Finding the Best Book Dealers
Let us suppose you are looking on the internet for a copy of a title that you want to read or keep for a while for reference purposes. You want the book to be solidly bound with no markings in it. You’d like its condition accurately described and want to pay the lowest price for the book in the desired condition. This page is a guide to help you do just that by showing you how to find a reputable on-line dealer with the book you want. This is a quick starting guide. I’ll be adding more pages giving the details of what you may want to know about the book business.
Here, I’ll show you how to avoid dealers who either do not understand the basic rules for listing used books on-line or deliberately ignore them.
1. Avoid dealers whose book descriptions contain such wording as: Books may contain highlighting or other marking.
2. Avoid dealers who are selling ex-library books.
3. Avoid dealers who do not provide a clear description of a book’s condition.
4. Avoid dealers whose price for a book is significantly higher than a book in the same condition sold by another dealer.
5. Avoid dealers who are obviously using AI to list their books. For example, if the listing contains a long paragraph describing the contents of the book, that listing is probably AI generated.
6. Look at a dealer’s credentials. How long have them been in business? Are they a member of the ABAA (The Antiquarian Bookdealers Association of America)?
7. How easy is it to communicate with the dealer? As many of the book search services make it difficult to communicate with a dealer directly, it is often best to see if you can do so through that dealer’s web site.
