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Book donations to charity shops

Started by Fambo Number Mive, January 06, 2018, 07:27:25 PM

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Fambo Number Mive

I usually donate my books to charity shops and was wondering what are the most popular books that people buy from charity shops - I do wonder sometimes how easy it is for them to sell books and whether I am just filling up their stockroom. I usually donate good quality non fiction books and crime novels but you do see a lot of chicklit books and "mainstream" books and wonder if these are the bestsellers. I suppose if you sign up to Gift Aid when you donate you can track how well your books are selling.

I try to look for notes on the outside of the shop asking for book donations if I can't decide which one to donate to, and I suppose if the stock doesn't change that much that's another sign they aren't getting enough donations.

Sebastian Cobb

You'll probably find anything they've got too much of gets punted on abebooks.co.uk and amazon.

There must be a massive warehouse that some seller uses on abe books because I've bought quite a few books on there now without bothering to check who has sold me them and the same teller name keeps cropping up. A few of them were withdrawn library books complete with the lending history still stuck in the front.

I probably should dump off some books, I like keeping the ones I've enjoyed. Last time I moved I got rid of a load of books that were misjudged christmas presents over the years, Clarkson, bit of top gear etc and I was a bit reticent in giving them to the charity shop because I didn't want them to think I was the sort of idiot that read them.

Serge

When I get rid of books, I generally tend to give them to charity shops, as I know the effort of trying to make any money out of them isn't worth the fuck-all I'd get. I don't get rid of a lot, it's generally the ones I didn't like that end up being taken there, and I suspect that's true of a lot of books offloaded to charity shops - although there are certain titles that are legendary for being over-donated, my own spot is Mark Haddon's 'A Spot Of Bother', which there seems to be a copy of in every charity shop in England. I suspect it's because a lot of people thought it'd be just like 'Curious Incident' but didn't like it as much. (I have no idea, I didn't even like 'Curious Incident', so never bothered with, er, 'Bother'.)

When I left London, I was brutal with my pile of unread books, and managed to cull about 400 of them. It was interesting that certain charities couldn't be bothered to collect - Oxfam basically just laughed at me, so British Heart Foundation got the lot. (They were picked up by a man who looked disconcertingly like Walter White in the last couple of episodes of 'Breaking Bad'.)

Famous Mortimer

I tried not to donate to Oxfam, cos they sell new things, like a real shop. Balls to em.

There's the story of US video-collage people Everything Is Terrible collecting tens of thousands of copies of "Jerry Maguire" from charity shops (not strictly relevant, but I'd like to see the warehouse they're all in).

I go in local Goodwill and other thrift stores and their book selections are very poor - almost all religious books and airport-book-style thrillers. I think it's because there's a place called Half Price Books that will buy basically anything (even if it's for 10 c) that charity places are so poorly served.

billtheburger

I used to sell foreign language books and we'd get loads of brand new donated author copies from Oxfam and swap our brand new English language stuff in return.

There was a news thing last year about charity shops refusing to accept any more DaVinci Codes or Fifty Shades as they had more than they could ever sell.

Pranet

This sort of thing



https://www.boredpanda.com/50-shades-of-grey-book-fort-goldstone/

I've heard people say charity shops will dump anything that is more than, say, 5 years old.

I don't think that is entirely true- I assume places like Oxfam send them somewhere centrally for sorting? What books you find I think varies depending on where the shop is- more affluent area or near a university, more likely to find literary fiction etc. But a lot of charity shops seem only to sell recent books, and recent shit books at that, while others have a good selection. The Oxfam nearest me has recently cut back on what you could describe as "good" books and given the space over to what you could describe as "shit" books, so I assume there are not many big readers where I live. Which sounds about right.

Captain Crunch

I don't know of any charity shops that do central book sorting but most of them have an ebay arm where 'old' or signed books can go.  Mostly it depends on the branch, if they only have a few volunteers they tend to put books out at a fixed price or vary the price slightly depending on condition.  Branches that have a book bod may be able to sift out more valuable ones but not every branch will have that.  It always seems like the book bod will volunteer in a few shops doing all the books the town.

Specialist bookshops like Oxfam books will use amazon but also specialist textbook websites and private collectors. 

In terms of unsold books, there are plenty of firms that buy in bulk and either sell back on amazon or recycle.  At the moment the charity chain I work for is using World of Books but it changes almost monthly along with rag.  I know of one charity who thought very seriously about selling bags of books for firewood but chickened it. 

Also why avoid a charity shop that sells new goods, don't most of them do that now?

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Captain Crunch on January 07, 2018, 10:23:24 PM

Also why avoid a charity shop that sells new goods, don't most of them do that now?

I don't pay much attention, I just thought Oxfam led the way and I didn't like it very much. Sort of against what I thought charity shops were - if they make a product and it loses money, then that's cash away from doing what they're supposed to be doing. Anyway.

