Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, bulls, bears - even when you're up financially, money can get you down. Where to put it? High risk, high return? Fixed? Variable? These days, all that's sure is that nothing is sure. However, even when the chips (and stocks) are down, there are some investments that are sure to appreciate in value. Spend wisely by investing in books!

Books can be - if not exactly recession-proof - a stable investment, provided you follow a few basic guidelines and tips when choosing your valuable volumes. An assortment of carefully chosen, collectable pieces of literature can become a nest-egg.

• First editions - they're the mainstay of book collecting, so always check the title page.
• Signed copies - the author's signature boosts value
• Hardback - paperbacks rarely become collectable
• Good Condition - always affects value, everyone wants a mint condition book
• Knowledge & passion - collect what you like and know (at worst you'll own books you adore)

Small print runs - unless a publisher thinks they have the next Harry Potter, first edition print runs from unknown writers are small. Printing mistakes can also curtail first print runs.

Wish We'd Known:

Eragon
Christopher Paolini

A great example of a small print run that paid off is Christopher Paolini's Eragon. Paolini was a teenager when his parents' company, Paolini International LLC, self-published the book, which was to be the first in a fantasy trilogy known as the Inheritance Cycle. A year later, the novel was discovered in a bookshop and brought to the attention of Alfred A. Knopf, who published it in 2003. It skyrocketed up the bestseller list. True first editions, first printings of Eragon easily fetch four figures sums.

Still a Chance:

Cockroach
Rawi Hage

Cockroach is the second novel by Lebanese-Canadian author Rawi Hage. His first book, DeNiro's Game, was shortlisted for Canada's 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize and Governor General Literary Awards, and went on to win the coveted IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for 2008. Cockroach came out this year and has already made the finals for both the Giller and the GGLA. Signed first editions are a good bet - if you can get your hands on one.

Rave reviews - a glowing recommendation from the media can put a book on the map.

Wish We'd Known:

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
David Wroblewski

Earlier this year, David Wroblewski's The Story of Edgar Sawtelle received a lot of attention, but collectable copies were still on the steal-of-a-deal side of cost before the clincher happened: Oprah Winfrey picked Sawtelle for her book club, and sales - along with the value of collectable copies - went through the roof.

Still a Chance:

A Mercy
Toni Morrison

In a recent review, The New York Times called Toni Morrison's most recent book, A Mercy, one of her "most haunting works yet", and said Morrison has "rediscovered an urgent, poetic voice" in its pages. The novel has also been mentioned by Oprah Winfrey in the must-read section of her web site, and the media mogul is always a big supporter of Morrison.

Awards - literary prizes boost prices overnight. Check out shortlists and pick the winner.

Wish We'd Known:

The White Tiger
Aravind Adiga

Aravind Adiga is a novelist of dual Australian-Indian citizenship. The White Tiger, his first novel, took the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction this year, and had enjoyed glowing accolades and reviews beforehand for its strong character portrayal, fearless social commentary and insightful narrative. Collectable copies are in very high demand.

Still a Chance:

With the exception of the Costa Book Awards, the major book prizes have essentially been awarded for 2008. However, a great rule of thumb is to watch for shortlists for prizes like Canada's Giller Prize, the Man Booker Prize, the National Book Awards and many more. When the shortlists are announced, read the books (or at least the reviews), and take a chance on which you think will be the winner.

Movies - Hollywood can inflate prices but usually the book has already become collectable

Good bets:

Twilight
Stephenie Meyer

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series is a no-brainer for collectability. With the film of the first book (also called Twilight) due out in the UK in December, signed first editions go for four figures sums. As more and more people jump on the Twilight bandwagon, prices are sure to rise, in a curve reminiscent of Harry Potter.

The Road
Cormac McCarthy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. This author's fiction is highly prized and already fairly collectable on its own, but if the box office hit No Country For Old Men has taught us anything, it's that the value and collectability of a book is absolutely affected by a successful film adaptation. The movie version of The Road, McCarthy's bleak, stark and affecting novel of 2006, is due out next year and features big names like Viggo Mortenson, Charlize Theron, and Robert Duvall. While prices are already nothing to sneeze at for the most collectable copies, they are virtually guaranteed to rise.

Controversy - banned books, court cases, or Oprah's wrath create publicity and boost value.

A Million Little Pieces
James Frey

Oprah's recommendation of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces hiked the novel's - er, memoir's - sales. However, her censure of Frey (after it came to light that much of the book, supposedly a non-fiction account of the author's battle with drugs, was untrue) on her show helped fuel a media frenzy and increased its value even more. Signed copies are particularly scarce.

Author R.I.P. - prices always increase after an author passes away. If the death is unexpected (such as David Foster Wallace or Hunter S Thompson), values rise very rapidly.

Jurassic Park
Michael Crichton

While it can feel ghoulish to talk in terms of collectability in reference to death, if the person who dies is an artist of any kind, the reality is they will no longer be creating more of their craft. In the case of an author, their books, particularly signed copies, increase dramatically in value.

Take Michael Crichton for example - signed copies of his books are still both available and affordable, but availability will go down, and prices will go up, in the coming months, as collectors find great deals.

There is a very nice bookseller on AbeBooks - who remains nameless - who kindly explained to me how he was offering first editions of The Da Vinci Code for more than £2,000.

"Dan Brown was doing a tour to promote the book and no-one really knew who he was at the time," he said. "He was signing books at the downtown Barnes and Noble and I was the only person there. I bought every copy in the store and asked him to sign them. I started selling them for £25 per copy at first and then steadily raised my prices as he became more famous and demand increased."

"But how did you know he would be famous and the book would be a worldwide bestseller?" I asked.

"I didn't," he replied. "I just had a hunch the book would be big."

A hunch! Now that's bookselling. Buy cheap, sell high. When Barack Obama became President-elect of the United States, I was sure copies of his signed books were already overpriced and no-one would pay the prices. Five days after he won the US election, AbeBooks.com had sold 20 signed copies of his books priced more than £300, including one for a whopping £3,500. For the buyers, the signed books represented a moment in history not to be missed - no matter the price.

Way back in 2004, the really smart booksellers had searched for and bought up the scarce copies of his out-of-print 1995 memoir Dreams From My Father after he had delivered the keynote speech at that year's Democratic Convention. Suddenly political commentators started saying this guy could be the first black president of the United States and those booksellers had to move fast. Dreams From My Father had been published when Obama was a nobody, had a small print run and went out-of-print very quickly. By early in 2005, those first editions had four-figure price tags and prices continued to rise as Obama made his way to the White House.

Knowledge, and perhaps foresight, is everything when it comes to investing in books.

Tell us about your best investment in a book. A find at a charity shop, a signed edition that's soared in value, an out-of-print gem that's become a sought-after treasure. - or the one that got away. We'd love to hear your stories.