I have a sad email from Pam, who writes:
I am in need of some help. My mother recently passed away and had a collection of romance novels.
She told me once to make sure I sorted through them to remove the valuable or rare books from her collection.
However, I have no idea at all of what books or authors that would be considered important. I would like to do as she requested but I don’t know how.
I searched your web site for some ideas and noticed one paperback book by Laura London that was purchased for $27.
Is there somewhere I could obtain a list of desired books?
First, Pam, I am so sorry for your loss.
But I personally don’t know if there’s a definitive list of used romances that are worth a lot, aside from that one Nora Roberts novel she won’t reprint, original Windflowers, and The Christina Dodd With Two Arms, “Castles in the Air.” Do you know of any resource? Or is this sort of like the idea that your old baseball card collection is worth a lot, when unfortunately it’s not?
ETA: I can bet some would be most welcome at your local library donation box.
You could probably at least start with Amazon and see if the titles are still in print. If they are, then the chances of being valuable are probably somewhat diminished, unless you’ve got an edition that has some cache to it. Like a print run with an error or a signed copy from an author that rarely gives out an autograph or a pristine first edition or something. But checking the status of the title is probably an easy place to start.
But that’s my two cents, for what it’s worth.
I agree with the amazon idea.
There’s an early Jennifer Crusie, Sizzle, that has never been reprinted (and won’t, if she has anything to say about it) and sells for $20-ish all the time. Her Cinderella Deal, before it was reprinted last year, went for a pretty good price, though nothing like millions.
And if you have nice, old, editions of Heyer or Rogers (is that the name I mean?) and so on, they are worth more than a trip to the used bookstore will give you.
(and that’s THREE armed Christina Dodd cover ;))
One nice thing with Amazon is it has that used marketplace attached, so you’d want to check that out to see what things are generally going for. Now, again, you might have a peculiarly valuable edition of a title, but it should give you a guide.
A couple of years ago I was cleaning out my bookshelves and ended up with a mass of paperback romances I was ready to be rid of. I was about to take the whole pile to Goodwill, when I decided to do a tiny bit of research first.
I checked eBay’s completed sales (important to do this—you don’t care what people listed the books for, you need to see if they actually sold). Most of my books were pretty worthless—selling for around 99c, which wasn’t worth it for me to deal with. But I happened to have a bunch of old Mary Balogh books that hadn’t been reprinted. I ended up listing about 8-10 and made over $200.
A lot of that hinged on simple luck—most of those books have now been reprinted and don’t command anything more than 99c now. But it’s certainly worth an hour of checking.
I would look at dealer sites, too, such as abebooks.com, alibris.com and biblio.com. Search results can be sorted by lowest to highest price, giving an idea of value and any particular notes as Dusty mentioned above concerning condition, signatures, desirability, etc.
This is book-by-book work, which is both time-consuming and interesting. A list of authors the Bitchery knows have collectible titles might be a start. For example, Nora Roberts’ first book Irish Thoroughbred; Marlys Millhiser’s The Mirror. I’m sure others could come up with more.
I don’t know what books your mom had, Pam, but here’s what I do know: hang on to them for awhile, if you can. My mom died in 2004 and the things of hers I kept are the things that loosen the constriction around my heart when I think of her, and I think of her every day.
Sorry for your loss, Pam.
I’d suggest starting at bookfinder.com as they search amazon listings along with many many other new&used; book sellers (like Abebooks, Powells, Bibliofind, etc). That site will give a better overall picture as to potential value ( as sometimes the only copies for sale through amazon are vastly overpriced, in my experience).
This will be time-consuming if her collection was sizable, though if you sort books by author and then publication date, you can probably get a quick picture of which authors’ works are not valuable as collectibles after searching just a few titles.
I’m also sorry for your loss. I would like to add that Judy Cuevas (aka Judith Ivory) has two books that sell from around $20 and up on ebay and Amazon. (This frustrates me because I have been trying to get my hands on them for years.) Anyways, the titles are Dance and Bliss.
Oh some more now that I’m thinking about it.
