Welcome to the Showers of Books Giveaway Hop, hosted by BookHounds!
The hop theme may be “showers of books” but there certainly have been showers of giveaways this April. Maybe everyone is looking for something to do while those April showers are falling. Curling up with a good book and a purring cat seems like the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. An idea that I’m sure all of my cats can get behind. Or sit on top of.
I am frequently visited by actual showers of books. As a member of one of the book awards committees for the American Library Association, I receive between 1,000 and 1,500 books per year. These are all print books, often hardcovers, and are almost never ARCs. And this doesn’t include the books I buy, or the ones I receive for blog tours.
While this sounds, and frequently is, wonderful, it also qualifies as an embarrassment of riches. As you can see from the picture at right. I have been on a continual quest to find a place to sell my books, wherever we have lived.
My problem is that I really, Really, REALLY want to sell the books for cash. Not just because they are new books that have been read maybe once, but because there are always more coming in. I expect five more book boxes on Friday, and that’s just one day. Much as I love to read, I need store credit from a used book store like I need the proverbial “hole in the head”.
Seattle had three terrific options for disposing of my slightly used books: Third Place Books, University Book Store, and Half-Price Books. Since we moved to Atlanta, I’ve been searching for some place similar, but to no avail until now. Half-Price Books is opening a store in the Atlanta area next month, and the pile in the picture will be taken there the minute the place opens for buying.
I’m not going to miss those trips north (the nearest HPB until now was in Lexington KY) to sell the pile. We would load the trunk of our car all the way to the sight-line, and hope that we didn’t hit any sudden stops. The one time we did, the weight of all the books pushing forward released the back seat seat back controls, and the books all came flying into the front of the car. We were finding books under the seats for months. Not an experience we’ll have to repeat.
So what do you do with the books that you are ready to let go of? I’ve always had some books that were keepers, and others that were definitely “read once and done”. When you’ve really, truly finished with a book, or when you have to reduce your collection, what do you with the ones you let go?
Answer in the rafflecopter for your chance at a $10 Gift Card from Amazon or B&N, or a $10 Book from the Book Depository. (You must be in a country that Book Depository ships to. The list is enormous but not exhaustive.)
And for more chances at more great bookish prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on the hop: