The Fine Art of the Book Sale

by

Lauren Roberts

Are you looking for a way to help raise funds for your local library or a community organization? Used book sales are a great way to do that—if your organization goes about it in the right way.

As a devoted shopper of and active volunteer for such sales, I’ve learned a few things about what works and what doesn’t work. If your organization is considering such a sale, think about incorporating these suggestions.

Take time to set up a committee. The size and complexity of the sale will determine if there is a need for a chair plus subcommittees or if a single committee with each member having responsibility for one area will work. Just be sure to allow sufficient lead time; three months is the minimum, but six months is safer.

While the sale is still in the planning stage, decide on book categories. Browsing a new or used bookstore will provide ideas. Even if your sale is relatively small, this is worth doing. Most buyers have specific likes and dislikes and are unwilling to spend time going through unsorted books.

Soliciting books should begin immediately. Since the best support comes from within the organization, all members, contributors, volunteers, staff and boards of directors should all be alerted to the need for book donations. A flier will often be sufficient if guidelines are given. These should not be stringent or complicated, yet they must address specific needs. Are there categories of books you do not want? Should the books be in a certain condition? Will you accept mass market paperbacks as well as hardcovers? Are magazines, record albums, CDs and videos acceptable?

Incoming books must be initially sorted. Good decisions at this point about what to keep and what to toss will ensure the success of your sale. Nothing less than a ruthless culling of un-saleable books will suffice. Textbooks, books in marginal condition, multiple copies of popular, business and self-help books that are more than a year old are not worth your time or effort.

The site used for sorting and storage should be clean, dry and secure. If your sale site is both available and large enough it may be done there, but most often it will be somewhere else. Be sure there is room for the volunteers, a sturdy table or two, a secure drop-off bin for incoming donations and, if necessary, a place for boxes of sorted books to await transport to the sale site.   

Organizations will often reward their volunteers by allowing them to buy books ahead of time. Though there is good sense in this, there is also danger if most of the good books are taken before the sale commences. If you want to offer this perk, consider limiting the categories in which they can “pre-shop” or simply designate the most popular categories (collectibles, art, photography, gardening, cookbooks, etc.) as untouchables.

Choose the right place for your sale. Safe, convenient parking for customers (and volunteers) is essential. The atmosphere of your sale site is also important. If it is a bit dreary, dress it up with colorful posters or ribbon. Print out quotes about books and reading in large print on colored paper and hang those around the walls. Good lighting is essential too.

Don’t overprice the books! This is one of the most important rules when running a used book sale. The reason: buyers have a different mentality when shopping retail than when shopping at garage or fundraising sales. And it is that mentality rather than your buyers’ pocketbooks that should determine your pricing policies. Rather than lose a sale because the price is too high for your buyers’ mindsets, undercharge and watch the books fly out the door. Keep in mind that fun, challenging pricing approaches such as “Buy three; get one free!” or “Ten books for $20!” excites.

Be clear about your prices. Put up one or more large signs listing your prices or pricing policies (i.e., “All paperback mysteries $2” or “Collectibles priced on inside cover”). An oversized sign should also be posted near the checkout tables listing payment options. Be sure to have plenty of change for those ATM-generated $20 bills. Also, have a plan for getting change periodically and safeguarding the cash.

If you are going to use the Internet to determine some prices, be sure you know what you are doing. Performing a search under part of a publisher’s name, for example, will produce different results than entering the full name. If you are working with a collectible book, find and print out all the pages you can of the same book and highlight the descriptions of those that most closely match yours in edition and condition. Then price your copy  at least 15 percent less. Remember, you are out to sell it, not just display it.

If you want antiquarian dealers to assess the value of one or more of your books, expect to pay for their professional knowledge and time. Many are happy to help a nonprofit with a few free valuations, but keep in mind that they are donating their time and expertise. Show your appreciation with a handwritten thank you note. It might be a sideline for you, but it is their livelihood.

At the sale site, be sure to mark your categories clearly. You want your customers to find what they are looking for without trouble. Once you have your tables and signs set up, bring the books over. As the boxes are emptied, use pencils to mark the price on the inside front page. While you might find a light-fingered person attempting an erasure, there are ways to thwart this bit of nastiness. Have your volunteers walk around offering help. Block off any corners where someone could perform some quick pricing surgery. Do not allow anyone to take books, bags or boxes into the restrooms. Have all cashiering stations at the exit door, and do not allow people to leave by any way that takes them back through the sales room. If it is practical, put valuable books in a separate corner or room and have a volunteer take people’s selections to the cashier to await the buyer.

Have enough books to make the room look wonderfully crowded, but not enough to make browsing unpleasant. Keep aisles wide enough to avoid the dreaded “butt-brush” factor, and keep stacks no more than two levels high. If you have too many books to adhere to this rule, adhere to this rule anyway. Options for dealing with overload include more rigorous tossing and holding books at the sorting site, bringing more over each day of your sale.

If your problem is the opposite, you should re-canvas everyone in the organization (and ask them to check with their friends) for more books. Even if you are short, do not be tempted to add books you would otherwise toss just to fill up space. That tactic only works until customers actually see what you have, and your organization’s reputation will suffer if it becomes known that what you offer is mostly junk. Solutions include decreasing the size of your sale site, increasing the space between tables, adding a waiting area with chairs and coffee or a roped-off area where customers can securely set their chosen books while they continue to shop.

During the sale, have plenty of bags and boxes. Because books—even paperbacks—become heavy with time, volunteers should go among the browsers and offer bags or boxes to anyone with more than two books. If you have sufficient room for temporary storage, let people know that. It will be one of the most thoughtful things you can offer.

You will have books left over. If it is a multi-day sale, why not make your last day a half-price one where all books are 50 percent of the marked price? Another option is to make it an all-you-can-put-in-one-box for five dollars.  If you are having a one-day event, do this for the last hour. Alternatively, you may wish to designate the final minutes or hours as a free-for-all. Let the leftovers go, and congratulate yourself that these will not have to be thrown away.

Informal sales that are part of a local festival, church event or community celebration are fun and require much less organization. Set up makeshift shelves with boards and bricks and pile the books or layer boxes that are filled with books, no sorting necessary. Make buying fun with crazy pricing and free candy or attractive bookmarks.

Regardless of which type of used book sale you choose, make the sale enjoyable for yourselves. If you can find pleasure in the hard work that such a sale takes, that sense of fun will show your organization off at its best while raising funds. You can make book on that.

Editor’s Note: I have been hard at work these past two weeks improving our lists of links. First, we have a new page entitled Sundry Sites which lists web sites that I think will be of interest to our readers but that don’t fit elsewhere. These include “Fun & Games,” “Shopping” and “Writers’ Resources.” In addition, you’ll find new links on our Book Donations and Book-Related Sites and Bookmark Sites pages. I will also be changing our page that lists links to independent bookstores. I want to include stores of all sizes from all over the U.S. I encourage you to let me know of any that you would like to see added.


Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines have reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, 750 bookmarks and nearly 1,000 books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it