Second hand books, the purchasing thereof

 I am an inveterate buyer of second hand books.

Sometimes from Australia, sometimes from overseas.

And I do so for a number of reasons, because it's cheaper, because it can be better for the environment - although when the book is bought from retailer in the UK and airfreighted halfway around the world, perhaps not - and sometimes in the case of history books published in Australia their notoriously short print runs can make second hand the only viable option.

And like most people buying second hand I resort to AbeBooks, which of course is an Amazon subsidiary and does its pricing in US Dollars, irrespective of where you live, or where the bookseller is located.

And while the post Trump gyrations of the Australian dollar are a pain, I use a low fee debit card with highly competitive exchange rates to take the edge off having to pay AbeBooks in US dollars.

And the market can be quite weird at times - sometimes due to the comparatively high cost of postage within Australia, it can be cheaper to buy from overseas - go figure.

However, in the case of Australian second hand books, they are usually only available from Australia and occasionally New Zealand second hand book sellers.

So, I've adopted the following strategy when searching for and buying second hand Australian books - I'll first of all search on AbeBooks and see if the book is available.

If it's available from an Australian or New Zealand second hand bookshop and they have an online shop - some don't and just tell you to use AbeBooks, or occasionally Biblio.com - I check to see what their AUD or NZD price is including postage.

Sometimes buying direct is fractionally cheaper, but in truth it's usually within a few cents of going via AbeBooks or Biblio.com.

However, by doing this, even if I'm not saving money, I'm helping support local second hand book sellers as they are not having to pay commission on sales to an overseas book listings site which should make them a little more viable as a business.

There's also an environmental benefit from buying locally.

Chances are, unless the book comes from FNQ or WA, my book will travel in an Australia Post semi trailer, which while they're not exactly pollution free are probably less damaging to the environment than having the item air freighted from overseas ...