Book Scouting: Hunting for Valuable Books Can Be a Treasure Hunt for the Mind

Books inspire passion in people from all walks of life. Why not turn that passion into a little extra pocket money by learning the art of being a book scout?

Book scouts are individuals who haunt estate and library sales and other interesting venues looking for elusive collectible books to sell to antiquarian book dealers. With the growth of book collecting as a hobby, demand for rare or interesting volumes has skyrocketed, leading towards an overall growth in the popularity of the book scout task. But book scouts are notoriously secretive about giving advice on how to do what they do. Knowledge, after all, is the key to a book scout's success. Knowing where to look for books and what is valuable is ninety percent of the book scout's trade, and such secrets should not be given away lightly!

A day in the life of a book scout typically starts out very early in the morning. Book scouts are the first people to arrive at estate sales; often, they show up prior to the opening of the sale to sign up on an entry list or get a good spot in line. Many times they will visit several sales that are close together and visit them all shortly after opening. "The early bird catches the worm" might as well be the motto of the book scout's profession. The afternoon or evening is often spent either shopping the day's finds around to various book dealers, or listing the books online if the book scout happens to be a bookseller too.

To be a book scout is to spend a lot of time alone, digging through piles of Reader's Digest Condensed Books and old copies of Good Housekeeping; it takes patience, knowledge, and a willingness to persist. It's also possible to go months and months without coming across a real treasure, so the book scout profession is not for the faint of heart. Many people find being a book scout a better hobby than a career, given the very unpredictable nature of finding and selling rare books.

What does a book scout look for? There are two types of books that are valuable: books which are valuable because of what they are, such as collectible first editions or signed limited press runs; and books which are valuable because of the information they contain.