Goodwill Megastore Bins - Don't waste your time

I had to see what was going on.

     I see these videos on Tiktok and Youtube of people finding awesome scores at these giant Goodwill stores with big blue bins, and I had to see it for myself. I often drive by an industrial complex in Orlando that has what seems like 20 giant buildings knitted together, with no entrance or exit that I can see. In the picture above, I thought that was the front door to the Goodwill, but it was a giant empty room with old cubicles, and the lights were off. As a matter of fact, from the road to the third parking lot in, I had no idea where to go. Even when I did find the entrance by following people that were walking, I had to park very far away and get in line with everyone else. The eventual front door had no posted hours, no goodwill sign above the door, and just appeared like all the other doors.

I think I was in a restricted area?

     This place was massive. There was a caution tape fenced in area where there was a ton of people going through bins of clothes. I would say 99% of all the bins are just clothes and shoes. There was a ton of staff standing around talking in spanish, and I went up to one of these ladies to ask if I could look at the other areas behind the tape, and she shook her head no, then yes, then walked away to her friends. When I walked away, she yelled happily at me, and then her friend laughed and they started singing really loud. I'm not making this up, I felt like I was in bizarro world. I watched one Spanish family just walk around the perimeter of the warehouse where I took the picture above looking back. There were bins of books, trash, and broken electronics towards this perimeter, and no one stopped to yell or sing at me, so I called it good. 

All trash.

     Surprise, it was all junk. Anything that looked remotely cool was just in terrible condition. Two bins of books out of the hundreds is this huge building. I could not dig to the bottom because of the sheer weight of everything on top. I again attempted to communicate with an employee and ask if I could go to the other side where the bathrooms were, as I saw more bins over there, and she made some strange gesture and showed me the plastic bag in her pocket. I went up to the front and again, all Spanish and zero english. I can speak a little spanish, so I tried, and was told no, you can't go over there. I asked if anyone knew english and they all shook their head no. One more quick look around and I noticed all the staff were Spanish, and customers as well. Did I go in the wrong door? Was I not supposed to be here? Confused, I left empty handed. 

Takeaways:

• Entrance not clearly marked
• Nothing clearly marked
• Nothing priced that I could tell
• Crippling language barrier that I eventually figured out
• Staff not professional, helpful, and acted strange
• Layout is confusing, and seems to be confusing to everyone else too
• Not sure what I'm supposed to be doing
• Had to park over 1000 feet away
• I'm not sure if there was more store, or different stores, or what

End of the Year Update - 2024

 

I think it's been a good year.

     No posts since July, but there has been a ton of book hunting, just at a lot of the same spots. Even at some of the far away places I've been, there has been recent returns to those places to find books to sell and collect. Recently the wife and I purchased a small camper that fits 3 adults and their dogs, so we can go to different places and explore a little further. My wife has recently taken up reading again and switched over to a category known as Romantasy.. or romantic fantasy for the uninitiated. 

Still tons of books.

     I've picked up more than we have sold on the eBay store, and we are currently sitting at 243 books listed on the ebay store. The average sale is around $14, which is the price of a $10 book plus shipping. We average about $600 a month in sales, and of course some months are better than others. We will go two weeks without a sale, then have some much we can't keep up. Picking up new inventory has been easy as there is a ton of thrift stores that have books that need to be gone through before they are trashed (gasp) and we save anything that could net us $7 and over on profit. It's been a struggle to stay motivated to out on Saturdays for some garage sales, but we have been doing it recently to get fresh inventory on the site. I lost motivation to update the Instagram, but I did today with some fresh books we found over the weekend.

Piles have been listed.

     I find myself less attached to the books that I want, and If I already have a servicable copy, I'm okay selling something in classic condition. A good example of this is when we sold a first edition "Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep", but I have a later printing that I'm okay with hanging on to that has little value. Some books are coming up far less often than they were: Dune. We could find Dune books everywhere for 10 cents, now there is zero inventory anything. We made a small killing on my existing Dune inventory, but I still retain copies that I can read that I don't really want to sell. The feeling of value overall has changed for me as a collector. Conan books are still hot, and I can find them readily enough, so I just cycle those through.

Expanding our horizons.

