Fifteen years ago when I started selling books for a living finding an out-of-print book was often a difficult task. Customers would give me a title they wanted me to find, and I would charge them a small search fee. Then I would have to pay to advertise the title in the Books Wanted section of several trade publications and wait for a response from other booksellers. Since most booksellers didn't have their books in a database, they might have the book I was searching for and not even know it.

All of this changed with the advent of the internet. Most booksellers have their books in a database and on sale on the internet. What is even better is that you don't even have to search through a vast number of dealers' inventories to find an out-of-print book. While many dealers have their own websites, an even larger number sell their books through dedicated book venues. The most important of these are www.abebooks.com, www.alibris.com, www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, www.biblio.com, www.ebay.com and www.half.com.

But it gets even better. You don't even have to go to these seven sites or the numerous other smaller book related websites to search for out-of-print books. You can search them all at the same time by entering information about the out-of-print book you are looking for at www.bookfinder.com. Bookfinder is a meta search engine that combs through millions of books listed on ninety-five bookselling websites, including the major ones I mentioned above, and returns results in a matter of seconds. Another website that does the same thing is www.addall.com.

What if the book you are looking for doesn't show up on Bookfinder? You can search for it again tomorrow or the next day, and you might get lucky since thousands of new books are added to these sites daily. Better yet you can list out-of-print books you are looking for on most of the major sites, such as www.abebooks.com and www.alibris. com.

What if you still can't find the book? Your best bet then is to search for a bookseller who specializes in the genre of the out-of print book you are looking for. You can do this through Google. Also, the major bookselling sites often allow you to search for booksellers by their specialty. Contact one or more of these specialists. Most of them will be happy to search for the book for you. If they happen to find the book when they are out buying books, they will contact you before listing the book on the internet. That means you will have the opportunity to buy the book before anyone else does.

Another possibility for finding an out-of-print book is contacting the publisher. Sometimes the publisher has a few copies buried in a warehouse. If not, the publisher might be able to tell you who they sold the remaining copies to when book sales diminished to the point the book wasn't worth hanging onto any more.

If you still can't find the book, you can check out Google Books or the Gutenberg Project. Google Books has digitized many out-of-print books, while the Gutenberg Project provides simple to download text files of many out-of-print books. While you won't be able to obtain a physical copy of the book, at least you can read the book and use it for research.

Finally, don't give up on your own search. Check out every used bookstore you come across. Search at library sales, estate sales and thrift shops. You never know where the book might turn up. I have found a number of books this way.

Keep in mind the Biblical adage, "Seek and ye shall find." Persistence is the key when searching for out-of-print books, especially for scarce and rare titles.

Learn more about this author, Dan Weaver.
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