One of the biggest issues about being a collector is keeping tabs on all of your books. For example, if I asked you to name every book in your collection could you? Unless you only have a few books, the answer is no. So how as collectors are we to keep order in our comic chaos? Simple! Use a Comic Cataloging App or service. The question is, which one? Well, I'm here to help you shed some light on this subject. Join me below as we go over 3 different services that will help you organize your mess...

 

Personally, I have used many methods on how to keep tabs on all of my books. This includes some of the apps below as well as using an excel spreadsheet. Obviously, the cheapest by far is the spreadsheet, but it is also the worst way. As collectors, we want to know everything about what we have. We want to know the price values per grade if it is a key book, and who are the creators behind the book (kinda important for signings). At the end of the day, keeping our collection organized saves you time and valuable money. The last thing you want is a missed opportunity because you thought you had a book, or you thought you knew its value. So let me stop babbling and give you the information you want and need.

Here are some apps and services that will help you defeat the Chaos monster of the Long Box...

 

GoCollect

Can't have a list without putting one of the best sites up here. Not only can we see the Fair Market Value (FMV) of the various grades, they also list what they were sold last at. In addition, you can make custom lists to keep track of your whole collection. You can have a general list with all your books, one for a specific character or simply make a list for each company like DC and Marvel. Another great feature is the watch list. You can set up what comics you want to watch to see the price fluctuations in order to better gauge what to buy and when. In other words, it helps to keep you out of the Red Ocean and into the Blue. If you would like a better breakdown of GoCollect you can check this guide here.

 

CLZ Comics

I first used the mobile app about 5-7 years ago. Granted I had little knowledge of what to collect and how but hoped this app would help. If you asked me then if the app was worth it, I would give you a firm no, but currently, I dip my toes in it again and WOW has it changed. Not only do they keep track of your comic collection but they also catalog music, movies, books, and games. CLZ allows you to input your comics in various ways. At your fingertips, you have an app for mobile phones, tablets, and computers. CLZ even comes with a bar code scanner to streamline the cataloging process. When I used the computer site, it really was very user friendly and felt easy adding books. Another great feature is that it also keeps tabs of the value according to grades using guess who? Go Collect!

 

Zap-Kapow

This is a site that not too many know about from what I can see. This one is great to keep tabs of your raw books. While the other two sites give you the FMV of graded books, here you can see what your raw books are worth, while maintaining a nice list of your books. They do make it easy to add books and their grades. You can select if they are graded, raw, or signed. They have 3 different plans to choose from with the higher two tiers receiving unlimited price guide updates. If you get the lowest tier then you will need to pay for an updated price guide which is 99 cents per update. It is not too bad of a site to use but personally, I still prefer the top two over this one. Two issues that I have with this site is that the bar code scanner is temperamental and when you search for books it can get a little tricky. It is also slow to load when you are scrolling through books. Although it could use a few improvements, all in all, it is still not bad.

Honorable Mentions

Comic Collector Live and ComicBase are two other sites that also help maintain your collection. I placed these two here because I haven't really used them. I tried and personally did not find them user friendly at all. Could be because I just need more time with them but the learning curve on the other sites was much easier.

Bottom Line

Bottom line is we all need a way to organize the books we collect. Organization helps us track what we have and what we need. Plus with many books starting to spike out of nowhere, you need to know what you have in order to act. This is especially true for those who also love to sell their books. You do not want to see a book with an FMV of $1000 for $8. So get yourself one of these and become informed.

As Always, Happy Hunting!