10 tips to build the book collection you've always wanted

Find hidden treasures. Avoid overpaying. Beat the professionals at their own game.

This list of ten starter tips to help build a satisfying book collection economically is based on lessons of experience I’ve learned from 40+ years of book collecting. Most of the tips relate to physical copies of books rather than ebooks or audiobooks.

The first few tips should be obvious, but sometimes aren't.

1. Collect what you enjoy

Some people collect books because they have preconceived notions of what a well-read person should have in their collection, even though they might not enjoy the books.

Others assemble their collections based on how the books make them appear to other people. (Can a person's book collection truly be considered their own if it's put together to satisfy other people's expectations?)

Books are more than just ornaments to be displayed like a façade. I believe if you're going to collect books, pick books that genuinely make you happy, whether it's the look, the feel, or the smell of a book, or most important of all, its contents.

2. Decide what kind of collection you want

It’s important to have a clear understanding of the kind of collection you want, and why you want it. A book collection can be large or small. Its contents can be highly selective, or if you're a completist like me, it can be more expansive. Your goal might simply be to curate a library of personal favorites, or maybe a library of books you haven't yet read, but want to. Some people even collect books as a long-term investment strategy.

In my case, I'm a preservationist at heart. My collection has a strong emphasis on genre classics I want to preserve for posterity.

The important thing is to understand your goals as a collector, because it will help you plan and prioritize how you go about it.

3. Don’t buy new

If you want to stretch your book-buying budget, avoid buying books new at full retail price.

As I said, some of these are obvious.

If you can wait a few weeks or months after a book is released, used copies in Like New condition will start appearing on the used book market on eBay and Amazon Marketplace and in other, even lower-priced locations, which I'll discuss in a later tip.

Buying used might not help the author or your local bookstore much, but it can significantly reduce the number of books that end up wasted in landfills or pulp mills. And you'll be able to afford more books.

An exception to this tip involves limited editions and books published by specialty presses with small print runs. Those editions often appreciate in value as soon as the print run is sold out, so buying them new might actually be the best approach. They don't always go up in value, but it's something to keep in mind if you're in the market for them.

Be aware, though, that some of those specialty presses have significantly expanded the range of titles they publish and the sizes of their print runs, while at the same time substantially inflating the retail prices of their books. As a result, many of those books don't hold their value after the initial wave of enthusiastic collectors have purchased copies.

4. Start early

A book collection of any significant size takes time to acquire, particularly if you're targeting older or out-of-print editions that are harder to find. I've been actively collecting books for more than 40 years, growing my 10,000-volume library piece by piece over that time.

Another benefit of starting sooner rather than later is that the market value of many older books tends to increase over time as they become scarcer, making them more expensive to acquire.

5. Be patient

Once you've started early, the key to getting the most value while collecting is to be patient. For the best availability and prices, there are some common sweet spots when timing your book purchases.

First, while a book edition is still in print, a used copy of it will almost always sell for less than its original retail price.

For editions that many might regard as collectible, their prices on the used book market often follow a U-shaped curve. The price of a typical book edition starts at its retail price and gradually decreases on the used market as more of the original owners finish and discard it. This can result in a glut of used copies within a few years of a book's publication, after reader demand for the book has waned. If you can wait that long to read a book, this often is the best time to buy a copy, because you can readily find them at low prices and in very good or better condition.

As time goes on though, it becomes harder to find used copies in collectible condition, causing prices for them to trend upward. Depending on how popular the book or author is and on how small the early hardcover print runs were, prices can surpass the original retail price within a few years. Some exceptions to that pattern might include copies signed by the author or copies from a book's first print run, but even those often have lower prices for some period of time after publication.

Another timing sweet spot is for books that have been out of print for several years or more. Authors and genres tend to cycle in and out of popularity over decades. You can find terrific value by targeting older books at the bottom of that popularity cycle, before their historical relevance is recognized and before a new generation of readers discovers their merit.

As recently as 20 years ago, classic science fiction from the 1940s, 50s and 60s was in such a trough, and early editions of those books were much more available and affordable than they are today.