     I plan on expanding the blog some with horror and movie adaptation reviews in the near future, as I've taken a liking to them and find them pretty often- sometimes with surprising values attached to them. Graphic novels have been an interest, as well as story and poem books that are linked to fantasy series of note. What does 2025 have to bring? I think with the blog it comes to motivation to post my travels more, get thoughts and feelings out, and overall I think I just need to read more. Reading in general is tough and there is so only so many hours in the day; just now my wife asked me to build her something for the orchids, and I plan on washing the cars before this afternoon. Tasks pile up, and we become trees in our old age, the branches are our hands.. reaching for the only thing that could stop us- Time. 

See you next year. 

U.S. 41 Books in Springhill is a Crumbling Gem

It may not look like much. 

     I saw this store when looking up bookstores in google maps in an attempt to plot out a thrifting trip for the wife and I, and to be honest, passed over it the first time we went up that way. It's kind of out of the way, and reviews were not the best. I would not miss it this time, and after lunch, we made it our last stop on the way back from Tampa.

There was a lot to take in.

     Gary, the owner introduced himself, explained the pricing- which was 50% cover sticker price, and said to yell if I need help. Right away the musty smell of old books and dust mixed with Florida dirt assaulted me. There was no AC, but some fans were on pointed out into the store. Several spots of the ceiling were falling down or weak in places. In short: I was home.

      Everything was in alphabetical order, and the better condition books were in bags. Nothing was "falling apart" as mentioned in some of the google reviews. It was hot for sure, and the lighting was not the best, but this made it feel like a treasure hunt to me. The fantasy and science fiction shelves where brimming with classics and the obscure. I had a hard time just focusing my attention on one area to research and start separating the books. My wife occasionally handed me a book she recognized, and I made a little pile as I walked around. 

     I noticed a part of the building in the back that was all vintage Sci-fi and Fantasy hardbacks, but the roof appeared to be leaking and it was closed with plastic covering anything. I took these pictures so I could look later on and see if there was anything I wanted. There was so much I passed up because the heat was getting to me, but there was nothing I would not do again. I had a really good conversation with Gary, he said he was there 35 years in the same spot, but business was tougher now than ever. We talked about trends, trading books in, and Star Trek. 100% I will make a list and come back here, and you should too. Yeah it's hot, yeah its dusty, but it's perfect. I'll do another post of what I picked later on down the line. 

Until next time. 

First Edition Hunt: Below the Root - Zilpha Snyder

 

     I knew almost nothing about this author or book when I saw this at a thrift store indoor market a few weekends back. I've seen enough books to know when something stands out, so I move it from pile A, over to pile B. 50 cents and I was on my way, with no internet to speak of, it was a small risk to take at that price. 

    Zilpha Keatley was an award winning children's author, but branched out a few times to write some Fantasy. She wrote 46 books in her life, and this one and the trilogy it's in, spawned a pretty good video game by the same name.  Unique for the time, the video game was written by her because she did not like how the first book ended, and has some negative reaction with fans. She used the video game as a sequel to the first book, and she considered it canon, and a correction to the plot device she created. Below the Root is considered a very uncommon book, and the other two books in the trilogy, even more so in any condition. That I have been collecting for 20+ years and have not come across one, is really something. 

     This particular copy sold right away, and the images are from that eBay post. The sale price for this book in "good" condition was $35 + $5 shipping. In perfect condition could go up to $50 for a first Tor printing. In hardcover, you can almost use your imagination as very few copies come up for sale. 

Happy hunting. 

Reseller Retrospective 2: Books sold in the second month of the eBay store

 

The books are taking over.

     Well, it's month two of nearly continuous operation of the eBay store, with a few multi-day sanity breaks in-between. My wife and I have fallen into sync and found our cadence with finding books, listing them, shipping prep, and final shipping to the customer. For those following along, this is a follow up to the previous post, found here. I went out to find books three times in the Month of April, finding several books in the process. In one instance at a hospice thrift store, I found five first/first Stephen King books, including IT, in mint unread condition; those books have been listed but not sold yet. I have found more books to list and inventory than we sold, so overall, I think this could be very sustainable long term. The amount listed below is before shipping, (I charge $5 for PB and $6 for HC) and estimated eBay fees. 

