A Strategy for Building Your Library

I regularly notice comments on blogs where people mention how they really want to buy Logos, but just don’t have enough money saved up. Here’s one possible way to buy Logos and end up with more money in your pocket than when you started.

First, decide on a base package. I’d highly recommend Gold. It’s an incredible value. You pay less than $2 per title if you buy it at the full retail price.

Next, look at the contents of Gold and compare it with your print library. Look for the duplicates, and set them aside. Most students who are serious about their biblical and theological training probably have at least a few dozen books that are included in Gold. Book lovers may have a hundred or two, or even more.

Decide on the ones that you could do without in print. Maybe that’s all of them. Or perhaps you prefer to keep some books in print and go digital only for the reference works and commentaries. You may also want to throw in other books that you could do without, even if they aren’t included in Gold. That may be another dozen or two.

Now do a little math. The average academic paperback in good quality is probably worth $15. (It pays to take good care of your books—literally.) For your more popular-level paperbacks, you’re probably looking at roughly $5-10. Nice quality hardbacks are going to have an average resale price in the $20-25 range.

Assuming you have a fairly even spread of paperbacks and hardbacks, let’s guess $15 as the average price that you could get for one of your books. If you sell 100 books, you’ve more than paid for Gold at the retail price—and you’ve just grown your library by more than 600 volumes!

I realize that not everyone is going to have 100 books to sell, but certainly many will. Maybe you have only 25 or 50. At least you’ve trimmed down the amount that you need to save.

When I bought my first Logos base package, Scholar’s Library: Silver (QB), I took a slightly different route. I already had enough money saved up to buy Silver, so I went ahead and bought it. Then I sold all the titles from my print library that were duplicates, as well as some other titles that I had accumulated over the years that I no longer wanted. I made enough money to buy Silver several times over. Not only did I increase my library by hundreds of volumes, but I also ended up with quite a bit more money in my pocket!

The next step for me was more of an ongoing process. I’d look to see what books Logos offered that I already had. I’d buy the Logos version and then sell my print copy. This method provided a nice steady flow of income to spend on Logos books, and it resulted in a much larger—and much more useful—library.

I’m interested to hear how many of you have done this or something similar. What creative suggestions would you give to someone saving up for Gold or looking for ways to fund additional Logos purchases?