites titling the book differently.
Generally you can be safe in the knowledge that the results will be specific to the search data you entered.

I clicked on 'ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND AND THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS' as seen below:

The results will sometimes only feature a few books and other times many.
Be careful with the descriptions as they are not always accurate.
Use this website as an addition to Abebooks and eBay would be my advice.

However it is still a useful tool for a wider search result.

I hope that this guide helped you find the value of your book(s) or even to buy a book you have been searching for

If you need any advice please feel free to email me at vaugc002@gmail.com or comment on the post

A +1, share or comment is also much appreciated!

Thanks for reading

eBay - Starting Out GUIDE

Many believe that to register and set up an account on eBay is enough to begin buying and selling.
This is not strictly the case.

Feedback is an incredibly important aspect of eBay and one that can ensure you the right level of sales and purchases.

Put simply, when you start out on eBay you are undesirable.
Your account has no feedback (i.e no registered sales or purchases) and thus will be given little trust.

It is common for users to put a ban on buyers with less than ten feedback on high value items.
Furthermore if you are hoping to sell an item, especially a high value one, then having feedback is essential in getting a high price. Low feedback rating and you will not achieve the value you could potentially achieve.

Your feedback can be seen at the top of your 'My eBay, alongside your eBay username:

If you click on your feedback you will be taken to the feedback page, showing your sales and purchases and feedback for all.

 My advice for those starting out on eBay would be to buy at least ten different items of low value (few will suffice but over ten is generally accepted as preferred). Cheap books, DVD's etc are the best to buy. Look for a big company (seen through the feedback associated with that account - the higher the better).

That way, once you have bought the item you will receive immediate feedback in most cases.
This feedback may look like below:

Feedback is calculated via the following formula:

What is important to know is that one negative feedback can equal a considerable amount on your account. At one point a negative feedback accounted for a 5% loss in your feedback rating, meaning you would drop to 95%.

Low feedback means less chance of high sales.

To regain feedback is time expensive - each feedback brings your rating up 0.1% so 50 positive feedback is required to achieve 100% once more!

Confused by the statistics?

Don't worry - they aren't too important.
What is important is that you establish some feedback (through buying) in order to achieve the best possible sales.

If you found this useful please share away!

As usual if you need any advice please just contact me though this blog or via vaugc002@gmail.com