In this episode, we continue our day-in-the-life series with the story of another relatively normal but less-than-perfect book buy. It’s a stumbling block that we run into fairly often: folks trying to sell books that they’re not emotionally prepared to part with. In this case we looked at the collection, made an offer, and waited about five years until its owner was ready to let go. In a classic case of indecision being worse than wrong decision, the books waited in a storage unit for all those years, absorbing rent money and developing unfortunate condition issues. Listen to learn more about the pitfalls of sentimental storage—and tune in next time for a look at an average work week at the shop.
Brattlecast # 135 - Big Book Hauls
When people think about the secondhand book business, they rarely think about all the literal heavy lifting that goes on behind the scenes. In this episode Ken breaks down the nitty-gritty logistics of getting 15,000 books from a three-story Victorian house outside of New Haven to the shop in downtown Boston. It takes eleven trips, employee overtime for days that start at 6am, thousands of cardboard boxes, tote bags of packing tape, a second set of clothes for when you sweat through your clothes, dust inhalation, and stairs, stairs, and yet more stairs. Learn more about how it all gets done on this laborious #brattlecast.