I have a small lot of very good quality (like new, or "slightly
scuffed") books, mostly hardback general interest scholarly and
contemporary fiction. I have about a dozen books, with a total cover
price of $250. I'd like to sell them to my local bookstore which has a
big used section.

My questions: how much should I ask? I was thinking of asking 65% of
the total cover price. Also, when is a good time to sell? Right now
the store is gearing up for the Fall rush of students. Is this a good
or a bad time to show up with a bunch of used book? Finally, would I
get a better price if I showed up with more books, or fewer books?

Please have some experience in book retail to answer this question.
For good answers I tip well. Many thanks!

I worked in a used bookstore for several years. Most of our stock was
obtained by swapping, not by purchasing books. On the rare occasions
when we did buy books for cash, we seldom offered more than 25% of
their cover price. Like most used book dealers in my area of the US,
we typically sold books for half of their cover price (unless the
books were 'collectible' in some way.)

Of course, if your books are highly desirable titles, you may be able
to do better. But I very much doubt that you can get anything close to
65%.

If your local store is like all those to which I have sold books, they
will just offer a "take it or leave it" price for the books they want,
so you don't have to worry about what your asking price should be,
although you might want to consider in advance how little you will
accept.  As pinkfreud noted, it is common for stores to buy for 25% of
the cover price and sell for 50%, but both rates could easily be
lower.

I also don't think it matters whether you offer many or few books (as
long as we're not talking about mass quantities).  The buyer will
probably look at whatever books you offer and decide on a price for
each one independently in a matter of seconds.

You can check out the market value of your specific books on web sites
like Amazon.com, half.ebay.com, and www.bookfinder.com.

As a an online book retailer I can tell you that we buy new books at
35% of retail "face" value. We buy used books at about 50 cents to
$1.00 each. If you go to a bookstore you will get slightly more. You
can sell the books your self on Amazon.com but there market there is
very weak and its is more hassle than value.

We have several bookstores in our area called "Half-Price Books" that
I've used on more than one occasion to both get rid of some extraneous
books and raise a little cash.  But I certainly agree with the
comments above as to value.  Basically these stores ask you to leave
your books for appraisal while you browse around.  Then they call you
with their offer, which they pay in cash.  It's seldom more than the
$.50 to $1.00 quoted above.  I once got a few dollars more for a
boxful that included some audio cassettes.  Bottom line is you're
really not likely to get much out of your books via selling to
bookstores.

However, I'd just like to add a suggestion, and that is to try selling
them on Ebay.  Provided they are desirable titles, you could end up
doing much better there.  Books are one of Ebay's higher selling
items, and some people do quite well with them there.

Best of luck,
Byrd

Thanks for all the responses!