• $12 - Brazen Gambit - Lynn Abbey - First Dark Sun PB 1994
• $15 - God Emperor Dune - Frank Herbert - BCE HC
• $15 - Witch World - Andre Norton - First PB 1963
• $50 - Heretics of Dune - Frank Herbert - First/First HC
• $46 - The Man Who Rode Thunder - Williams Rankin - 1965 PB
• $9 - Infernal Idol  - Henry Seymour - 1969 First PB
• $10 - A Voyage to Arcturus - David Lindsay 1973 PB
• $13 - Children of Dune - Frank Herbert - 1984 PB
• $40 - Focus on Biology
• $35 - I, Robot - Isaac Asimov - BCE 1950 HC
• $10 - The Mousetrap - Agatha Christie - 1969 First PB
• $15 - The Belgariad Part Two - David Eddings - BCE HC
• $9 - The Abyss - Orson Scott Card - First PB
• $11 - The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester - First Timescape PB 1978
• $28 - Highlander - Garry Kilworth - First PB 1998
• $11 - Deception Well - Linda Nagata - BCE HC 1978
• $15 - Charnel House - Graham Masterton - First HC 1978
• $12 - Swords Against Darkness IV - Andrew Offutt - First PB 1979
• $22 - Dangerous Visions - Harlan Ellison - First HC 1967
• $10 - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman - PB 1976
• $10 - Ringworld - Larry Niven - 3rd printing 1971 PB
• $12 - Picnic on Paradise - Joanna Russ 1979 PB
• $25 - The Djinn - Graham Masterton - First PB 1977
• $10 - A Feast Unknown - Phillip Jose Farmer - First 1980
• $6 - Deus Irae - Phillip K Dick/Zelazny - 1977 PB
• $12 - Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut - First 1970 PB

     In the month of April we made $471.73 net from 26 book sales, give or take a few bucks we made on shipping. Our 60 day total is now $1,193.10. The average price of books sold was a paltry $17.80, and our overhead on shipping media mail averaged $5.30 cents per book, which is envelope plus media mail average $4.40 shipping, and the little fake library cards and a protective bag we add in each package to solicit positive reviews and add a personal touch. (See results below)

     It's worth noting we are having issues with book storage, moved some boxes to the garage, and the desks are overflowing. The top of my son's piano has turned into a staging area for books waiting to be shipped or listed, and the plastic totes behind me have turned into the collection for current listed inventory. There has been a few moments where it has taken more than 5 minutes to find a book when sold, so we are working on a better way to keep things organized; more to come on that. I feel that our little sanity breaks of 4-5 days did not help the book sales and keep the inventory fresh, so it's been hard to keep motivated when I work a 50+ hour a month job and my wife homeschools all day. Tough changing gears! We felt discouraged when there was 3-4 days without a book sale, only to be rewarded with multiple days in a row of sales, or multiple in one day. I think it's just staying motivated and consistent overall that will keep this train on the tracks. So far in May we have already sold six books with a value of $193, so it's looking like a record month.

See you in May for Reseller Retrospective Part 3!

I bought a crusty old collection.

 

The pictures don't do the level of filth any justice

     I get excited about little things, and seeing pictures of crusty old books for a super cheap price real close to my house would qualify as one of those little things. I answered the post above within an hour of it online, and after work the next day, I head over to Dunedin with some old boxes and prepared to load up. From the pictures alone I could see about 350 books of varying quality, so I got $40 out of the ATM and set that as my budget. 

     I did not know what to expect, but I'll describe this the best way I can. The house looked to be 30 years overgrown. There was no front path leading up to the house, and the driveway and front yard was covered in old wood and appliances. This was a pretty nice neighborhood, so to see this was pretty unexpected. The owner met me on the front lawn for my appointment, and led me around to the alternate front door which was framed out of wood and had some pool screen on it. There were book cases inside the front door that was missing, and a sign with an allergy warning in spray paint. I do have horrendous allergies, but I can also smell a deal, so I'm not going to let that stop me. It's clear there has not been anyone inside this house for over 20 years, and there was no power or AC. I've been having an issue seeing in the dark in my old age, so was only able to pull books out by the light of my phone, so was not able to take any pictures of inside the house, as that would require me to put the light away. Because of the aforementioned issue with the light, some of the books I picked up had some horrible spines that I did not notice. You can't win them all! There were actually several bookcases, and the one in the picture above was the worst of the bunch.

