It’s all about supply and demand
By Jon Busdeker on Jul. 05, 2007
Books like “To Kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain and “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair are easily available. Every year, a new crop of high school students and college students are assigned to read the American classics, so every year more are printed.
But other books like Wolfgang Leonhard’s “Child of the Revolution” or Brian Wilson’s “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” or John Kerry’s “New Soldier” had their initial printing run, went out of print and can’t be ordered from the publishers. People hoping to read about growing up under communism, the rise and fall of the Beach Boys’ mastermind or a one-time presidential hopeful’s post-Vietnam war commentary must hunt for those books at used shops or online.
And sometimes, depending on supply and demand, the price tags on out-of-print books can reach into the hundreds and even into the thousands of dollars.
In 2005, more than 295,000 new titles were published, according to the publishing industry information company Bowker. That’s more than 800 different titles published every day. Most books are printed once — usually between 5,000 and 10,000 copies — and never receive a second printing.
After the initial promotional push by the publisher, a book becomes classified as a backlist title. The book is still in print, but not promoted.
Then, as demand dries up, the book goes out of print. Ninety-five percent of all books are out of print, according to Richard Davies of Abebooks.com.
“When a book goes out of print, it becomes hard to find,” said Davies in an e-mail interview. “There are various factors (for what makes a book hard to find). A major one is the size of the print run. Small print runs make a book tough to find.”
And, a hard-to-find book can potentially become collectable.
At Givens Books and Little Dickens, located on Lakeside Drive, there’s a whole section dedicated to rare and collectable books in the back of the store. Just follow your nose to whatever smells like dust and grandma’s attic.
In the collectable books section, the books don’t have the fancy dust jackets like the books of today. The books in the back are either hardcover or leather bound, and look like they belong in an aristocrat’s library.
Drew Givens, the used book buyer at the store, said he deals with hard-to-find and out-of-print books every day. In his years of digging through boxes of worthless books, he’s run across some that are older than the city of Lynchburg.
Givens said a book about Christian astrology sold for more than $2,500. Another book, about the surgical practices of the Civil War, sold for $2,200. And old books about golf, hunting and fishing can fetch up to $1,000.
According to Chuck Cole, a manager at Givens Books and Little Dickens, the collectable and rare book sales translate into about 25 percent of the bookshop’s business. Cole added most collectors don’t even read the books they buy.
Cole, who is also an avid book collector, said he tracks down Uncle Remus books. The books are no longer printed because of their depiction of slavery, which makes them highly collectable.
Other books that are wanted by collectors are “first editions, first printings,” signed books or “nostalgia” books like “Dick and Jane,” “Nancy Drew” or “The Hardy Boys.”
A book’s demand, and collectability, can change overnight if Hollywood decides to make a movie.
In June, Warner Bros. Pictures released a film version of “Nancy Drew.” Walt Carey, the owner of Bookshop on the Avenue, said Nancy Drew books, along with the Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden and The Happy Hollisters, are becoming popular again. Carey said moms and dads read the mystery novels, and now their kids want to read the same books about teenage detectives.
Carey said he’s a fan of the science fiction novels from Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs is best known as the creator of Tarzan, but most of the early 20th century author’s science fiction works are no longer available.
“It’s an another generation,” Carey said about the sci-fi novels.
So without the demand, publishing companies won’t risk the capital involved with another printing.
The one book that has had thousands of printings, the Bible, can be both priceless and worthless.
“The Bible is not rare,” Cole said.
The Bible is the most printed book in history, with billions of copies in print since the invention of the printing press. And, according to Cole, a family Bible from the 1890s isn’t worth much money.
“Old doesn’t mean valuable,” Cole said about Bibles.
Unless “old” means something printed in the 16th or 17th century.
At Inklings Bookshop, located on Main Street, owner Ed Hopkins has a Bible selling for $2,500. The two-volume, leather-bound books sit atop a glass case in the middle of the store. The books are roughly five inches thick and a foot-and-a-half tall.
The book is a facsimile of the original Gutenberg Bible printed in 1455. A company in Texas made Hopkin’s copy in the 1960s, and the bible is an exact copy of the original version, right down to Latin text and ornately designed pages.
There are less than 1,000 copies of the facsimile Gutenberg Bible.
But, who would spend $2,500 on a Bible?
“I don’t know, they haven’t come in here yet,” Hopkins said.
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