5 Things You Should Consider Before Buying A Book
Books are precious things — and buying them requires close consideration.
Regardless of how comfortable your financial situation is, it is always wise to be mindful about where your money goes. As with other material items, books are often bought without ever being used. And so, they end up filling unnecessary space in our homes and applying more wasteful pressure on the environment.
For these reasons, I provide you with a quick guide to the things you should consider before buying a book (or even a whole bunch of them).
Trust me, these considerations have saved me a lot of money and regrets.
1: Cost
Simplest things first, the price of the book matters in the long run.
Books of similar formats (eBooks, paperbacks, or hardcovers) tend to fall into the same small price ranges, so the issue does not necessarily concern the cost of a single book in itself. Rather, how much the book costs tends to matter in two ways in particular: (1) what the total cost becomes in view of your other financial spendings, and (2) how much value you might gain in return from purchasing the book. If buying the book adds to a needlessly high amount of non-essential spendings, or if it is unlikely to provide you with your money’s equivalent of value in time or engagement, it might not be a worthy purchase in the end.
You decide how much value the book has to you, regardless of its price tag.
2: Cover
Despite how the common saying goes, we do judge books by their covers.
Even if you claim not to care about the look, format, and texture of a book, its cover might impact you in other ways. The books you end up buying are ones you will likely display at home — and because they are ones that you own yourself, they are likely to become ones you will attach greater value and care to than the books you otherwise borrow. Yes, it might sound superficial to make a decision on the basis of a thing’s appearance, but a book’s cover is an important part of the complete product — much like the fabric on a dress or the shape of the handle on a suitcase.
At any rate, judge wisely.
3: Space
Your space at home (or wherever else you keep your books) is limited.
Thus, when you peruse the shelves of a bookstore, you should be aware of how much available space awaits back home once you return. If that room is already filled and you wish not to overstep that boundary, you should ask yourself what books you would like to replace with the new one(s). If you find that you are satisfied with your current collection and want to refrain from removing any, the book in your hand might not be worth the money.
You must consider not just your own interests but your bookshelf’s too.
4: Medium
There is more than one way to read a book.
Thus, you might not even need to buy a physical copy of the book you want to read. For instance, you could listen to it on audiobook, borrow it from the library, add it to your gift wish list, or petition to get a free copy (if that is even an available option). In this way, you may differentiate between the books you want to own and display, the books you would rather listen to, and the books you feel little need to own yourself.
In other words, know your options and select carefully.
5: Rereadability
You do not know how much you will like a book before you actually read it.
However, you can likely surmise how much a book will be to your liking based on its author, genres, premise, blurb, reviews, or even its cover. If you take these things into account, you might get a good view of how likely it is for you to read the book again later on. In that case, you might get double (or triple, etc.) the return from the monetary cost of the book.
That is how you know you have spent your money well.
