My sister, located in northern Utah, has decided to close her paperback book exchange store and has asked if I or anyone I know would be interested in the books and shelves to start their own store, etc. I'm not in an area where that would go over well, not that people here don't read, but too scattered apart, and most are either farming, or trying to subsidize their homesteads by working elsewhere, so no time, etc. Any suggestions? I told her I would put out some feelers and see if there is any interest. She would probably make someone a heck of a deal. Jan We're talking 50,000+ books.

-- Jan B (Janice12@aol.com), April 20, 2000

Answers

Why is she closing it? (Just curious)

-- Anne (Healrthytouch101@hotmail.com), April 20, 2000.

Anne: My sister just has decided that after a few months of not making money, after doing ok for the past couple years, and having to work in the store on her days off (she is a nurse and works 12 hour shifts, with a long drive to work), that she doesn't want to spend all her free time and money making the store work. It has been a money maker in the past, though. She is only two years from retiring, and wants to be free to spend her winters in warmer climates. Jan

-- Jan B (Janice12@aol.com), April 20, 2000.

That is SOOO tempting, except I'm too far away to truly make it advantageous. I wish you and your sister good fortune.

-- Anne (HealthyTouch101@hotmail.com), April 21, 2000.

That's tempting, but too many time contraints (and I LOVE to read).

I'd suggest eBAY or Yahoo! auctions...

-- Eric Stone (ems@nac.net), April 21, 2000.

Jan -- has she considered opening an online-only bookstore? She must have a catalogue of titles -- it wouldn't be that hard to put the titles on an online searchable catalogue and go from there. She wouldn't have to work regular hours at it either -- answering enquiries two or three times a week at three in the morning, if that is what fits her schedule.

-- Tracy (trimmer@westzone.com), April 23, 2000.

Hi. I am looking for a home based business and I would be interested in your sister's books. Could you tell me the price that she would be asking for the books? What type of books are they? Are they all paper backs, hard bound and what are a few of the catagories are they in, like gardening, business, story, etc.?

-- londa (maewag@hotmail.com), April 25, 2000.

You might want to look at ebay for selling the books. Books sell pretty well and have their own area.

-- Gary (gws@redbird.net), April 25, 2000.

If I were your sister with an actual going business, I would want to sell the whole thing. If she sold the books, would she be liable for the rent or is her lease (if she has one) about to expire?

I live in a small city with more bookstores per capita than any other city on the east coast (actually we are mid-atlantic). One of the stores is a paperback bookstore. The owner has quite a successful business and is semi-retired. She has a manager and several employees who are quite well-trained and she herself works at the most two days a week. (She works weekends when it's harder to get the employees to work). She doesn't sell the books by e-mail and has some strict policies which work for her. She sells the books at half the cover price and pays one-quarter of the cover price for them, but not in cash, in TRADE. So when you bring in a big bag of books, you might have, on paper, quite a lot of money, say $29 or so. This is a good deal when you can buy paperbacks at the Salvation Army for 35 cents apiece! Or get them free out of a recycling bin or whatever.

Of course, this generous payment doesn't go so far when you buy books at half-price, but since it's barter, it doesn't matter so much. the kicker, though, is that you have to pay the taxes cash and she adds a "handling charge" of 20 percent! I'm not really clear what the 20% is, but it must be on the purchase price of whatever book you are swapping for (or buying). She has some other things, such as a book club for $34 where she swaps you one for one and once a year she has a really big sale with giant discounts on her books.

Anyway, I always wanted to have a bookstore and I pay a lot of attention to the way bookstores are run. I wish your sister good luck and hope she can sell the whole business and not just the books.

-- Elizabeth Petofi (tengri@cstone.net), April 25, 2000.