What does a useful book catalog need?
Author and title are the easy part. The fields that decide later value and selling are publisher, edition and printing, jacket state, signatures, condition, and where the copy physically sits. Skip those and you rebuild the hard work the night you try to list something.
- Identity - author, title, publisher, year, place.
- Edition notes - first or later, number line, book club.
- Jacket - present, price-clipped, missing.
- Signed or limited - and how you know.
- Condition - book and jacket as separate lines.
- Place - room, shelf, box.
How do you catalog without typing all weekend?
Photograph the spine straight on in decent light, or the title page when the spine is worn. samla.ai identifies the book and fills category-specific details - edition, printing, signature cues - then shows a market estimate with comparable listings. You review, edit anything soft, add your grades, and file the item to a place. That is the whole loop; repeat shelf by shelf.
How should you shape places?
Give the catalog the same shape as the room. One place per shelf beats a flat pile of "Books". When you stand in a shop wondering whether you already own that first, search from the phone and read the place line instead of guessing.
What order works for a whole wall?
- Pick one shelf. Finish it before you open the next.
- Scan the spine or title page, confirm edition cues, edit the number line if needed.
- Add book and jacket grades - conservative when unsure.
- Note signatures and inserts if they matter for completeness.
- File to the place that matches the physical shelf.
- Move on. Do not pause to rewrite every biography field.
How do Free, Pro and Ultra fit?
The free plan includes collection places, a monthly scan allowance and Look up mode - enough to work through shelves at a steady pace. Pro and Ultra raise scan and item limits and unlock publishing to marketplaces when a cataloged book is ready to leave. Plans are Free, Pro and Ultra; pick based on shelf size and whether you will publish listings.
