We love it when things work the way we think they do...

So, yesterday I was doing a book buy. A monster of a book buy. This lady brought in a TUB of mass market romances that she had basically inherited from her sister-in-law the week before. She explained to me, without pretenses, that even if she was "a reader," she wouldn't read this pile of rubbish, so she wanted to see how much cash she could get out of it. To each their own.

It took me about twenty minutes to sort through the colossal stack, and decided what we needed and what there just wasn't any room for on our shelves. As I walked over to tell her the amount I could give her, I sensed a bit of disappointment as she saw that I was only taking about a dozen of the hundred-gazillion that she brought in. Prefacing with an apology, I explained to her how the "value" of mass market-sized books works. Mid-sentence she interrupted to let me know that she understands how the book world utilizes mass markets because she deals in returns at [insert big box bookstore here.]

Awesome.

It would appear that ripping the covers off of books (the standard procedure for returning mass market books to publishers) was more than just a job to her, but perhaps also a source of great enjoyment.

So cheers to all the non-reading, romance-hating, book-destroying employees at big box stores; we appreciate you cementing our ideas.

-Whitney