Folio Society Books

Part of my "work" requires me to look at and appraise thousands of books offered up for sale at thrift shops, church sales, estate sales and other venues. I imagine it's like panning for gold, only with books. Sound dull? The rest of my family thinks it is, but it does not really feel like "work" to me.


Like any miner, I live for the moment when I discover the golden nugget hidden in the sludge. Last year, I felt like I'd found a rich vein of nuggets when I bought the entire library of a retired English teacher. Most of the books were published by the "Folio Society," a British enterprise I'd never heard of before. Many others were "Heritage Book Club" books, another outfit unknown to me.


The highest possible production values for mass-market books set these two publishers apart from the run of the mill. The paper is acid-free, very good quality bond. The printing is selected to match the subject, as are the illustrations. The publisher might use period illustrations for history, or woodcuts or other original art. The covers are usually fine cloth, with a handsome embossed design, often of original art, and gilt lettering when appropriate for cover titles and author's names. Instead of a dust jacket, these books are protected by slipcases. The slipcases are usually plain, although they can be adorned with eye-catching art. My copy of the Folio "Maltese Falcon" has a striking print pastedown on the slipcase.


The books themselves are classics of both historical and contemporary English literature and world literature in translation; fiction, biography, science, art and history.


Robin Smiley, editor of Firsts, the book collector's magazine, said she could not understand why a collector's market does not exist for these books. In particular, the first editions would be desirable.


I wonder that, myself.


Well, most of these books will stay in my private collection, for now. I am still regretting sale of my copy of William Blake's Songs of innocence and of experience, illustrated by the author.

Interestingly, a little research shows Folio Society has devotees writing on Library Thing. They even said some nice things about the William Blake book.

Of course, you can get these books directly from the Folio Society in the UK. Barnes & Noble are the US distributors. They have a nice PDF file touting the virtues of these books.

As for me, I expect to see more of them at estate sales. I am thinking, though, I might go back to Amazon or e-bay to pick up a nice copy. Because, for a book lover, a beautifully made edition of a great book is a double joy.

What Feedback Means to Me

As an online customer and book dealer, feedback influences all my buying and selling.

I recently saw a feedback rating of 50% for a seller listing collectible books for a price much higher than the market rate. Why would anyone gamble on that seller? Not only do customers have a 50-50 chance of losing their money, they also have a high probablity of jaw clenching, tooth grinding frustration. Why, when so many highly rated sellers eagerly await your business?

The seller must be counting on people not paying attention to the feedback rating. And it must work, because he keeps on listing books.

As a book dealer, I am after the people who do pay attention. I want them to check my listings next time they go shopping. I want them to remember the good service, the accurate description, quick delivery, and other things I do to earn my feedback score.

I wish my rating were 100% positive, but even I make mistakes from time to time. I try to do what I can to make amends whenever I disappoint a customer. Besides, there is something "too good to be true" about a 100% positive rating. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My hope is that people will pay a tiny bit more to deal with me than my low end competition. A few bulk dealers routinely undercut my prices by pennies. Their positive feedback runs below 95%; mine runs at 98% or better, depending on the time period. They use automated programs to make sure they are always the cheapest; I do everything by hand. They are huge operations, with many employees, multiple locations and thousands of books; my operation is tiny and family run. I can't always stay ahead of their automated price cutting, but my feedback score is objective proof that I beat them on quality and service.

So feedback means success to me. As a customer, the feedback for the seller I buy from tells me how likely I am to be pleased or disappointed. As a dealer, the feedback I get tells me and everyone else how successful I've been in reaching my goal of quality products and the best possible service.