The Word Cloud

Another UK site, this time you can buy and sell second hand books whilst helping to plant trees and support charities :)

www.greenmetropolis.com

The idea is a simple one: all books, no matter how big, small, new or old sell for £3.75 and all books are bought for £3 with free delivery on standard paperbacks anywhere in the UK. Then a donation from each sale goes to charity. It used to be the Woodland Trust’s Tree for All tree planting scheme, but I think they've branched out to others.

And the writer gets nothing

Yeah, not too sure I'm liking the look of this one...

Second hand books will exist everywhere in the world. I have no issue with it myself. But that's just me. Besides, whether you buy it from this site, or from a charity shop, makes little difference. And I ain't about to go protest inside Cancer Research ;)

A friend of mine convinced an Australian author to make her work free on the internet. It was a good call at the time - she was spreading an ideology, sort of thing. And he simply said 'what's more important - money, or recognition?' She pulled the stunt, founded a social network, sold a lot more books off the back of it. Was interesting. Some years ago now though.

I'm of the school that likes the fact people who pirate music then go on to spend the most amount of money on albums. I'm one of those. If I like something, I have to own it. If someone lends me a book and it's good, I go buy it. If I like one or two songs, I might buy an album. Whereas I see less reason to splash out on something I know nothing about.

Which is a different tangent to the second-hand market. I'm a bit of an antiquarian. I collect certain old tomes and spend hours ratcheting round second hand book shops - many of whom have an online counterpart. ABE books practically brings me to climax some days. The modern-day equivalent of the Temple - err, sorry - Library of Alexandria.

Far better that old books find a new home than hit the pulp pile. If someone hasn't found a way to make a living by that point, I doubt condemning the second-hand book trade is likely to salvage their situation. *shrug*

In your initial post, you said new or old books.

Ah, sorry, didn't mean to confuse. In that context take it in the Manuvan sense of 'brand new second hand'. Hope that clears it up hen.