I found a signed copy of "Ball Four" by Jim Bouton this morning, well, a quick Google reveals it's probably his signature. Not quite so impressive when you can buy signed copies of his books from the man himself for $30, but still a nice find.

imitationleather

My missus works in a charity shop. She says because of the unevenness in the quality of donations from store to store most of their stock is delivered from a central sorting place. As you can imagine, some people treat it a bit like a place where you can throw away stuff that really should be in a bin. I'm not sure which books sell best, I should go wake her up and ask.

Janie Jones

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on January 07, 2018, 01:11:31 PM
I tried not to donate to Oxfam, cos they sell new things, like a real shop. Balls to em.
I don't understand your point here. I donate a lot of books to Oxfam because in my experience (I do giftaid so they send me a running total) they get the best return from donations. I spend a lot of time in charity shops and car boot sales because my partner's hobby is dealing in 20th century vinyl records and sports and music books and I sometimes amuse myself by scooping up interesting looking books in '3 for a pound' clearance giveaways in, say, the local Hospice or animal sanctuary  shop and donating them straight to the more clued-up Age UK and Oxfam who (as evidenced in my Giftaid receipts) make good money from them.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Janie Jones on January 07, 2018, 11:52:58 PM
I don't understand your point here.

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on January 07, 2018, 10:40:06 PM
I don't pay much attention, I just thought Oxfam led the way and I didn't like it very much. Sort of against what I thought charity shops were - if they make a product and it loses money, then that's cash away from doing what they're supposed to be doing. Anyway.


Ray Travez

Quote from: Pranet on January 07, 2018, 08:31:47 PM
I don't think that is entirely true- I assume places like Oxfam send them somewhere centrally for sorting?

I used to work in Oxfam bookshop. We'd keep the better books, and the crappier ones went down the road about 15 miles to a location where more people read that sort of thing. Not exactly central sorting, but there's a certain amount of traffic between stores. I've found this to be the same for other stock- clothes and bric-a-brac.

I like watching the changing tides of ubiquitous charity shop books. Many years ago, it was Jaws, and David Niven's The Moon's a Balloon. Then there were the Ben Elton years. At a Scope I worked at, we had a whole shelf of them. Nowadays, every store has to have a copy of the Idler's Crap Towns and at least one of the Hunger Games trilogy. Also, after Clarkson punched that guy, suddenly there was a spate of his hilarious polemical isn't-modern-life-annoying* books filling up the shelves, a tide of flotsam that shows no signs of abating.


*I assume that's what these books are like. I've never actually bothered to open one, much less read any of it

Captain Crunch

A well sorted book section (or, if you're really lucky, book room) is a joy.  However I also like the more renegade book sorting such as girlly books in one section (Kathy Lette, Jodie Picoult, anything with a pastel cover) and boyish books in another (Dan Brown, David Baldacci, stuff with guns on the cover).  Or small books 50p, big books £1.  I even got charged double in Emmaus once because the book I wanted "had a lot of pages in it".

Gulftastic

There are always at least three of Clarkson's shit for cunts books in any charity shop I go in.

the ouch cube

Currently volunteering in a Oxfam.

The (presumably) uber-middle of the road Richard and Judy Book Club ones like 'The Essex Serpent' and 'The Timetravellers' Wife' often appear, I suppose someone read them because they got the impression they were "supposed" to read them, and were underwhelmed. Having said that, a surprising amount of people never re-read even if they liked the book; I guess they feel like once they know what happens, there's no need to revisit.

Jezza Clarks - I occasionally look through these expecting to be made righteously indignant by some full-on 'kick out the darkies' un-PC'ness, but they seem extraordinarily tame. Lots of "oooh, I'm such a stupid old man who doesn't know how the internet works" sort of thing, barely local newspaper-level stuff, really.




Captain Crunch

The Oxfam in Bridgwater had so many misery porn books they created a specific section; they called it 'tragic life stories'.   That was pre-refit I'm not sure if it's still there.   

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: the ouch cube on January 13, 2018, 08:42:25 PM
Currently volunteering in a Oxfam.

The (presumably) uber-middle of the road Richard and Judy Book Club ones like 'The Essex Serpent' and 'The Timetravellers' Wife' often appear, I suppose someone read them because they got the impression they were "supposed" to read them, and were underwhelmed. Having said that, a surprising amount of people never re-read even if they liked the book; I guess they feel like once they know what happens, there's no need to revisit.

Jezza Clarks - I occasionally look through these expecting to be made righteously indignant by some full-on 'kick out the darkies' un-PC'ness, but they seem extraordinarily tame. Lots of "oooh, I'm such a stupid old man who doesn't know how the internet works" sort of thing, barely local newspaper-level stuff, really.

Try reading his sun articles instead of this times ones.

Cursus

In today's Daily Mail resident arsehole Stephen Glover has curled out the following complaint:

Why I won't give my old books to the Oxfam charity shop anymore

QuoteSomehow, a once well-meaning and politically neutral organisation has turned itself into a Corbynista anti-capitalist pressure group which recently tweeted on its official feed: 'We have an extreme form of capitalism that only works for those at the top.'

QuoteOxfam had better beware. It could find itself shunned by thousands of moderate, mainstream donors if it is seen to be pursuing a factional political agenda rather than a purely ethical one.