The Take

     I left behind hundreds of books in the worst condition I've ever seen, from fire damage to water damage, missing covers and spines, to infestation of something else entirely. Every book was stuck together with the one next to it, and in the case of the Ace Doubles, they might as well counted as one book. The ones I picked up were all in the fair-to-poor range of condition, and as they were only 10 cents each, I picked out the best 200 or so and loaded 5 large boxes, and at the end just starting throwing random books in the boxes to get my money's worth. The new owner of the house counted nothing, offered to give me everything including the book cases, and offered me lemonade, which I turned down. The books I did grab that were in poor shape were first edition classics in their own right- I left two deteriorating first edition I, Robots with missing covers, things I normally would be over the moon about. The Dune books were in surprising shape and will be on eBay soon, as were some old classics that cleaned up with alcohol and a rag. I counted, and of the "listable" books, we have $484 in eBay value for $40, plus some cool books to add to the collection or sell on Instagram on the cheap. Some pretty cool standouts below: 

Reseller Retrospective: Books that have sold in the last month

 

My wife's book pricing system on her desk. 

     So it's been about five weeks since I announced that I was going to promote a proper eBay store and not just sell the occasional book here and there. It's been really tough holding back on selling some of them, and then ready to move on with selling some others. It turned out I have a ton more books than I thought, but then also less at the same time. Sooo many damn hard covers.. so heavy and take up so much space. I wish I could get rid of them all. For this quick post, I though I would go over what sold, for how much, and how much we made. The amount listed of each sale is before shipping (I charge $5 for PB and $6 for HC) and includes estimated eBay fees.

• $18 - The Origin of Crabs - Guy Smith - First PB
• $17 - The Shadow of the Torturer - Gene Wolfe - First Timescape PB
• $30 - The Black Horde - Richard Lewis - First PB
• $20 - Chapterhouse Dune - Frank Herbert - First/First HC
• $25 - Children of Dune - Frank Herbert - BCE HC
• $16 - God Emperor of Dune - Frank Herbert - BCE HC
• $25 - And The Put out the Light - ECR Lorac - First PB
• $15 - God Emperor Dune - Frank Herbert - 1983 PB
• $10 - Dragon in the Sea - Frank Herbert - 1956 HC no DJ
• $12 - Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert - 1980 PB
• $75 - Encyclopedia of Fairies - Kathrine Briggs - First/First HC
• $12 - Alone Against Tomorrow - Harlan Ellison - BCE HC
• $10 - Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert - 1970 PB
• $15 - Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein - 1968 PB
• $13 - The Belgariad Part One - David Eddings - BCE HC
• $11 - Children of Dune - Frank Herbert - 1984 PB 22nd Printing
• $32 - Chapterhouse Dune/Heretics of Dune - Frank Herbert - 1980's PB lot
• $12 - Conan The Treasure of the Tranicos - Robert E. Howard - Ace First PB
• $15 - Shadows Linger - Glen Cook - First PB
• $10 - Count Zero - William Gibson - 1987 PB
• $10 - 25th Spc Ed. Dune - Frank Herbert - 1990 PB
• $15 - Children of Dune - Frank Herbert - Ace 1987 PB

Cute little custom bookmark and stamp

     Total amount earned: $721.37, 26 sold, currently sitting at 162 active listings. Almost selling a book a day, but I noticed that people wait until the weekend to shop, so we always have a few to mail on Monday mornings. I pack the books and my wife lists them, we have a good system. We bought a cute little stamp pad and our talented son drew us a custom logo; I stamp each bubble mailer, and the custom book marks that are library cards we put with each order, and of course everything comes in a protective bag with some cardboard backing. In the time that we have sold 26 books, I have been to three book stores and found at least another 25 books that would count as listable, I.e.: Books with a high rate of sale over $10 in sold auction value. 13 of the books sold were Dune books, which I have a ton of, doubles, different printings, you name it. I've read the books and don't have a crazy attachment to them, and I see and have found a few out in the wild already to replace the ones sold for one or two dollars each. In short, this is something we could keep up for a long time with the current inventory.

The goals of this project are: 

1. Learn how to run a small retail business with my wife without killing each other
2. Learn more about books and what sells (It's Dune, at the moment, but these Choose your own adventure books are interesting and rare)
3. Make money and pay down some bills
4. Use what I know about marketing and sales to be successful
5. Manage a target inventory of 500 books
6. Have fun

     So far we're having a blast, posting more books, and making new memories. I love seeing and touching and opening boxes of books that have not seen the light of day for over 10 years, researching and planning, and of course reading some of them again. 

