Thoughts on Investing in Books

And the first half of a single-owner collection of recent UK science fiction

Happy New Year and best wishes to all for 2024!

This week’s new-arrivals list is the first of two devoted a collection of books of the late Portland, Oregon, collector Bob Salvatore. Bob mostly bought signed British science fiction published in the last 10 years. If that’s also your jam, you’ll find some good things on this list and the next one.

Bob worked at a local bank for his whole career. He was briefly married, didn’t have kids, and was divorced for a long time. His ex-wife of fifty years remained his best friend and was the executor of his estate.

I first looked at Bob’s books in 2019. At that time, he had about 2500 books, split 70/30 between mystery and science fiction.

Bob began building his collection in earnest about 2010 when decided to invest a chunk of his retirement savings into books. When I saw him, after ten years of buying, he was ready to sell them and reap his profits. According to his spreadsheet, he spent $76,000 on books worth $250,000 in 2019. Most of the books came from England and his cost did not include the rather considerable shipping expense. His actual outlay may have been closer to $100,000.

Bob thought that $100,000 would be a reasonable purchase price for the collection.

Looking back at my notes, Bob had priced the top 25 items in the collection at $49,000; at the time I calculated that identical copies on AbeBooks would cost me just $14,000. For example, the advance reading copy of the Knopf edition of Christopher Paolini’s first book, Eragon, was on Bob’s list at $1400. You can buy it from me for $150.

I hate going into these kinds of book-buying situations, where someone has convinced themselves (or worse, family members) that as soon as they sell the books they will be rich or set for retirement. Usually, I don’t even make an offer in that situation. People with over-inflated expectations tend to think you are trying to cheat them, and that is never pleasant for me. (For some reason, even if I don’t make an offer, people still feel that I am cheating them, a scenario I have encountered many times and still do not understand).

Back in 2019, Bob insisted on selling everything to one dealer—no cherry picking! That greatly limited the pool of potential buyers, and everyone in Portland passed on the opportunity. When no one locally would pay his price, Bob’s ex-wife looked at the books and the numbers and prevailed upon Bob to set more realistic expectations and to move off of his all-or-nothing requirement. As often happens in these cases, Bob was still mad at the local dealers who broke the bad news to him, and he didn’t ask anyone in Portland to make an offer under the new terms.

Instead, Mystery Mike came to look at the books. He went back home, went through Bob’s spreadsheet and made a list of all the mysteries he wanted. Bob and his ex-wife then spent many long days finding the books, most of which were downstairs, packing them, and hauling boxes up a dozen steps to the main floor. Bob’s ex-wife told me it was a lot of work for two retired people. Instead of paying off his house as he expected, she told me that Bob got a new roof out of his mysteries.

Four years later, Bob passed away and his ex-wife was tasked with settling the estate. The realtor told her that the books, which lined the walls of two large rooms, needed to go before the house went on the market. She called me. I made a strong offer on the books in one of the rooms; no other dealers wanted to match it so a few weeks later, I hauled sixty boxes of book back to my shop. (The other room of books wasn’t well heated and the bookcases were on uninsulated exterior walls. When I looked at those books in 2019, they were fine; by 2023, most of them had mildew growing under the jackets.)

I ended up with about 1200 books, mostly the science fiction that didn’t interest Mystery Mike. About 200 books will be offered between this list and the next one. Several hundred more volumes will be sold as box lots on eBay (I’ll let you know when those go live). The rest—the majority, really—of the books will go to a thrift store. Perhaps they will be collectible in the future, but they aren’t yet.

Thoughts on Investing in Books

A lot of collectors want to make money when they sell their books, and some do very well. If that is (part of) your goal for collecting, here are a few things to consider:

1) Think about what’s going to be popular when you sell your collection, not what’s popular now.

Each generation of collectors adopts some of what came before but mostly they chart new paths. People who spent lots of money in the 1980s and 1990s on complete collections of John Updike, Norman Mailer, Donald Barthleme, and John Gardner, did not find many buyers in this century who shared their passion. Collectors who were unfashionable in the 1980s and bought Joan Didion, Octavia Butler, and Cormac McCarthy have done very well.

However, if you are good at predicting the future, you’ll make more money in stocks than books.

2) Don’t spend too much on manufactured collectibles.

Bob Salvatore spent most of his money with Goldsboro Books, in England, which sold new signed first editions, often with numbered limitations. Bob apparently believed Goldsboro’s website, which describes its first edition club as “an investment into your passion,” noting that their “unique books are estimated to go up by 300% in value.”

The problem with limited editions (for investment purposes), is that they are all sold to collectors, who mostly keep them in nice condition. Well into the future, the supply of nice copies of signed editions often far outpaces the availability of regular signed trade first editions.

Limited editions, however, also attract collectors, so while the supply is relatively high, the demand can also be quite robust. Perhaps the best recent example of this is the 500-copy signed, limited edition of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, which is a low five-figure book these days (a 15% annual rate of return on the original $60 cover price over 38 years).

I am not arguing against buying limited editions (after all, most of this book in the Salvatore collection are signed, limited editions). It is an argument against blanket subscriptions to them. Buy quality, not volume.

3) Buy highspots.

To me, this kind of collecting is somewhat boring. Famous books are great to have, even if they are the same books that everyone else seems to have. But that’s me. My personal collections are all completist collections. You do you! The whole point of collecting is to assemble items that are meaningful to you.

Historically, certain books have appreciated much more rapidly than their peers, and if you limit your collecting to high spots, the resulting library is more likely to appreciate.

Bob the investor, unfortunately, was a completist. He usually wanted all the books by an author he was collecting. And he liked British first editions, which tend to have more compelling dust jackets, even when the actual first edition was American. His library, neatly alphabetical on custom-made bookcases, looked great. Photographs of his books would have competed with any #shelfies on Instagram.

I say unfortunately because what Bob wanted was a return on his investment; if he had been happy with a beautiful library of books and authors he cared about, it would have been a great collection.

Some of Bob’s books more than tripled in value, just like Goldsboro Books said. Most of those books are on this list and the next one. (The books on this week’s list are, essentially, Bob’s high spots, the top 15% of his collection).

Unless a book gets made into a movie, very few authors have particularly valuable 5th or 10th books, and if you are a completist collector, most of your books will be later novels that had larger print runs. They cost less individually but the cumulative expense can be considerable.

Bob didn’t acquire many books from used and rare book dealers. For example, he started collecting Neal Stephenson ten years ago and bought signed copies of each new book as it came out. But he didn’t splurge on a nice signed copy of Snow Crash, which was a bit expensive in 2010 (I sold one about then for $1000); instead he settled on a book club edition (which I sold already for the same $75 Bob paid for it). A signed hardcover first of Snow Crash is approaching $10,000 these days; if he had had one, it would have greatly improved his overall rate of return on his investment.

In the end, however, my real advice, is to collect what you like; enjoy the process; meet fellow travelers, both dealers and collectors; have a good time; spend what you can afford. We all live now; let the future take care of itself.

[Part II of this story is here.]