Laura Lee Guhrke’s Conor’s way can fetch around $20
Adele Ashworth’s Winter Garden is listed for $22 at amazon
Finally Diana Brown’s Emerald Necklace is listed at around $17 at Amazon.
Also some of Carla Kelly’s back list is difficult to track down and can be valuable.
Hope this helped some.
Pam, I’m sorry for your loss.
I am sort of in the same boat with respect to my mom’s old books. She recently had to go to a nursing home and when I was cleaning out her house, I found a whole box of paperback romances and mysteries from the late 40s and early 50s. I haven’t had a chance to look through them to see if they are valuable, but I too would appreciate any suggestions of where I might look to find out what, if any, monetary value these books might have (their sentimental value is priceless).
I’d like to lobby against donating them to the library. If they’re older romances, they’ll end up in recycling or in a used book sale; if there’s anything of value there, they won’t know it. Though if you find that many of them are lacking in collectible value, a nursing home might appreciate them.
I agree with the suggestion of checking Amazon. I also did a search and found this article that may be of interest. (I found it interesting anyway, as I have a few of the ones mentioned! Woot!)
If I come across any other articles, I’ll add it to the list.
I’m sorry. Apparently the link didn’t show up in my last post. Let’s try this again.
Pam, my sincere sympathies. I lost my own mother a few months ago, and dealing with her possessions is a very difficult and emotional task. There are so many things that one does not need oneself, nor have room to house, but which nevertheless have sentimental associations that make it hard to dispose of them.
Darlynne has already made the suggestion that came at once to my mind: abebooks. It does mean a lot of searching, but as Darlynne said, it is interesting, and also gives a good picture of the range of values even for a single title. Early (1970s -80s) category romances by writers who have later become NYT bestsellings authors are often very sought-after, so I think it really is worth checking.
http://www.alibris.com/articles/hartley
Why oh why…
Pam,
You can also check to see if the books are a first edition/first printing of a copy. A lot of people will collect first editions of their favorite books (myself included)
Check the to see if you have a sequence of numbers
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 or
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
There are additional ways to check but that’s my usual go-to.
My condolences and good luck with your search, Pam.
Can someone think of the address for one of those online used book exchange sites where you can enter ISBN codes to get a purchase price for your books? I think that might give her a starting point on relative values, at least.
I’ve gone onto Ebay and tried to find old Phillippa Carr books, and they were costing a fortune!
if the is a local veteran’s hospital or Veterna’s home they too are always looking for donations. esp since there are residents of all ages
I’m with everyBitch about amazon and alibris…good place to check on individual titles.
Sympathies and love.
Annndddd, you just sent me to The Google to go find which of Nora Roberts it was… and now I will have an eye out on Promise Me Tomorrow. WHY? Now I wanna READ IT!
Lynnd, If you find any books from the 50s by Elsie Lee, they might be rare and worth some money. I’ve been looking for a couple of the titles for years. She also wrote as Elsie Cromwell and Jane Gordon.
I loved Elsie Lee, I am sure I still have a few of her books from the 70’s in a box somewhere, including a cookbook.
I am curious, what was the book that Nora Roberts won’t allow to be reprinted?
Apologies for the questions on Nora Roberts, I see it was already answered.
Some cataloging software goes out and does Amazon searches for “current value” of the edition you own. I use Delicious Library (yes, that’s the name of the software) – http://www.delicious-monster.com/ – but it is Mac based.
I’m so sorry for your loss. It was such an odd mixture of sorrow and relief when we went through my Dad’s things. Even some happy thrown in just to keep it mixed up, emotionally.
Smart Bitches- is there some way we could all lend a hand in helping her sort the books? Maybe if she can list the title, author, ISBN etc? It would take some time to write them up (excel maybe?) but then we could help as we are able; taking a possibly herculean task down a few notches. Thoughts?
There’s not a mention of the size of her Mother’s collection. I know the size of mine- and it’s not a small collection by any means.
http://isbn.nu/ searchs across many sources and lists current prices at each. Search by title, author, isbn or even subject. For example, searching the isbn for Jennifer Echol’s “Forget You” lists over a dozen sources with prices ranging from $5.21 – $10.85 including several Amazons, eBay, Half.com, Abebooks and others.
