The shop I work at happily takes ANY kind of book.
The ones that we can't sell (for various reasons — mostly because we only have room to put out books that look new or nearly new, or because we're just not going to sell 30 copies of each of Celebrity TV Chef's entire backlist of 15 books in a year) don't go into our council recycling bins but to a recycling company where they're sorted and sent in different directions.
Some books go to literacy schemes (in the UK and internationally) where it doesn't matter that the book is a bit too dog-eared for us to give it space in our shops; some get sold in batches to second-hand book dealers (who don't mind paperback fiction with dog-eared corners or e.g. history books with ripped or missing dustjackets), because their customers will buy them; and some do go to be pulped.
So we can get paid 5p/kilo for any kind of book, even if it's falling to bits or very out of date.
Obviously this may not apply to every charity shop, but I'd urge people to ask and find out what they take!
(Sorry for harping on, but I'm rather passionate about this because I'm the book specialist in our shop. While I sometimes feel overwhelmed and wish we didn't get such an avalanche of books donated each week, I also know we are making a few pounds each week on all the rejects.)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2024-11-03 05:43 pm (UTC)The ones that we can't sell (for various reasons — mostly because we only have room to put out books that look new or nearly new, or because we're just not going to sell 30 copies of each of Celebrity TV Chef's entire backlist of 15 books in a year) don't go into our council recycling bins but to a recycling company where they're sorted and sent in different directions.
Some books go to literacy schemes (in the UK and internationally) where it doesn't matter that the book is a bit too dog-eared for us to give it space in our shops; some get sold in batches to second-hand book dealers (who don't mind paperback fiction with dog-eared corners or e.g. history books with ripped or missing dustjackets), because their customers will buy them; and some do go to be pulped.
So we can get paid 5p/kilo for any kind of book, even if it's falling to bits or very out of date.
Obviously this may not apply to every charity shop, but I'd urge people to ask and find out what they take!
(Sorry for harping on, but I'm rather passionate about this because I'm the book specialist in our shop. While I sometimes feel overwhelmed and wish we didn't get such an avalanche of books donated each week, I also know we are making a few pounds each week on all the rejects.)