Identifying 1st Edition Books

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Laura from youngwritersworkshops.com and I'm going to talk about how to identify a first edition book. There are several ways that you can identify a first edition book. It varies from publisher to publisher though and that is what makes it a little bit tricky. You have to be persistent in discovering this information sometimes. One of the easiest ways to find out if it is a first edition is sometimes on th front cover it will say first edition somewhere so that will be easy for you to spot. Another way to tell is the row of numbers on the copyright page if the number at the very end or the far right is a one, that is a way that you can tell if it's a first edition. If neither of those clues are available you may need to look up the book. There is a book seller's resource that is called bookseller world and you can look up the book in that and find out what the first edition, how that will be labeled and you will be able to identify it that way. Small press publishers usually only have one run so there wouldn't be a second edition so if you find a book and it's published by a small publishing house or a small press it is more than likely that it is a first edition book if it is from a small press just because of the fact that that was probably the only edition available at that book. Now there is a good book, A Pocket Guide To Identification of First Editions and that is a great book to get a copy of and it is by Bill McBride and it is a book that can be a really useful tool for you in identifying first editions. So those are some tips on how to identify a first edition book."