There are, after all, plenty of other charities. Why should people who do not subscribe to Oxfam's Leftist, Corbynista view of the world continue to give it money when there are so many alternatives?

The truth is that the charity has become hidebound and ideological. It rubbishes capitalism which, as I say, has rescued countless numbers of people from poverty.

Yet it seldom, if ever, examines the limitations of foreign aid, billions of pounds of which have been poured into Africa over the past few decades with depressingly few tangible economic benefits.

QuoteAbove all, it's sad to see an organisation founded to help the destitute becoming so politicised that it spends so much of its energy wrong-headedly decrying capitalism.

Poor Oxfam. This can't be what its founders envisaged. The next time I collect some books to give away, I'm going to take them to a charity which isn't an outpost of the bigoted Hard Left.

Fambo Number Mive

If he doesn't want to donate his books to Oxfam I hope he at least does give them to another charity shop. Unless his books are all crap.

Icehaven

In my limited personal experience, charity shops are often absolutely inundated with books. Several libraries I've worked in (and others I've heard about) have tried to donate discarded books after they haven't sold at booksales*, and been given an enthusiastic 'no thanks'. It's one thing if an individual drops off a few at a time, but that soon builds up, so offers of several boxes full are rarely accepted, particularly as most of the ones the public donate are probably in good nick while ex-library books often aren't (see below).

At my current library the previous manager accepted an offer of some books from a charity shop that was closing down, and they even delivered them themselves. 2000 of them. Mostly they were in decent condition and some were fairly new but again it was the usual suspects, Alan Carr's biog, Katie Price novels, stocking filler comedy books etc. 


*Partly as a result of letters/phonecalls/newspaper articles of complaint from members of the public who have seen large amounts of books in bins outside libraries, 'witnessed' staff carrying binbags full towards recycling bins or just asked staff what happens to discarded books and been horrified when they're told if they aren't sold they're thrown out. Exactly what else do they expect us to do with books that we literally can't give away, sell or loan (we're talking celeb biogs no one cares about anymore, battered old thrillers, obsolete computer books and sticky copies of 50 Shades here, not precious tomes we're ruthlessly destroying just to make way for shiny new ones)?

Spoon of Ploff

Quote from: icehaven on January 25, 2018, 03:06:59 PM
... Exactly what else do they expect us to do with books that we literally can't give away, sell or loan ...

Dear God, you monster. How could you possibly destroy such classics as:


Icehaven

Quote from: Spoon of Ploff on January 25, 2018, 05:42:55 PM
Dear God, you monster. How could you possibly destroy such classics as:



Oh my god, I've been searching for that years since 'Book 1: Fist Removal' gripped me so. Don't suppose you've got 'Book 3: Mailed Other Fist' too?

pigamus

Really annoys me when I buy a book off Amazon and it's clearly a stolen library book. Not just because it's been stolen, but because I never do anything about it.

Brundle-Fly

In the mid eighties, I remember the charity shop bookshelves bowing with Mad comic paperbacks (with the yellow edged pages), Pan Book Of Horror anthologies, Sven Hassel Nazi novels, Asimov stuff and diet, Callanetics and Yoga books. Apart from the diet books, you'd be hard pushed to see any of those gems now. Don't even see Readers Digest collections anymore.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: pigamus on January 28, 2018, 10:12:04 AM
Really annoys me when I buy a book off Amazon and it's clearly a stolen library book. Not just because it's been stolen, but because I never do anything about it.

Are you sure it's not just been withdrawn? I've bought several books off of abe books that have been like that. My copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice not only still had the lending history with a big 'WITHDRAWN' stamp on it, but they'd not even bothered to take the protective plastic sleeve off it either.

Icehaven

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 29, 2018, 11:50:38 PM
Are you sure it's not just been withdrawn? I've bought several books off of abe books that have been like that. My copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice not only still had the lending history with a big 'WITHDRAWN' stamp on it, but they'd not even bothered to take the protective plastic sleeve off it either.

Yep was going to say something like this too, although granted if they're clearly quite new they probably are stolen.

Fambo Number Mive

So am moving out of my current house in 25 days and have loads of books of varying quality - there are four charity shops near where I currently am, one of whom has told me they don't want any more books. Do I give the books to the others, bearing in mind I've given them dozens of books over the past few months, put them in the recycle bin or is there something else I can do with them? I can't taken them with me, there won't be the space.

billtheburger

Isn't there a CAB book donation thread?
Put a photo of the books to go - you'll get a number of volunteers to take them off your hands.

holyzombiejesus

I started one called "Free books!" but it never got off the ground.

purlieu

MusicMagpie take books now, although last time I tried they refused two thirds of them and gave me a penny each for the rest, so it depends on whether it's worth the bother.

There's not an Oxfam in my town, but in the past I've tended to try and give my books to Oxfam Books because they actually know what they're doing. The one in Maidstone was great, I used to be able to go in and ask about specific books and they'd know when they last had a copy and such.

One of our town's two Age UK's has a large book section, all very neatly organised into genre, age etc., which is where I give mine now. But yeah in general they tend to be generic crime / thriller books, romance novels, celeb biogs and true life misery porn stuff.