Skip to main content
All Professions

BOOK AND QUILL

1 trade involving this item across 1 profession.

View on Items Database →

Book and Quill in villager trading

Book and Quill is a raw-material trade: villagers pay emeralds for it, which makes it a candidate for an automated emerald farm rather than something you purchase back.

Book and Quill is paper-based stock that feeds into the Librarian and Cartographer economies.

Only the Librarian deals in it, so any trading hall that supplies Book and Quill is built around that one profession. Book and Quill can also be obtained outside of trading, but buying it from a villager is often faster than gathering or smelting the ingredients yourself.

Villagers that buy Book and Quill(you give Book and Quill, get emeralds)

ProfessionLevelYou GiveYou GetEdition
LibrarianExpert2x Book and Quill1 Emerald

Who trades Book and Quill, and at what price

To sell Book and Quill for emeralds, bring it to a Librarian at the Expert tier (2 units per 1 emerald).

Is trading Book and Quill worth it?

On the supply side, Book and Quill is worth one emerald per 2 units at its best rate (the Librarian). That ratio is what decides whether farming book and quill for currency is efficient: the fewer units a villager demands per emerald, the more valuable each one is to produce. A buy slot like this can be used 12 times before it locks and the villager has to restock, capping how many emeralds one villager returns per cycle before it must work at its job site again.

Since no villager sells book and quill back, this is a one-way emerald faucet: you supply the book and quill, the villager supplies the emeralds. That makes it a prime candidate for an automated trading hall, where a renewable source of book and quill feeds a row of villagers and steadily converts your surplus into currency you can spend on the gear and rare items other professions sell.

How Book and Quill trading works

Every Book and Quill trade follows Minecraft's standard supply-and-demand rules. A trade can be used a limited number of times — 12 for the slot in question — before it greys out and locks until the villager restocks. A villager restocks up to twice per in-game day, but only if it can path to its job-site block and "work" there, which is why a trading hall must leave the workstation reachable.

When you sell book and quill to a villager, completing that trade is what grants the villager career experience and pushes it toward its next tier. Spreading sales across several villagers of the same profession multiplies both your emerald throughput and how quickly the hall levels up.

One caution: the first trade you complete with a fresh villager permanently locks its current offers, including the book and quill slot at whatever price it rolled. If you are chasing a specific price, decide before you trade, because there is no re-rolling a villager once it has done business with you.

Tips for trading Book and Quill

  • Best rate when selling it: the Librarian gives an emerald for just 2 of thems, the most generous buy rate for book and quill.
  • Lock the price: once you complete a trade the offer is fixed, so a cheap roll of book and quill stays cheap for that villager. Reset only happens on never-traded Novice villagers via the rolling method.

Book and Quill trading FAQ

Which villager trades Book and Quill?
Book and Quill is traded by Librarian. These professions buy it from you for emeralds.
Where can I sell Book and Quill for emeralds?
The Librarian buys book and quill at the best rate: one emerald for every 2 units at the Expert tier.
How many book and quill make an emerald?
At the best villager rate, 2 book and quills buy 1 emerald. That is an efficient ratio, so a renewable supply of book and quill makes a solid emerald farm.
How often can you trade Book and Quill with a villager?
The Book and Quill slot can be used about 12 times before it locks, after which the villager refreshes it by restocking at its job site up to twice per in-game day. Using several villagers in parallel removes that limit in practice.