Re donating them to the library, I both agree and disagree with Tracy P. Here’s where I agree – if you are donating the books en mass to the library, they will probably not assess them according rarity or collector’s status. Also, usually, donated books don’t end up on the actual library shelves. So, since your mom thought some of the books might be collectible, I do recommend evaluating them yourself before you donate them to anyone.
Having said that, I’m on the board of the Friends of the Sacramento Library, and we rely almost completely on donated books to raise money for Library programs. “Used Book Sales” are what make our library’s summer reading program possible and fund many other library programs, including a new project to increase ebook use and access, and programs to increase literacy in disadvantaged communities. We do use romances, including old ones, as long as they are in decent condition. So, AFTER you sort through your collection, keep all the books that help you feel connected to your mom, and sell any books of higher monetary value than one or two dollars at whatever place savvier people than I suggest, please do keep your library in mind. You might ask them if they have a similar program as the Sacramento library since of course every city and county has a different system. I’m so sorry for your loss and I hope you have good luck in finding happy homes for the books!
If there is a good used book store in her area, especially one that has a large romance section, she could give them a call for possible evaluation. I know the one near me does this all the time – they keep want lists for their regular patrons and track the trends, etc. They have done estate sales, etc. as well.
If you enter the ISBN to sell it at half.com, they will give you pricing info. It will apply to your edition..tho some older books may not be in their data base.
You have to go into sell my item, not a regular search, to get that info.
I do it with older romances before trading them.
If they are older but not valuable (categories that you local UBS is not willing to trade) I joined paperback swap. You get credits you can use on books you want, and its a really great idea.
Hi Pam,
Definitely use some of the resources many have mentioned before, however Ebay searches are somewhat cumbersome.
I might also suggest checking out Better World Books. They sell used books. They will give you a quote for your books, they will pay for shipping and any books that aren’t really worth anything will be donated for world literary programs as well as a % of any sales. I think they are a great company.
You probably won’t make as much money for some of the books, but you also won’t have the hassle of trying to sell them individually, shipping, tracking…
Here are some that I didn’t see listed already:
Most of Madeleine Brent
All Dinah Dean (Tatya’s Story is very valuable)
Jane Hunt’s The Green Gallant
Elsie Lee’s The Nabob’s Widow
Most of Patricia Veryan (some are very valuable)
Jan Cox Speas’s My Lord Monleigh (first edition hardcover is especially valuable)
Jan Cox Speas’s The Growing Season
Most of Mary Balogh’s older titles
Anne Stuart’s Candelight titles and At the Edge of the Sun
Jayne Castle’s Guinevere Jones series
Some of Joan Wolf’s traditional regencies
Some of Barbara Metzger’s traditional regencies
Some of Emma Jensen’s traditional regencies
Marjorie Farrell’s Miss Ware’s Refusal
Marion Chesney’s The Westerby Sisters (and a few of her traditional regencies also)
If you decide to go the library donation route, research them to make sure they have a good program in place.
Hope this helps. I know how overwhelming it can be to deal with the passing of a loved one.
Hi, I, too, am involved with 2 Folibrary groups and we love used books for our book sales. I found 2 Gueneviere Jones and all the Original Lisa Kleypas – Zebra books (there are 4). And I gave 50c each. Just about any old Zebra or Kismet label is worth a good look. That said, both libraries are very picky!!! and your mom’s books could end up in the dustbin. Same with myb local UBS,. I have no idea why, but they feel that only books that are recent and in excellant shape will sell. I shop those sales specifically looking for old back-list titles. Also the first Susan Elizabeth Phillips – THE COPELAND BRIDE; Shannon McKenna PGR Series (5 books)
You could try to sell on BookStoreJunkies or Weekly BookSales. Both are Yahoo groups The Moderator is a great guy and would probably give good advice.
ps – How books are we talking here? I have over 10.000 and I’m a piker by some standards…God Bless my kids!
