of the (dracula music here) basement.
We have boxes. Boxes of books. We have shelves of books. We are going to have to unload some books that are our books [we own them and have had them for years] but are not OUR books, if you get what I mean. This is the spillage of the kind of library a writer collects over 30 years. And we have a plan. We are going to sell the books, many of which are older, mixed hardbounds, paperbound sf and other stuff, in groups. By author. Or by type. We will declare a price for the group, and make a package that will ship efficiently (should you wonder what logic governs selection) in an if it fits it ships USPO box. These boxes are small enough we can carry them.
We also have numbers of foreign language copies of my books—Japanese, Polish, Spanish, you name it. Want to brush up on your foreign language by reading a book you know? These would be just the ticket.
There will also be bizarre eclec-ticity of our old research books. If you want us to sign somebody else’s book just as a curiosity — cool. WE’ll do that. All the books will be cheap-ish, except for a few real treasures. We don’t really care if it’s a collector’s item—just we need the shelf space!
We’ll be putting it up on Closed Circle for convenience, because that has a payment option. We’ll put a little item in the Closed Circle page that describes what’s the content of a particular box up for sale, but please don’t ask us to mix and match. A box will be a box will be a box.
CJ. I would be interested in learning about any French language SF books you may have. Would you keep an eye open for any you may wish to sell?
OT trivia: Wasn’t Jules Verne the first SF writer? I know he wrote in French, with English translations.
I like this question so well, it’s going to be a separate post.
Sure will. It’s been a long time since I had any French books—but Selina Rosen at Yard Dog may have some of my foreign titles too.
Oh this sounds fun! Can’t wait to see what treasures will be popping up.
This sounds really painful to me, in the ‘pry them from my cold, dead fingers’ mode. Not that I don’t weed my books, but I keep ones that I might re-read after they’ve aged a decade or so….
Oooooo….anything in German?
German—maybe.
Well, we’ve got a 1400 square foot house and we COULD have a basement if we part with some of the boxes. Jane and I have archive books, the single copy every writer should keep — so you don’t end up like Sprague de Camp, putting ads in fanzines trying to recover one of his books that he had a chance to get back in print. [He did find a copy..] We just have to face the fact that we haven’t the room. We love this house, but we would love it more if we had the basement (a nice, lighted, even carpeted basement) free of boxes.
We’ll give notes if any books, through age or use, are in poor condition. Most either are unread or look unread. And you guys on the site get first crack at these. If they don’t sell, we’ll put out the word on Facebook. But as long as the books are disappearing, we’d rather our faithful blog-readers got them.
Da’st one ask for a volunteer archivist? 🙂
I’d be interested in French or Spanish or things linguistic. Heck, asking me if I’d like more books….LOL…and yet I need to get rid of stuff.
Hmm, however, Real Life is being a pain right now, so my budget just took a hit for no known reason. Something that should have arrived, so far has not. If it doesn’t arrive tomorrow, I’ll have to find out why. Aarrgh.
We made some headway last night: we identified a stack as tall as I am that are Time-Life book sets like The Plains Indians, et al, and we just can’t ship those. They weigh a ton and they’re large-format, so shipping would eat up any benefit of getting them from us. Those are going to the library.
We have tagged some monster cushions and pillows and bedding to go to charity. I’m going to start culling books tonight. We are getting seriously into this: we’re going to work for an hour after supper every night, and by golly, we’re going to have neatness in the basement. We’re going to be able to FIND things. We’re going to put all the archive books onto moveable shelves, so we can make a block of them and shift them about on the concrete floor of the unfinished half of the basement; and the books that are ON shelves are going to be useful books.
Then we have the sewing and ceramic and shipbuilding and art stuff. The business records are going to go on rolling shelves: I’m TIRED of having to shift ten monster heavy boxes to look up something from 2008. [We have 7 years of tax records, plus the OTHER business papers to cope with!]
You got me curious. A long time ago, I read some advice from Robert Townsend, who turned around Avis (“We’re #2! We try harder”) and wrote Up the Organization. Paraphrased it was, never keep records longer than you have to because those records can only be used against you. IRS says (link below), “1. You owe additional tax and situations (2), (3), and (4), below, do not apply to you; keep records for 3 years.” Seemingly, the only way they prove “(2), (3), [or] (4)” is with your own records. Or 1, for that matter. Full info here:
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/How-long-should-I-keep-records
You can also scan things, but that may not be worthwhile for past records.