Click here to visit the eBay store 

Check us out on Instagram

The Book Rescuers - Giant Used Book Warehouse in Pinellas Park

 

The Book Rescuers boasts over a mile of book shelves. 

     See for yourself on their facebook page, The Book Rescuers in Pinellas Park claims over a mile of book shelves, and I would say that is not an exaggeration. There is no parking or AC, but the fans down the many aisles of books are blowing away the dust and heat from outside and keeping the customers and the books cool. Tucked away in an industrial complex in Cross Bayou Industrial Park between paint shops and car repair places is a huge warehouse with what can only be described as mountains upon mountains of books.

She didn't catch me taking pictures. I swear.

     No shortage of customers. The pictures on their Facebook don't do it justice, and they have since added DVD's, VHS tapes, old media, records, banned books.. you name it. Their aisle of Fantasy and Sci-Fi was amazing, but the books I saw online that they took in a few weeks ago, were no longer available. Their pricing system is based on little colored stickers, but 99% of the books are yellow-dot, which are $2 each, and those are the only books I grabbed. 

It was hard to get a picture of how large this place is.

     I would say this has the largest selection of vintage Science Fiction I've ever seen in person. Older books were wrapped in plastic, and still $2. Looking for Ace Doubles? 100's of them for $2. 50's and 60's pulp paperback? Fill a whole shopping cart. This is not the store you will complete your Dragonlance collection at like the last store I went to, but holy crap can you find some really old cool stuff for cheap. I did notice a lot of books have seen better days, covers tattered and dirty, some missing whole pieces. Some books I was really excited to see by popular authors were in such poor condition, I had to frown and move on. I was easily able to find 20 books for $40 that have a much greater value; some to add to the collection, and some to list. The Dune books are eBay fodder, Laser books are always awesome and have unique covers, tons of Gibson there I passed on..

     I'll be coming back to this place when I can make it down there, at least once a month. Lot's of good scores, and I left tons on the shelf that I wanted to take. I spent about a half hour, and could have easily spent a couple of hours and really found some gems. Great place overall. Awesome staff, just a really cool find if you are in the Tampa area. 

**Edit** - I visited here again two Saturday's later with my wife, on April 6th and we walked out with 5 books that were worth listing, and my son bought some cool old VHS tapes. They gave my wife a teacher discount! Super cool place and we plan on going back often. 

Until the next adventure..

Endless Quest: Crimson Crystal Adventure Series

    What was really popular in the early 80's and through the 90's was Choose Your Own Adventure books. Dungeons and Dragons and TSR, not be left out of the action, made their own series called Endless Quest. They were printed on acid free heavy card stock paper, had great illustrations from the great artists who also contributed to Dragon Magazine. They were short little adventures with character sheets inside to keep track of your stats and faux predetermined inventory. 

     How do you make it more fun, bring in some science fiction, and skew a little younger? You bring in those same artists and tell them to paint in red over the art, and include a "Crimson Crystal" in each book, essentially just a small red see-through piece of plastic so you can reveal the secret imagery. The pages that have red printing on them are also printed on that same heavy card stock that the Endless Quest books are printed on. At the time, this was a huge level up from the normal Choose Your Own Adventure, and made it much more interactive. For the same $2.00 you would normally spend on a book, now you get little puzzles and more action for your buck.

    TOR, not to be outdone by the masters of roleplaying, licensed very popular fantasy series of the day, and created their own Adventure books, Crossroads. They were longer, had more options, and you could run into the characters you know and love from your favorite authors. I have the two Xanth ones, written by Jody Lynn Nye, signed by her and purchased at a convention in person. All the books I've mentioned in this little article are pretty rare... 

• Crossroads books, any, are around $15 each, from ebay sold auctions
• D&D Endless Quest books are $10 to $20 each, ebay sold auctions, and are always in great condition
• Crimson Crystal books are the rarest of the bunch at $50-$100, more if they have the "Crimson Crystal" intact

    CYOA did their own version called Time Machine, and Archway licensed Star Trek and made Which Way Books. The list goes on and on, all actually pretty rare with single print runs. Famously, the most rare and expensive and is really considered the first Multiplayer Book Game ever, which uses the most complicated tables and algorithms and requires both books to play: Combat Heroes. See the video below to learn more about that unique book series.