I worked at a bookstore that specialized in new, used, and collectible romance. Check Half dot com, which is the book sales side of Ebay and search by your ISBN as most books will have different ISBNs for different editions.. You’re far more likely to get an idea of values on that side. You can also check bookfinder dot com and addall dot com. Half dot com is a better selling site than Amazon, ther terms are better, but you will need a paypay account and an Ebay id. In any case, pay attention to the term and condition for using and selling through any site. Understand how they expect you to handle your sales and what they expect to get as their cut of the sale. When it comes to listing a book, be honest about the condition of the book. Terms like fine and good vary, but things like no creases, no dog ears, and no stamps are self explanatory. When you pack up a sale, wrap your book(s) in a non zip plastic bag and tape it shut to keep the books clean and dry. Shipe in a padded envelope or box to protect against bending or crush damage. If you ship US postal service (best value), buy a delivery confirmation. It’s not expensive, but it’s proof the item was delivered if the buyer tries to claim it never arrived.
If the cover or any pages are loose, it’s probably not going to be sellable unless it’s highly collectible. Don’t just look at the highest prices, consider the range and what most books seem to be running. Remember books that are signed, but not personalized usually are more valuable than an unsigned book in similar condition, especially if it’s a popular author.
Sort of OT, but not entirely: I’d like to offer a word of caution when the discussion turns to evaluating books based on eBay auctions. First edition mysteries were my specialty, but the same basic knowledge applies to all novels.
It has been my experience that too many eBay sellers don’t know what they’re selling and many buyers don’t know what they should look for. I am speaking in very general terms and my intention is not to malign anyone, but first edition, collectible books must be evaluated carefully, whether you’re selling or buying.
A first edition is not automatically collectible or desirable and I’ve seen too many eBay bidding frenzies where buyers pay way more than is reasonable or realistic for a book. The seventh book in a series, signed by the author, for example, is never going to be worth more than cover price, UNLESS the print run was preposterously small, the author is J. K. Rowling or there was an error that resulted in a second “state” of the book being published. There are other factors, of course, but these are the sorts of things to consider.
I’m sorry. This is my really long-winded way of saying, be careful out there, particularly if you’re the buyer. Do your homework at book dealer sites and ask a lot of questions.
Fair enough…I work in a special library (environmental) rather than a public, so this particular function escaped me. Thanks for setting me straight. 🙂
I’m so sorry for your loss.
A lot of the early books of long-career romance writers can get a high bid at places like e-bay. I remember for example Suzanne Brockmann’s Get Lucky would get a bidding war to twenty-fifty dollars before it finally came out as a reprint because it was so hard to find. And some people still prefer the original copy and will fight for it. So definitely check out what they can go for, not just what they are “worth.”
JenD had a good idea. If a list could be created Smart B’s with extra time can help her look up book choices. And heck, I’m sure they’ll be people who would want to bid on them too, so you could sell them in the same step.
Sorry, for some reason when I first read it I thought it also said you wanted to sell them. Not sure where I got that.
Someone mentioned going to a physical used bookstore to see if they could help price them for you. You may also want to see if you can contact an online rare bookstore and see if you could work out a deal. Or even talk to someone in estate sales who specializes in books.
Pam, I’m sorry for your loss and wish you the best as you try to fulfill your mother’s request. I second the suggestion made by several commenters to put together a list – it would make things much easier.
One book I haven’t seen mentioned yet is Joanna Bourne’s Her Ladyship’s Companion, which probably won’t be reprinted and is on many people’s wish list. If your mother had that in her collection, it should be quite valuable – upwards of $60 for sure.
Look for Jayne Bently (MacFadden Romance) it’s a psuedonym for Jayne Ann Krentz. I sold one for $250 a couple of years ago and the same book for about $100 last Christmas.
I know Windflower is always in demand. So is Stormfire by Christine Monson (sells for about $50+) and The Silver Devil by Teresa Denys (ditto).
I wants to thank for the wonderful read because of the informative information and sharing the thoughts to us….
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