Book Search Tips: A Guide to Hunting Tolkien Books on the Net

Everybody knows Amazon and buys his new books, but where are you going to find out of print titles. Amazon is not a good option, since prices are much too high there. Ebay can sometimes be a lucky shot, but most of the time rare books are not to be found.

There are quite a few places on the web where you can track down out-of-print titles. Here are some places to search, with some tips about where to look for what.
Out of print Tolkien Books

Meta Search Tools

These sites are simply tools for searching more than one web site (see next section) at a time. They are great time savers, and I recommend them highly as a starting point for your search.

Databases

These websites are all searchable. That means that you can input an author and/or a title, and you'll receive a list of available items.

Auctions

Some of the likelier auction sites.

Newsgroups

Newsgroups have been around much longer than the web. They are free and unmoderated - the net at its best and worst.

Email Lists (Listservs)

E-mail lists are rather like an email version of a newsgroup or bulletin board, and the same rules apply for the most part.

Want Lists

A few places where you can post want lists more or less permanently.

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