The view down aisle 6

Michener & Rutledge Booksellers

Selling Us Books

If you have high-quality academic books you no longer need because your interests have changed, or you are retiring or moving, or you have accumulated them serving as a book-review editor or prize-committee member, I (Walter Michener) am the one to contact. If you live in the central or eastern United States, there is a good chance I can visit you in your office or home. While you can sort out in advance the books you want to part with, you certainly don’t need to (see sidebar).

In our meeting, I select the books that have value to me and propose a price for the lot. If we agree (we will), I write you a check, box up the books, and carry them away. In most cases this takes less than an hour. At some appointments I buy every book offered me, sometimes I can only buy a selection. To avoid wasting your time or mine, we should have a detailed discussion about your books before meeting. Email Walter or Call Walter

I simply can't know in advance how many of your books will suit my purposes or how much they will be worth to me. I can assure you that because we deal only in academic titles, I will pay you a great deal more for scholarly books than whatever local used bookstore you might choose to lug them to. And I do the packing and lifting.

Michener & Rutledge Booksellers
1865 N 500 Road
Baldwin City, KS 66006
785 550 0754 / books@michener-rutledge.com

A Way to Work Together

Of course you cannot know in advance which of your books will suit my purposes, and you may well not have decided which ones to let go. Once I’m actually standing in your office or home, we can use the following method, which always works well:

1) I swiftly scan the shelves and pull out by a few inches each book I hope to buy.
2) You push back into place those you prefer to keep.
3) The spines that remain protruding reveal the set of books that I desire and that you would like to see gone.

This goes very quickly and leaves your books neatly on the shelves until we've agreed on which titles I'm buying and how much I'm paying you.