The library dumpster that pays my rent begins locking their book recycling bins
No Amazon inventory source lasts forever
Last month I posted this article, on my #1 favorite (not necessarily most lucrative) book source: The dumpster of my local library. It’s a lot of fun, and they throw away a ton of textbooks.
The books in their dumpster are presumably overflow from their biannual book sale, that they apparently don’t think will sell or don’t have room for. For whatever reason, they won’t sell textbooks at their sale, and put any textbook donations directly into the dumpster. That’s where I swoop in at night, retrieve all the profitable books, and sell them on Amazon.
Is the library reading FBA Mastery?
I don’t know what happened (maybe the library is reading this blog), but shortly after posting my article about dumpster diving there, the library began padlocking their dumpster.Why would they go to such lengths to protect literal trash? After I dumpster dived for books there dozens of times, without leaving a trace ? And in fact as a rule always left the dumpster area cleaner than I found it? I have a theory….
It’s that quirk of human psychology where people can’t stand for others to capitalize on their oversights. They get jealous. Their egos get bruised. It’s the same reason why your local thrift store manager might ask you to leave if he sees you scanning books. They can’t stand to see someone highlighting their oversights or ignorance.
I don’t know what happened to the library dumpster. Even though I went at night, my best guess is that someone saw me dumpster diving, or I left some hint of my presence, and the library freaked out and put their dumpster on hiatus. For now.
I guess this means I have to go in and actually work out an arrangement to pick up their book throwaways. Updates in a future post.
-Peter Valley
Update/Epilogue: After first posting this article, I persistently returned to the library hoping they would slip up and leave their book recycling bins unlocked at some point. One night I found that the locks were still on the bins, but had been left unlocked. I threw every padlock in the dumpster, and they never replaced them.
Back in business…
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