What authors or time periods in different genres are experiencing similar demand troughs now? Those might be worth prioritizing if they fit your collection objectives.

Another reason to exercise patience is that the used book market is inefficient. Particularly for older and scarcer books, at any given time, there's no guarantee that the right edition will be available in the right condition and at the right price for your collection. But if you wait long enough, there's a good chance a copy that meets your standards will become available.

It might take years of watching and waiting, though. That's because not all used book sellers are alike. Look for casual sellers, particularly on auction sites like eBay or in thrift or charitable stores. Many casual sellers approach it like a garage sale, where their primary interest is in getting rid of stuff quickly, rather than maximizing the amount of money they earn. As a result, it's possible to find highly collectible books at extraordinarily low prices if you're patient.

Your chances improve even more if there isn't an active market for a particular book. Often with older books, there might be a sizeable market for them, but most potential buyers aren't actively looking for them on a continuous basis. Thus, a seven-day auction of a rare book on eBay can escape the notice of potential bidders who aren't actively looking for it. The fewer bidders you're competing against, the lower the price will likely be.

And for books listed on sites such as eBay, Pangobooks or Whatnot with fixed prices rather than an auction format, many sellers will accept offers significantly lower than the listed price. So be prepared to negotiate.

6. Avoid professional booksellers if you can

This is a corollary to the previous tip. High-volume resellers such as World of Books, Better World Books and Thrift Books offer attractive prices, but the condition descriptions of their books can be unreliable, often failing to disclose that a book is a library discard, or that it's missing its original dust jacket, or that it has significant damage. That might be okay if you're mainly interested in building a collection of reading copies of books, but maybe not if you want a collection that will endure and hold its value for decades to come.

An exception is Half Price Books. In my experience, it has pretty accurate descriptions and reasonable (but not always bargain) prices.

At the other end of the bookseller spectrum are the ones that specialize in scarcer titles. Typically, these are low-volume bookstores or freelancers that turn a profit by selling books at inflated prices. They target high-end buyers who are less price-sensitive or lack patience.

There's a good chance of finding a collectible copy of a book at one of these sellers, but you'll probably end up paying a lot more than you otherwise would had you waited for a similar copy from a casual seller to become available.

A middle tier of professional booksellers also exists, ranging from local used book shops to online sellers on eBay, Pangobooks and Whatnot, many of whom operate their businesses as casual side hustles. It’s possible to find terrific bargains in this tier, but it often requires a high level of diligence and attentiveness to inventory turnover that might not be feasible for some collectors.

7. What’s a reasonable price for a book?

How do you know what is a reasonable price for a collectible book? The first step is to comparison shop.

There's a website, addall.com, that compares used book prices across thousands of booksellers around the world, aggregating prominent sites such as Abebooks, Alibris, Biblio and Amazon Marketplace along with many smaller bookstores. The search tools on Addall are robust and allow you to tailor the results as broadly or narrowly as you want to see the range of prices sellers are asking, along with brief descriptions of the books' condition.

Keep in mind that the highest prices listed in the search results likely exaggerate a book's true market value. There's an old rule of thumb that professional booksellers often use to price their books. They take the price at which they acquired the book for their inventory, and then they double it, at a minimum, to determine the price at which they’ll list it for resale.

They also monitor recent sales by other booksellers of comparable copies of a book. If a copy sold for a high price, then many sellers will use that price as their starting point and tack an additional 20 or 30 percent (or more) onto it to come up with their own price. In that way, at the highest listed price levels, collectible books can appear to appreciate in value very quickly, even though very few, if any, buyers might be willing to pay those prices.

Don't be fooled by those high prices. The true market value for a book isn't the listed price a seller places on it. Rather, it's the actual price a seller is willing to accept for it. Not all sellers hold out for the wealthiest buyers. They need to generate revenue and are willing to accept lower prices.

Thus, a better indicator of the market value for a book is to look in the Addall search results for the lowest-priced copy of the same edition that's in approximately the same condition as the one you want to buy (or maybe sell). That's often the price point below which a book is most likely to sell.