Of course, little things like proof of authorship you want to keep for life+70 years. Good luck on that. 🙂
I loved those Time-Life books as a kid. They were fantastically researched, edited and illustrated. My mother subscribed to several of the series for me, and I still have a number from The Emergence of Man paleo- and prehistoric archaeology one. Indeed, despite much of the facts/evidence being outdated, I still use some of the illustrations in teaching, esp. the bit on how to do Flint-Knapping and the “wild and crazy Celts” illustrations.
Alas, what I need is not more books, but more bookcase space (as in, wall space to insert bookcases to insert books therein), so I don’t think I will be able to succumb to your literary lures.
[OT FTM 2014] CJ – the next release of Family Tree Maker 2014 is available for 40% off, sale ends 9 Sep.
The best reason for buying this is if you have a 64-bit machine, with a 64-bit OS. This release provides true 64-bit support and will install thus allowing FTM to have access to more than the 2Gb of RAM that the 32-bit systems can address. From those who tried it out it is somewhat speedier and not prone to as many crashes running in 64-bit mode.
If you are interested I can forward you the email – just let me know to where and how to get around your spam filters.
Rosemary
[End OT]
Thanks. I think I can get there—I’ll run check it out!
I really really hope it’s better than FTM2012, which is amazingly slow, has bugs that should have been caught long before it shipped, and is very unstable. (All that, along with not having features that other programs have had for at least 10 years.)
I’ve never found it unstable – I’ve only got about 4500 people in it.
Publish, however, is abysmally slow.
Just ordered it. Thanks for the heads up.
I’d been watching for it, but I don’t visit Ancestry as often as I’m on FTM.
Am I correct in noting that FTM is part of Ancestry.com? Because when I did a Google Search, and came up with http://www.familytreemaker.com, it mentioned that there were upgrades FROM FTM Version 16. Maybe I’m looking at the wrong “family tree maker”, though?
@ Joe, yes, it is. They go by years, and skipped 2013, so far as I know. I had all sorts of trouble—had a copy of 2012, mislaid it. Finally HAD to order a new one because I needed it for the new computer. It arrived damaged and late. I was due to meet Lynn Abbey in Oklahoma to give her a quick tour of the software—and she sent me a ‘pirate’ copy off her new copy of 2012, which is what’s installed on my machine. So I called them, and they shipped a new copy, which arrived undamaged. Then, of course, I found the original 2012. So I have 2 copies of 2012, one original, one new…and now have ordered 2014. Ancestry was sold to another company in 2012—and that and its preliminary negotiations may have prevented them doing a 2013 version; but I’m glad to see they’re back on track with 2014.
I have to be able to speak spanish, since I have a house in Spain, and was just delighted to be able to buy Foreigner in Spanish for my Kindle! looking forward to seeing what you have for sale …
I should say, I just found El Estranjero (Ventana Abierta) for my Kindle … 😀
Lol~
I hear you about the books. I have seven book cases groaning under the weight, and I have to thin the herd. I’m now a seller on Amazon. Keeping a select shelf full, maybe two, your books included. All the rest must go.
Advance congratulations on reclaiming space in the basement!
Even though we are in the process of reducing our “possession footprint” (we’re moving to a new place that’s about 1/3 smaller than our current abode), books are something we both love. Electronic media are OK for many purposes, but not all. Nonetheless, we realized that some of our books would be happier in the public library, so we’ve successfully reduced our collection size – somewhat. Other items are finding new homes, too, and we’re glad for the extra space.
Still, we’d be interested in German or Spanish editions, and probably some of the other books. I look forward to purchasing some of the treasure boxes as they appear in Closed Circle.
Thanks!
readyGuy and I just donated about 900 paperbacks and 400 hardbound books to our Friends of the Library. These came solely from our bedroom… We haven’t touched the library yet (three walls floor to ceiling shelves with at least two runs of books on each shelf). We realized that we had too much to ever reread them all, so we are divesting all those we have in ebook format, and all those that have not stood the test of time well, or that we don’t think we’ll ever read again. We have lots of text books and physics books that while not wrong are certainly not up to date anymore, plus science fiction collections started in the sixties, plus the mystery books inherited from my mother who was an ardent PD James and Ruth Rendall, etc. reader. About the only books not open for discussion are those that we have had autographed by CJ and Jane plus a few series that we are still reading…. Additionally, I’m working through twenty-five years of Scientific American and Science News to recycle.
