We had a visitor to the store the other day who had some books to sell. She wasn’t prepared to sell them, though, and by that we mean that she hadn’t figured out what she wanted for the books. So we went through them, did some research, identified what editions the books were and saw what the market was for them. We then made her an offer. She asked us to break down our offer by individual book. We told her that booksellers cannot both appraise a book and make an offer for it — it’s considered unethical. She couldn’t decide what to do so she took her books and left. There are a couple of lessons here. When you’re selling books, do some homework. Get a ballpark idea for what a book is worth. Find a dealer who sells the kind of books you have. And when you visit the dealer, let him or her know what you want for the books. If you think your books are worth it, get an appraisal. That will give you the best idea of what they’re worth, and a closer idea to what you should ask for the books. Finally, what a book is selling for of course isn’t what a dealer can give you for it because dealers need to make a profit to keep their doors open. Most dealers will give about 30% of retail for good books.