Selling hardcover bestsellers.

Slowly, but surely, I'm allowing myself to buy best-seller hardcover fiction.

You know, one copy of books like FREEDOM, by Jonathan Franzen, or MATTERHORN, by Karl Marlantis.

Because, you know, all I have to do is sell one copy, not dozens.

There has developed a little bonus I didn't foresee.

Almost every new copy of a hardcover book I get, even ones I buy from discount houses, is a First Edition.

So -- when the books have more or less disappeared from the Costco feeding troughs, and the Barnes and Noble endcaps, I'll still have a nice First Edition hardcover of a great book.

Now, as you know, I'm not a great believe in speculative buying -- but there's nothing wrong with having a nice, crisp First Edition copy of something if you're going to get a book. It's a little extra selling point -- not a deciding factor, but every little bit helps.

I'm getting more and more comfortable in both the boardgame and new book sections, that if I buy QUALITY -- it WILL sell. Sometimes not right away, and not in vast quantities -- but enough to keep it going.