Whenever I’m on the road, I can’t judge how long it’ll take me to get from Point A to Point B because I never know the amount of time I’ll be spending in antique malls or used and rare bookstores found along the way.
As a longtime nonfiction writer and dealer in books and paper ephemera, I’m always on the hunt for old or new Texas history titles that I might not have. In the ephemera category, I also prowl for pamphlets, old postcards, newspapers, letters, photographs, etc.
I’ve been doing this for decades, and after perusing thousands of books I flatter myself that I’ve learned some things about what makes a book not only collectible, but useful.
However, a vintage book can be a desirable collectable but virtually worthless as a resource. Of course, many old books are both collectible AND useful to a writer or researcher. On the other hand, a new book won’t have much collectible value unless it’s a first edition inscribed by someone famous. That said, a new title generally contains useful (and therefore trustworthy) information. But even a new book can have practically zero value as a resource.
Recently stalking the aisles of an antique mall in Huntsville, I saw four or five different titles of contemporary Texas nonfiction by an author I recognized. I won’t mention his name because he wouldn’t like what I’m about to say. And he might be bigger than me.
The person in question—it would be hard for me to call him a writer and keep a straight face—self-publishes his books. Some of his previous efforts I’ve bought over the years, and while amateurishly written, they contain some useful information.
When I spotted a more recently published book by this guy, I looked at it just long enough to determine that it was about an early 20th century police character in Texas who’d had his hands in gambling, prostitution and illegal alcohol sales during Prohibition. He’d also been involved in occasional hijackings,gunplay, and probably other misdeeds.
The book’s cover featured a black-and-white portrait of its subject, and quickly flipping through the interior pages I saw other vintage photos. Thinking the book, however amateurishly written, might someday be of use I added it to my stack of things to buy.
Not until I got home and started going through the box-full of books and ephemera I’d found on the East Texas trip did I realize that I had been a figurative crime victim—relieved of $19.95 plus tax by the author of the ganster’s biography. But it was too late to call 9-1-1.
To my disgust, after reading only a few pages, I realized I shouldn’t have wasted 20 bucks on a 300-plus-page paper weight disguised as a useful hardback. The book still in my hands, I began to mentally list the things that made it worthless as a reliable information source. Here are three:
- It contained clearly fabricated dialog. Dialog is only kosher in a nonfiction book if it comes from a documented source such as a diary, letter, trial transcript, newspaper or magazine article, autobiography or was acquired in an interview by the author or someone else.
- Beyond the phony quotes, given that the subject of the book had at one point been involved in the sex trade (as an employer-manager, aka pimp), the author chose to throw in several absolutely gratuitous graphic sex scenes. No one’s ever accused me of being prudish, but these passages are offensive in what purports to be a serious book.
- While the book did include a one-page bibliography (albeit listing only 13 sources), this is how they broke down: Seven were legitimate works of non-fiction(secondary sources) and two were daily newspapers, but the author didn’t include standard bibliographic data such as publisher, city where published, and date of publication. Neither did he note page numbers to back up whatever information he used from any of these publications. The remainder of the books in the bibliography had been written by the author. Again, no publication data or page numbers. If the book had benefited from any primary sources, they were not shown.
I should quickly point out that I have nothing whatsoever against what I call “home-did” books. Many such works have been useful to me in my writing. Books published by their author used to be denigrated by serious scholars, book reviewers (if they even got reviewed), bookstores and literary award competitions. But that stigma has faded considerably over the years. Shoot, I’ve published a couple of my 40-plus books and I know they are well researched and tolerably written. They look like traditionally published books and I like to think that most buyers won’t even realize the difference.
Still, it’s up to the consumer to assess an independently published book. So, the next time you’re about to buy a book for research purposes—from writing-related to building family trees—look a little closer before you pull out cash or credit card.
For more on assessing books, you might find useful my recently published Book Hunter: How to collect books, sell them, and one day let them go.It’s available through an Amazon link on this website.