by Jo Ann Wentzel

Created on: May 30, 2009

Collecting books is a wonderful hobby and one I have been engaging in off and on for many years. It can be a hobby you do just for the fun of it or as a serious collector; you can also make money at it.

Many of us just love books. Of course, we mainly love to read books. We love the idea of owning lots of books and creating a library. We adore the look of books and we even love the smell of old books.

Some of us are much more focused and only collect and read one type of book. While others of us cannot control the love we have for books and collect and read almost anything. If you are engaging in book collecting as a hobby, the rules are simple. There are no rules, if you wish to collect with a future investment in mind, more rules apply.

Collecting books is about your interests and tastes. Some people love to cook and they only collect cook books. Some are history buffs, but only collect certain areas such as World War ll or maybe books about the Renaissance Period. Collectors might just collect murder mysteries or further limit themselves and only collect Agatha Christie novels. Whatever you collect it is okay. You should collect what you enjoy.

I often start reading an author and then must own everything that person ever wrote. I currently collect Pearl Buck classics and my husband and I collect John Grisham novels. My husband collects Sherlock Holmes books. I love art books and my collection in that area is growing. Any book that is beautifully illustrated gets my vote as a keeper. I usually only collect hardcover books, but many folks also collect paperbacks. Real collectors often collect every edition, version, and treatment of a book such as paperback, hard cover, limited editions, signed editions, and even audio books. They may try to find all the different printings of their chosen book.

Books also can be collected because of the illustrator. Some folks limit themselves to certain authors, subject matter, or even publishers. Many small presses only produced a few copies of the books they printed so those books can sometimes be rare. Presses like to experiment with different fonts and formats when they print small amounts and so less were produced. Anytime the production of a book is small, the books are rarer.

Of course, many folks collect only first editions of books. These are usually easy to identify since more modern books state they are first editions. Book club editions are usually not true first editions. Then, there are numerous

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