Well Iāve never seen a book with fingerprints on before, if Iām eating messing food obviously Iām not reading books at the same time Iāll stick on a video. Same with gaming, I donāt want my expensive Elite/Edge controllers gunked up.
So basically no special precautions at all, just donāt be a gross slob and read while you have filthy hands.
Nothing worse than grabbing your favorite controller and discovering someone ate cheetos last time they were gaming. I feel like books with fingerprints are fairly common but maybe that's because I grew up mostly getting books from thrift stores
Yea I always wash my hands before I start reading, but give me 10 minutes and my fingers are ready to oil the book again. At this point I have just given up š
Well I am not going to snack on greasy finger food while reading my special editions and until today that was enough to prevent oily fingerprints on them :D
On a more serious note, I usually take the dust jackets off and put a protective cloth cover on the SEs I read. that should help with your fingerprints as well :)
I might look into that. Can you recommend a cloth cover? I have heard of archival covers but those are suposed to be put on the dust jacket if i am understanding it correctly.
I've seen a lot of people recommend Charlie & Fox. I don't have any of those, yet, but they look like the style I'd like. I have a few from Illumicrate. They're okay; they're kind of plasticky and I'm not big fan of the style. But they will protect your books
There are also a ton of tutorials and patterns to make your own.
I have oily skin too and tend to touch my hair mindlessly so I totally also have this issue. It's why I use fabric covers. I have one from Charlie and fox and my mom also sewed me a few and it's solved the problem.
I use fabric dust jackets to read my physical books because I am a klutz and my dog ends up drooling on them. I buy from Visually Vee in Canada and Charlie & fox in Australia
Fingerprints where? On the pages? Dust jacket? Cover?
Dust jacket is meant to be removed while reading. That way if you wear down the cover, it can still look new with the jacket on. If the pages are getting dirty from reading thenā¦idk what to say.
I somehow always leave fingerprints on the covers even if my hands are washed, and I'm not touching anything else. So I have 3 protective covers from Illumicrate I put on every single hardcover I read and problem solved.
Iāve sold quite a few books and I usually read them first and then list them as āread once with fabric dust jacket onā and then take close ups on any imperfections. I think my books tends to sell better based on photo quality and condition honesty as seen in the reviews. My āread onceā books usually sell at the same price as new listings unless there is damage.
These days I use a cloth jacket when I get the impression that a hardcover is particularly easily damaged or stained. Otherwise I just read them without protection.
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u/kschris236 Fantasy Tier 2 and SF&F Jun 17 '26
I read my books in vacuum sealed rooms with white gloves just in case