Book Scan

Which photo works best

The scan reads the title and author from the image, so anything that makes those easier to read makes the result better. A straight-on photograph of the title page usually beats one of the cover: title pages are printed in plain type, while covers use decorative lettering, foil and worn cloth that are harder to read.

• Fill the frame with the page, square on rather than at an angle
• Use daylight where you can, and avoid flash — it blows out the middle of the page
• Hold the book flat so the text is not curving away into the gutter
• If the cover is blank or badly worn, photograph the title page or the spine instead

What it can and cannot do

It identifies the title. It cannot tell a first printing from a fifth, cannot grade condition, and cannot see whether a dust jacket is present — and those are precisely the things that decide what a book is worth. Treat the scan as a fast way to find the right search, not as a valuation.

That matters more than it sounds. Two copies of the same title routinely sell for €40 and €400, and the difference is almost never visible in a photograph of the front cover. Once the scan has found your title, work through the evaluation checklist against your actual copy.

Reading the results

Each result is a completed sale by a third-party seller, shown with a similarity score and a link to the original listing. A high price attached to a weak match is not a comparable — it is a different book that happens to share some words. Our guide to reading an auction result explains how to weigh what comes back, and is my old book worth anything sets expectations before you start: about seven in ten lots in this data sold for under €100.

What happens to your photo

The image is sent to our image-recognition provider to extract the title, and a copy is retained for a limited period so failures can be diagnosed and matching improved. It is not published and not sold. The privacy policy sets out exactly what happens to it and how to have it deleted.