( Photo credit: Hebe Aguilera / Foter / CC BY )
July is always busy here, just for family birthdays–we have 4 in a 5 day stretch later in the month–but this year will be even busier, since I’m traveling to NYC for the Romance Writers of America National conference in a couple of weeks. I’ve gone to a number of writers’ conferences over the years, but I haven’t made it to this one yet, except to go twice to the huge literacy booksigning that kicks off the conference each year. I didn’t get registered for the conference in time to take part in the signing this year, which is disappointing, but that just means that I get to actually walk through the signing room and meet authors I enjoy reading, or catch up with some I’ve met previously.
And that isn’t even the only booksigning during the conference. Various publishers host events as well, so attendees go home with a lot more reading material than they arrived with.
Which leads me back to my current project. Or at least my attempted current project. I have about a dozen big boxes of books stacked in my book room that I want to sell. Lots of new and nearly new books, romances, women’s fiction, mysteries, new adult, young adult, fantasy. I thought it would be fairly easy to do. Only eBay won’t cooperate–I haven’t used my account in so long that they’ve ‘suspended’ it, and in that state, I can do nothing with it, not even delete it and start over. I’m not wild about the idea of Craigslist–too many creeps. Or about yard sales–I’ve been to a few in my life, and these books are worth way more than a quarter each, plus there’s the huge pain of setting up so people can paw through everything and then try to get it for nothing. For the most part, the handful of small used bookstores in my area only offer store credit, but that sort of defeats the purpose of selling the books (and not taking an equal number home with me, which definitely defeats the purpose of selling the books!) So I’m looking for ideas.
None of us has room to keep every single book we ever got, even if we wanted to. But boy, can you imagine the space we’d need to do that? Wow! Where do you sell the books you don’t want to keep? The uncooperative auction site? Somewhere else? I’d love some suggestions.
And, by the way, if you live in the U.S, happy Independence Day!