If you're an eBay PowerSeller, you'll scoff at this modest sale. The number 30,000 — that's the total quantity of items typically up for grabs — will make you chortle softly. Poor saps, you'll say to yourself, thinking of those potential book buyers who choose to thumb through books, read prefaces and inscriptions, feel the heft of the tomes in their hand, and generally lollygag their way through the selection process. "Thirty thousand books," you sniff. "Hmph! They'd have to add another zero to get me there."
Good! Stay home, you resale vulture! There's more to life than first editions and publishing gaffes!
We go to this low-key annual affair 'cause we like books. We like choosing them. We like reading them. When we've finished the last line, we like placing them on a shelf and feeling a small ping! of joy when we encounter them again in the future. People who get the ping! will understand the Market. When the sale opens, you just kinda, well, walk through a door — which isn't jammed with pushing, shoving people — take a few steps to a long table filled with books, which isn't overly crowded, and start looking.
It's pretty revolutionary. You should try it.