Please let me know when your boxes go online on the Closed Circle site. I am definitely interested. Especially if you might have any MZB Darkover books. I’m trying to restore my collection, having lost some in my last move. Plus, many that I have are in sad shape, so I would love to have better quality of those I have now. I’d also be interested in any of your books in German!
Re MZB Darkover books: Have you checked out the MZB Literary Trust at http://www.mzbworks.com? They’ve reissued a number of her works for Kindle and Nook, and are starting to do some print-on-demand versions also. They don’t have every Darkover book available, but the ones you want might be there.
Heather, like many here apparently I also have overloaded shelves and the Darkover series was one I was thinking of packing up for my local library. But if you get with me and let me know which ones you’re hunting for, I’ll gladly kick them off to you. I didn’t know about the MZ works site. And Ready4more, I am lusting after your library! I have always dreamed of having a room like that!
Yep, Ready, you and we are about on the same wavelength. I hate to destroy books, but there are a few…I think I reached my personal decision point when I realized I’m willing to part with my Sharpe collection, but I’m keeping Patrick O’Brian. I’m still waffling about Alan Burt Akers and Fu Manchu. That sort of book will not come again.
Can you digitise the books that you really, really can’t bare to toss? Do this in your “spare” time, of course.
Is there a copy of these in Project Gutenberg, for example?
That’s always the problem. There are a lot of books that I haven’t seen in any more stable format than paperback, which was my go-to during most of my college years, and they are starting to get quite tatty. I pick up HB copies as I can, but there are always a few where you regret for years getting rid of your copy, only to realize that you liked it well enough to keep but alas! it is no longer reasonably available. I only recently found a HB copy of Zenna Henderson’s collected stories, which is great, because all my PB copies of her People are getting foxed to the point of cover-fall-off.
Zenna Henderson … that brings back memories. My copies are falling apart.
Some may be there,and I will look if I turn out to want something. We sure have no spare time. I work from 6am (5 in winter),cook breakfast, eat, done in 30 min, then work, cook lunch, often work while eating, to about 4:30, then cook supper, get a breather for supper, no days off, no holidays except New Year’s and Christmas and conventions. I’ll probably work on my birthday. If it’s not writing, it’s business work, correspondence, book keeping, research, or a round of internet to keep myself from going crazy, or to let my hindbrain focus on a problem. We’re getting to the basement cleanup because we’re using the post-supper energy to work for an hour moving boxes and arranging stuff, instead of watching telly. We sit watching telly in the evening with computer in lap, Jane working on her covers and the blog, me doing a little editing or research, and I do a lot of the genealogy stuff at that time, but not too long at a session…we go to bed between 10 and 11 and do it all again tomorrow…The good side is, we can get ‘off’ whenever we want but that’s subject to when we’re sure enough of a scene that we dare leave it. I once did a reckoning by actual printout how many outtakes vs completed script on a book, and the stack was 3′ high of paper, tossed. I was on version M of draft 10+ something—at the finish of the project. If there were five of me, I could keep us all busy. 😉
That makes me feel so much better. When I realized my outtakes file was 300 pages, I felt very woeful and inefficient indeed. I keep reminding myself of your ‘edit brilliantly’ advice and keep plugging (and paring) away. 😉
I think it’s not a bad notion—if any of you are paring down libraries, let everybody on here know! I don’t mind if you transact books on this site…
And on the 15th hand (if you’re a t’ca), if you are on the lookout for a particular item, posting it here might not hurt either, if CJ and Jane don’t object. Considering the depth and breadth of the knowledge base on here, you might be surprised at what pops out of the woodwork. I see a bunch of obscure stuff getting donated to the library here. Much of it is too dated or esoteric to add to our collection, but I can easily divert the occasional special interest book.
We recently had a lady hand me a box of books that she requested we give to the Christian Science Reading Room across the street, which keeps such offbeat hours she couldn’t catch them when they were open (Babar’s Museum of Art [open Fridays]?). The reason she wanted it to go there is that the books belonged to her grandfather, were from the turn of the last century (ca. 1895-1917) and were all Christian Science materials from that era, of great historical interest to the membership but probably not to the general public. I don’t mind facilitating that type of transaction.