Very helpful, thank you.
So if a value is higher than cover price, you consider it incorrect?
Can you give me some of the ISBNs this is happening for?
For books that are currently in print? Of course, as one can buy it for this price (and almost certainly even less) at any bookstore. Out-of-print and rare titles obviously can have values MUCH higher than cover price. I’m not sure which online source(s) you scrape for the value data, but a current edition paperback (9781805501428) that sells for $11.99 should never have a value of $29.68, for example.
Cover Value Difference % Over
$20.00 $27.74 $7.74 38.70% 9781250340672
$16.99 $24.61 $7.62 44.85% 9781662527555
$17.99 $25.74 $7.75 43.08% 9781728239255
$11.99 $21.65 $9.66 80.57% 9781835259184
$10.99 $19.87 $8.88 80.80% 9781836186106
$11.99 $22.32 $10.33 86.16% 9781835254899
$19.99 $28.87 $8.88 44.42% 9780593625484
$28.00 $33.45 $5.45 19.46% 9781496749680
$18.99 $24.97 $5.98 31.49% 9781648756252
$19.99 $26.60 $6.61 33.07% 9781648756412
$16.99 $20.87 $3.88 22.84% 9781662519574
$12.99 $20.81 $7.82 60.20% 9780593691830
$16.99 $21.05 $4.06 23.90% 9781662519154
$19.99 $23.29 $3.30 16.51% 9781648755958
$9.99 $13.20 $3.21 32.13% 9781836185147
$27.99 $35.96 $7.97 28.47% 9781728270005
$28.00 $35.02 $7.02 25.07% 9781250351791
$30.00 $34.51 $4.51 15.03% 9780063223059
$30.00 $36.80 $6.80 22.67% 9781538742983
$18.99 $24.06 $5.07 26.70% 9780778334460
$16.99 $21.22 $4.23 24.90% 9781662521690
$16.99 $21.43 $4.44 26.13% 9781662510014
$16.99 $22.48 $5.49 32.31% 9781662526046
$11.99 $22.53 $10.54 87.91% 9781805501015
$10.99 $27.01 $16.02 145.77% 9781836187448
$10.99 $29.68 $18.69 170.06% 9781835252970
$11.99 $24.97 $12.98 108.26% 9781836185901
$12.99 $24.97 $11.98 92.22% 9781836183655
$11.99 $29.68 $17.69 147.54% 9781805501428
$28.00 $35.01 $7.01 25.04% 9781250369741
Looking at it like this, a few things jump out to me. CLZ appears to have especially large issues with trade paperbacks, specifically those published by Bookouture (a UK imprint) and Thomas & Mercer (an Amazon US imprint).
I checked some of these and they had weird high values indeed.
Strangely enough, when I updated the value through our sources, they all corrected to expected levels.
Will see if we can update all our values with our sources again.
I would like to join the chorus on the matter of the “Value” entry. I find this entry completely flawed. I am currently working on building an index of my book collection. Many of my books are out of print & no one in the previous community has listed/added these books to the Core. When a value does appear it is questionable at best. Too low or Overpriced. How are these values determined? If you are relying on professional dealers or collectors then please locate someone who does Black History. eBay should not determine “Value” but this can serve to suggest “Pricing” for those wanting to SELL their books.
All we need is a way to disable the automatic values. We can stop other fields from being downloaded when we add from Core, why not this one?
It’s not even CLZ’s fault. Trying to get an “accurate” value is absolutely impossible. To do this, you would have to take into account condition, printing number, and a million other things. I assure you, a pristine copy of a rare book is worth more than a destroyed ex-library copy full of stickers.
This may sound like an over-reaction, but I’m seriously considering not renewing my subscriptions due to this one issue. No feature, especially one so flawed, should be forced on anyone.
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Because of this introduction of the automatic value, I now only add my books “manually” and not via the Core. This isn’t a problem if you add a book twice a month, but if you want to add an entire library, it’s not feasible. In that case, I would probably look for another program. (Fortunately, I added my entire library before the value was introduced).
It is still on our to do list to completely disable values, it will happen. Sorry for any annoyances this is causing (and I would recommend to just keep adding from Core, you can already disable “seeing the value” in your list (via Settings) - and then later you would be able to disable them completely.
Values are determined by averaging for sale price on several used book sites on the internet.
It is a nice indication, a ballpark figure for values.
For most users, for most of their collection, the values are quite accurate and definitely not “completely flawed”. Your mileage may vary of course.
Values are determined by averaging for sale price on several used book sites on the internet.
It is a nice indication, a ballpark figure for values. It indeed does not include condition. But it is based on the exact ISBN, so printing should be factored in.
If it not 100% accurate, that does not mean it is still useful for many users.
This may sound like an over-reaction, but I’m seriously considering not renewing my subscriptions due to this one issue. No feature, especially one so flawed, should be forced on anyone.
Getting automatic book values has always been a much requested feature, so we did a lot of work to make this happen. And…. most users absolutely love this feature, even if there is an occasional weird. value. (should happen way less often now though, because we fixed some thing on our end).
We are definitely not “forcing” this on anyone. But I will admit that we should have made the showing of values OPTIONAL from the start. An option to disable this feature will be added soon.
In any case, it would be crazy to “not renew” because we added a feature that you are not interested in.
Printings do not have different ISBNs. A first printing has the same ISBN as a tenth printing. For that matter, book club editions also have the same ISBN, which also drastically reduce the value.
Let me add another screenshot to show why I feel this is being forced. It also shows another ludicrous value, which is just a bonus.
Not only is it shown once, but it is needlessly shown twice, along with the retail price. In less I have missed something, there is, in fact, not a way to remove this from the details. I don’t want the entire value feature removed; I simply want to be able to disable adding the value automatically from Core (or I want the ability to delete the value when it appears, which is impossible since it’s grayed out).
I am sure many people love this feature, but I don’t see why that is relevant. I’m glad you added it for the people that want it. I don’t use 90% of the fields, but that’s fine, because I can leave them blank. I’ve been a CLZ subscriber for many years, so it’s not like I made the statement about renewal lightly, and the fact I’m bothering to discuss this should show that I want to improve things, not silently walk away.
Currently, there indeed is not a way to remove the value info from the details.
As I said, we are PLANNING to provide an OPTION to disable this feature.
Thanks for your patience while we implement this.
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Thanks for the info, it is helpful to know HOW the value is determined.
For iOS and Android we have just released version 10.5.1 which has a new setting for downloading values.
You can disable it in there. (tap menu top left, tap settings, find the “Download values” toggle and disable it).
Your app may have updated itself already (check the menu top left, the version number is at the top).
If it hasn’t updated itself yet, here’s how to force the update:
on iOS:
- On your device, open the App Store app.
- Search “CLZ” and select your CLZ app.
- Tap “Update” to update the app.
on Android:
- On your device, open the Play Store app.
- Search “CLZ” and select your CLZ app.
- Tap “Update” to update the app.
For CLZ Books Web, we are still working on this feature, coming up probably this week.
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Hey, thank you so much for listening to our wishes and implementing them so quickly 
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Perfect solution. Thank you.
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