How to Analyze Books Before Buying ?

In the Garage Sale, or the Second Hand Book Shop, you want to buy books, you don’t know how to analyze books before buying.

While buying the second-hand books, you need to make purchase worthy, and you should get the best out of the deals.

The seller says the book is 40 Bucks, but now you don’t understand that if the value is okay for the book you have in your hands, or the seller is looting you.

We all get into such situations, as a book reader, we tend to buy books from old book shops.

Like Darygaanz or local community centers.

I got some very good deals, I got a signature edition in less than a dollar. And I have many hardbacks that I got in a dollar. As a big fan of buying old books, I do have a great experience in buying old books.

Read this post, and you will be ready to analyze the book before buying and can buy it at the best price.

Look at The Cover

Obviously, this is the first thing you see. The cover of the book.

But, what to look in the cover.

You see this:

• Is the Cover New/Old?
• Is it a Movie Cover?
• Is there marks or tearing on the Cover?
• With Jacket or Without Jacket?
• Blurb is on the Back or Inside the Cover?

Why blurb is important?

Because if the Blurb is inside it means the back cover is filled with the reviews of popular newspaper and publications and reviewers. It means the book want to advertise itself hard.

What you want to make of it, you can?

Hunger Games: Books Cover VS Movie Cover

Now, what after the cover?

Edition of the Book

First edition books are always welcome, does not matter if they are popular or not.

They are collectible.

So, must check out the edition. You can see it on the first page or second.

Other than this:

• First Edition or Not?
• Limited Edtion?
• Signature Edition?
• Rare Edition?

This is how you check the first edition.

Year of Publication and Print

When you check out the Edition, you should see the Publication year too.

Is it not amazing if you find a book that was published or printed in the same year you born?

I have a few books, with the Print year as my Birthday… I buy such a book.

Or maybe you can find a classic book, but a very old print. Like finding the ’84 Print of 1984.

Publication House

A few weeks back, I brought the books. all of them are of Ace Publication House.

Ace Books, such a major publication house and competition of Belmonte Books, is an imprint of Penguin now.

the individuality is lost, but these books remind us that they were the independent publication houses, and they were doing great at that time.

Also, I have a few books on Belmonte, Ballantine, Arrow…  The Vintage Publication House deserves a buy.

History must be respected. Chemistry too… 🙂

Address of the Office

Also, I see the address of Publication House. I have few books for Harper Collins, but the address of their office, printed on the book is of Daryaganz.

Harper Collins has long relocated their office to Noida.

But it is not very important. But it shows the age of the book, and how the book has reached you to you. Even the home of the book has shifted.

The paper of The Book

If you are in the second-hand book shop, you must check the paper quality.

In the 90s, they used to use yellowish paper, in 70s the paper was brownish, and in 60s the paper was tinted.

Now the majority of the publication house use white paper, but still, many publishers are using the yellow one. But what can be said, I even read a book with bluish paper.

How they select the paper for printing is I don’t know, but I want to find out. So I will try to find out.

Font Style and Size

60-90s Sci-Fi was small in the size, and they use the small size font for the book. There is no universal font or size for the book industry, as there is no size for the book.

All sizes are acceptable, and all fonts are acceptable.

But I don’t buy books if I see there is not much line gap, or paragraph gap is small.

I do need white space to read the book, without it, the book overwhelms me.

Awards Stickers

Award-winning books do have stickers on them. Awards Winning books, many times, turns out better. 

That’s why they won the awards.

But you need to see what award the book has won. 

Costa Rica winning books are much different than Pulitzer Winning.

Similarly, Orange Awards books are very different from the Printz Awards winners.

I have read lots of Printz books, I enjoy Costa Rica and Orange one, but Pulitzer never goes good with me. So I often ignore Pulitzer ones.

So check out your taste with the awards, and see which one you like the most.

Analyze Books Before Buying Infographic

Analyze Books Before Buying

So now you know what to look for in the books before buying them.

But if your intuition is saying you to buy the book, then you should buy the book.

Ignore all the advice and go with your heart.

Still, if you have any questions, target me on Instagram.