[TheOtherHobbes]

The resale value of most books is nowhere near 50% of the original price. The more popular the title and the bigger the print run the less it's worth - until you get to remainder mountain title like 50 Shades of Grey, which are literally worthless, except perhaps as fuel for a wood stove.

I had a library with thousands (and thousands) of books. When I moved I decided to get rid of many of them, because decluttering. Long story short - by the time you've allowed for post/carriage, listing time, packaging, and so on, you're more likely to be left with 5-10% of the nominal cover price - and that only after endless hours of work.

I donated most of mine, and I still got complaints from the local recycling facility that they were worthless because they were "too obscure" (i.e. pop science, math, stats, and such.)

[michaelmrose]

The average paperback book weights between 1 and 2 pounds and would cost 2.75 -> 3.25 in shipping for media mail in the US. In addition amazon would take 0.99.

Pulling up a few random books for example https://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640/...

I see I can buy it new for about $11 although I wouldn't be surprised to pay $15 in a physical store. Selling it could get me about 10 but I would have to pay about a buck to amazon and around 3 to ship it for a net of 6.

This is 40% - 55% of original value.

Perhaps more importantly lending or giving them in person arguably gives them the same $10 worth of value. Shipping it to someone produces $10 worth of value for 3.

A book that is shared 3 times has produced $30 worth of value. A book that is shared 10 times has produced $100 worth.

An ebook that you might not be able to read in 10 years is SUBSTANTIALLY less valuable than the physical book.

Adding this value proposition back in and removing DRM that strip actual ownership both laudable goals in themselves are entirely at odds. Artificial scarcity is broken by design and unfixable.

[Shivetya]

Two local, both large, donation centers refuse any and all book donations. From paper backs to the obvious encyclopedia sets. One told me they have to throw every such donation out and since the trash container cost money they just put up a sign saying, no books. They do not accept records or music CDs either but DVDs are apparently okay.

[mr_gibbins]

I went through a phase where I was buying and selling job lots of books in the hope of striking gold (spoiler: you have to go through a LOT of books, and you'll make less than minimum wage). I ended up selling pallets of excess books for pulp - the paper of the books were worth more than the content.

[megameter]

The only books I would really consider saving are those that have survived long enough to be well out of print. It's like software in that sense - the longer it's lasted, the longer it is going to last.

[todd8]

I have a large library of technical books (accumulated over 50 years). Every 10 years or so I feel like I'm running out of space (5000 books or so) and I round up my oldest most out-of-date CS books, like books on pascal programming or LISP manuals from 1971. I fill up boxes of a couple hundred books and take them to a local Half-Price Books bookstore that sells used books. It is always so disappointing. I end up with pennies for each book. So I avoid going for another 10 years until I forget about my previous attempt to sell my out of date books. I've also made library donations of books I felt were still useful (I end up with duplicates sometimes because I forget that I've already purchased a book and shelved it somewhere that I don't see it until after I purchase a second copy.) Again, it's frustrating, most libraries really don't want very technical books.

I can't expect anyone to want an old manual for LISP programming so now I'm holding onto my old books because it's not worth dragging them to the used bookstore. And, every so often, I will go back and look at them. There was a discussion on HN involving assembly language and machine architecture, it caused me to pull out my old book on CDC 6600 assembler.

In another 10 years I'll forget this and try to sell my used books again.