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what happened to the annoying book sellers on the street?

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Thaiger

particularly in nha trang.

in 2009, you couldn't sit for five minutes without a guy or girl walking or cycling with the crassest and most popular books to buy.

they were super annoying and pushy and would always try and acres u for the rrp as their starting price but would be happy with a few bucks.

they were making like 29000% mark- ups so I'm a bit surprised you dont see them anymore. I presume they just hassled the tourists so much they left and never came back or they just acrewed up traffic too much

I am curious but I also want my gf to sell english books at her little store in nha trang. repulsive, annoying and mind- numbingly greedy as they were. at least u could get english books.

so apart from free ebooks which just seem to be free email spam and little else. can anyone recommend websites for free ebooks, likely most popular titles ( I've read 99.9% of the non fiction ones - haven't we all?

books she can have printed that foreigners like.

if it's popular, I would very much like to expand it to 'more than the lowest common denominator crap' u get everywhere in se Asia.

they can speak English and Russian well.

anyhow , just throwing some ideas out there. sadly never been able to keep books as a travelling man and have given away so many wonderful reads over the years.

I hope the gf can do some buy/sell that's not a rip off. I saw a second hand bookstore on a tiny lane outside hoi an selling a second hand copy of a book I'd bought eight years earlier in nha trang new for 2£ for 8£.

really sick of the shamelessly greedy, racist sxxx Vietnamese rip offs and think I can help my gf and those that love books and not rip offs

ralphnhatrang

Since almost all the booksellers in Nha Trang are from Nam Dinh Province in the north, I suggest they have gone home for Tet. In which case, fear not, they will be back in due course when the celebrations are over.

If you google "read books online free pdf"  you will find many useful results, one even claiming it has "23469 of the world's greatest free books".  Enjoy.

Guestposter822

try and see yourself in their shoes before criticising them, maybe even buy a book at an inflated price to help them out...they are just trying to get by and make a $ and quite often on a day to day basis. Also the lolly girls, I try and buy from at least 1 a day to put a smile on their face even though I know I can get the same lollies for half the price in the stores.

Fred

Poor people do what they can to earn a reasonably honest buck.
I respect that, so maybe you could allow a small rip off from time to time.

Thaiger

Oh, wonderful to have so many humanitarians here, but I draw the line when people overly hassle you then try and ask the rrp from the UK/USA for a pirated/ stolen copy of a book that cost them 50c max to buy and they r trying to scam me 1000% mark up on the product they stole.

Mariner42

Hi Thaiger.   I got plenty of books, in English, maybe 15 or 20, all factual, military, crime, biographies, humour science.
Brought from Australia with me.   Anyone interested.   Contact me.    Mariner42

Naomi

Hello everyone,

@Mariner42:
If you are willing to sell your books, it is better to use the Nha Trang Classifieds section > Books.

Post an advert with the necessary information in this section. It may help you to attract buyers.

Thank You,
Naomi.

ralphnhatrang

For those living in Nha Trang, the Province library on Tran Hung Dao has an excellent selection of English language reference books, donated by the Asia Foundation a few years ago. You may borrow them by showing your passport and paying an 800,000 dong book fee.

I used to get along very well with the book sellers. I found most of them very polite and friendly. You do have to bargain, as is normal in Vietnam. After I had read all their books that I wanted to buy, I asked one young lady if she could bring books other than what everyone else sold, and she did.  She and I used to have very pleasant, short chats. The other young ladies never bothered me and went on their way when I said, "I've read all these books."

Mariner42

Hi Naomi.
Thanks for the info,
I would like to give them to someone who appreciates them.  I have read them, bought them all new over the past year, from Australia, crime, biographies, military, science, humour, they are all factual, no fiction.
Cheers. Doug. Mariner42

Fred

ralphnhatrang wrote:

I used to get along very well with the book sellers. I found most of them very polite and friendly.


As with all street sellers, I find the buyer's attitude guides way the transaction progresses.

inntnow

It's not an easy way to generate/supplement income when so many of them are selling the same books. I tried to help one lady by buying from her but she eventually became very annoying by pushing me to buy every time we met even though I had read all the books that I had interest in. I eventually had to stop being friendly to her but later met a a couple of sellers who were not pushy so I ended up giving them several books that I had so they had books that others did not have in their collections when they approached potential customers.

Guestposter822

Most people don't mind paying a little extra, but once it starts getting to the point of just a blatant ripoff, that's different. The other thing is when they go and brag to other sellers how they just shafted another Tay, that's what really gets up my nose.

70 years old

Amazon.com and Kindle books are my friends.

As to street vendors that get too pushy, I switch to Spanish and politely talk to them. As I apparently  do not speak either Vietnamese or English, I am not worth their effort and they quickly leave the dumb foreigner who can't even speak English alone.

Teacher Mark

Thaiger wrote:

Oh, wonderful to have so many humanitarians here, but I draw the line when people overly hassle you then try and ask the rrp from the UK/USA for a pirated/ stolen copy of a book that cost them 50c max to buy and they r trying to scam me 1000% mark up on the product they stole.


Here's my humanitarian deed for the day:

You're selling "comic" books, not cosmic.

and

It's "expat", not expact.

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