ARE YOU A COLLECTOR OR A FANATIC

Are you a collector or a fanatic?

by Judith Rippelmeyer

friends

Do you spend at least one day a week searching used book stores, online book sites, trade lists, garage sales, flea markets, library sales, or your girlfriend's basement for that one book you've just GOT to have?

Do you belong to more than 2 trade lists/message boards/email lists that center around books?

Is your TBR pile more like a TBR room?

Do you own more books than three people could possibly read in a lifetime?

Have you ever bought books then hidden them, or if hubby sees them say, "No, I didn't BUY more books, those are ones I got from a friend"?

Do you have books stuck in every conceivable place in your home?

Do you think Heaven is a huge library just waiting for you to get there, or think that you CAN take your books with you?

Do you buy more than 50 books a month?

Do you own more than 1 copy of any particular book?

If you answered yes to three or more of these questions you ARE a book fanatic!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a book fanatic is a bad thing. But you may want to stop a second and think about your situation. WHY are you buying/trading/collecting all those books? Is it that you simply can't stand to give up a book? Are these books that you will ever read again? Are you keeping them because of the cover art? The author? The subject matter?

I am a book collector. I keep the books of certain of my favorite authors, and do spend some time trying to find those elusive missing books from my collection. Several years ago I did a dumb thing. I gave away, sold, and donated over 75% of my book collection. I did this because I moved four times in three years. Moving over 3,000 books did not appeal to my new Knight in Shining Armor, so I bent to the pressure and parted with all but those few precious books. Now I regret, more than anyone will ever know, parting with my original signed copies of Sharon Sala's DIAMOND, QUEEN, and LUCKY. My Linda Howard MacKenzie books, and hundreds of others. However, it also opened my eyes to my own fanaticism over keeping books. Had I once re-read those books? No. Did they do anything but collect dust on my shelves? No. Was I keeping them simply for ego, so that when someone said..."do you have?" I could answer with a resounding YES!

Are those any reasons to collect books? Probably not to someone with a saner mind, but to a romance collector those are ALL good reasons!

Oh, one last thing before I move on. NEVER give up hope that you'll find that elusive book. I looked for three years before I found an original copy of Julie Garwood's young adult book A GIRL NAMED SUMMER, in mint condition I might add. One day I have hope that I will also find Diana Palmer's AT WINTER'S END and THE MORCAI BATTALION. If I find those two you will hear me screaming with joy from coast to coast!

Okay, you've admitted you're a fanatic and you'd like to clean up your act a little. Here's a few helps:

1. Find a book inventory system. It can be Byron (which will cost you approximately $110.00 to start, updates are extra), My Books (available from RAD software for $10.00), or use Excel or another spreadsheet program. Enter ALL your books into your database. As you look at each book before entering decide WHY you have that book. Then decide is this a book I'll really ever read again? Why am I keeping it?

2. Go through your TBR mountain. (by the way if there are more than 500 books in your mountain you should seriously think about reducing it by about 1/2). The average person reads 3 books a week. In a 30 year period the average person will read approximately 5,000 books. That same person will BUY at least 10 new books each month. So in that same 30 year period they've purchased 3,600 new books. That same person will visit a used book store an average of once per week and pick up an additional 15 books per month, or 5,400 books in that same 30 years. That's a total of 9,000 books...or 4,000 more than they can read in that 30 years...hence what does anyone need a TBR pile for anyway?

3. Okay, you've got your library and TBR pile cataloged. Someone just recommended a book on a bulletin board or email loop to which you belong. You immediately run out to buy it. STOP! Take two steps back, do you even LIKE this kind of book? Is this an author you'd ever read in your lifetime? Probably not, if it'd been a book you really wanted you'd have bought it on your regular book shopping trip. We all spend at least an hour in the bookstore every time we go, reading all the backs of the books anyway. If it'd been something you would read you would have already bought it.

4. You see a copy of your favorite book on a trading list, online auction, or in a Used Book Store. You buy it, after all it IS your favorite author (never mind you've already got six copies). STOP! Think about the person after you who may have never read the book and might like it if you weren't hoarding all the copies known to man.

5. You see a copy of a book that your price guide lists as worth $88.00. You grab it up, thinking ...hmm I'll get rich off this one. STOP! Remember that anything is only worth as much as the next person is willing to pay...and you are stealing the joy from the next collector who has been looking for THAT book for years. Don't take their joy and delight at finding it for $.25 and making them pay an inflated price on Ebay. Remember how you felt when you found it? The next gal will feel triple the joy, because it's a book she really wants.

6. Make a monthly book budget and stick to it. That includes postage costs for book trades, online auction costs, used book store trips, and new books. If your monthly book budget is more than your family's food budget for the month ....you may want to rethink here. Oh, and NEVER, EVER take a credit card or your check book book shopping. It's too easy to say...."oh, I can pay for it out my next month's book budget." You're kidding yourself.

7. Get a library card. Instead of spending your hard earned book budget on hard cover books (especially since more and more authors are going to hard cover) check them out of the library. Okay, you may have to be on a waiting list (that's not a bad thing, it teaches patience), and you probably won't get to read it on release day but it's certainly much cheaper than $25.00 for one book. If it's an author you collect, wait for the book to come out in paperback.

8. If you are completely and hopelessly addicted...consider becoming a book reviewer. Since beginning book reviewing over 10 years ago I seldom buy a new book. It certainly has helped with my book budget.