And that's a quick way to estimate the maximum reasonable price for a collectible book. It's not a perfect method, in part because its reliability depends on how rare a book is. It works best for books that are merely scarce rather than truly rare.

I’ll also note another search site — bookfinder.com — that does essentially the same thing as Addall. In my experience, though, Addall provides slightly more thorough search results and better ease of use.

8. Where are the best deals?

The first part of this tip is to prioritize casual and charitable sellers that might not have the time or resources to figure out the full market value of a book when setting its price. They might be individuals on eBay simply trying to clean out a closet or an attic to make space in their houses. Sometimes, you can run across someone selling off the contents of an entire house, which can be great if it was owned by a book lover.

You also can find real treasures at your local thrift store or public library store where people have donated their old books. I've purchased books at those locations for 50 cents that sell for a hundred times that amount on eBay.

The second part of this tip is to buy books the way the professionals do.

Professional used book sellers typically prefer to acquire their book inventories in batches, rather than one book at a time. They look for opportunities to buy bulk lots, which tend to lower the average purchase price of the books, compared to what they'd pay to buy the books individually, which gives them a higher profit when they eventually sell each book.

You can do the same thing, whether on eBay, at higher end auction houses, or at estate sales, all of which are used by professional booksellers to acquire their inventories.

In those settings, books often are lumped together into bulk lots to simplify the selling process. Because the professionals plan to resell the books with a substantial markup in price, they have a strong incentive to keep their own bids for the lots well below their expected resale value. That enables collectors bidding against them to purchase bulk lots essentially at wholesale prices.

Moreover, you can buy a bulk lot, pick out the books you want to keep, and then resell the rest on eBay or other sites, often recouping the full amount of your original purchase price. In that way, with a little savvy and a little luck, it's possible for significant parts of your book collection to pay for themselves.

9. Search for bargains efficiently

If you're looking for specific books that are relatively scarce, the simplest and often most effective thing to do is to use the automated search tools built into eBay. You can set up hundreds of saved searches on eBay that will automatically execute every day and send you emails notifying you of any new listings that meet the search parameters you specify.

Are you looking for a particular hardcover edition below a certain price point? Set up a saved search and then sit back and wait to be notified. It might take weeks, months, or even years for a book matching your requirements to show up, but if you're patient, there's a good chance it will.

For the higher end auction houses, put yourself on their mailing lists to receive their auction catalogs. Two of the best in my experience are Heritage Auctions and PBA Galleries.

And to find estate sales here in the U.S., there are a couple of websites—estatesales.org and estatesales.net—that are very helpful. You can even find estate sales on Craigslist.

10. Maximizing the investment value of your collection

First and foremost, condition matters. Over time, the condition of a book often becomes the largest determinant of its market value. Collectible books in very good or better condition will hold on to their value longer and often will appreciate in value much faster than the same books in lesser condition. That's especially true for the best-preserved books.

Also, the presence of the original dust jacket, if a book had one, often more than doubles the value of a book, and sometimes can increase it by an order of magnitude, tenfold, if it's in excellent condition.

Thus, if long-term value is important to you when building your collection, prioritize acquiring the highest quality copies you can afford. Unless it's a very rare volume that's unlikely to turn up again at an affordable price, don't scrimp by buying a book that's in less than good condition.

Then, once you have a collectible book, protect it to keep it in good condition.

Put a dust jacket cover on it. I use Brodart Just-a-Fold III archival covers, and I highly recommend them. They're easy to put on and are adjustable to fit different book sizes. For the best price, purchase them in bulk directly from the company at shopbrodart.com.

Also, be sure to keep your books in an environment that's free from excess heat, humidity, dust, insects and UV radiation from sunlight or fluorescent lighting. You don't have to keep them in cabinets with glass doors like I do, but it does help to preserve the books.

I hope you find these tips helpful. Some of them are pretty basic, but others might not be obvious. I’ll share more of my experiences as a book collector in future posts.