IOBA Standard Volume 8(2) - Printable Edition

Foreword

Shawn Purcell

Most of us love books for much more than their commercial value, but how did we go from appreciating them to selling them? In many cases, collectors simply decided to specialize, weed, or trade up, and reselling is a logical way to make room and raise funds.

In my case, mother ran a weekend barn sale in rural upstate New York in the 1980s. The rest of us avoided this in one way or another, most notably my dad who didn’t like strangers on the property all that much and retreated to his huge sloping garden. Antiques were easily had back then, and Mom had an especially good eye. I did a lot of wood chopping at the back corner of this rambling barn, which now looked out on waving fields of hay rather than hops, and would slink up into the rafters of an adjoining room on occasion to eavesdrop on the transactions. Once a troupe of uninhibited theatrical types tried on lots of vintage clothing, which was great fun for everyone involved.

Anyway, it fell on me to price her books, and the whole process was something of a mystery. There were no booksellers around, no local libraries carried large sets that reported on prices realized at auction (not that these would have helped with this kind of stock), and no instant expertise courtesy of the internet.

One day a rare treasure came in though, and I pictured it financing future college educations. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, signed, and probably a first edition. I was crestfallen several years later to learn that it was a cheap reprint with a facsimile signature, and in particularly bad condition to boot. The other funny thing I know now is that even the best signed Whitman won’t pay for all that much college. It has a loving place on my shelf though, as a reminder of the first bibliohieroglyph I ever cracked, valuation-wise, and the shaky ladder between the love of books and making a living off same.

So, how did you get started, in one long paragraph or less? We will run some of these tales in a future issue. And on that subject, this is the fourth number of the Standard under my editorship, and I could use some help with content. If you look under Addenda/Solicitations at the rear pages of our online journal, the begging is more detailed there. You know you’re getting old when you bend down for something and think if there’s anything else you need to do while you’re down there, as the joke goes, so as long as I am begging about submissions, please consider joining IOBA if you don’t belong already.

In IOBA news, we have a new slate of officers and board members girding their loins for exciting progress. Thanks to outgoing President David Friedman of Bibliotique, and best wishes to new President Michael Watson of 20 Ants. Michael gets top spot in our membership directory as part of his extensive compensation package (don’t tell him he was at the top anyway because of the “20”). And check out the powerful new “Search Journal Archives” feature, which will find any word in all past issues of the Standard.

President Watson leads things off with an introduction. This is followed by an interview with one of the guides leading AuctionExplorerBooks out of South Africa; and a Joe Perlman expedition to the interior. The Reference Desk holds an ephemeral assay on high flying fliers and an artsy-smartsy bookselling book review. The Tool Box clanks with advice on how to improve your online sales; and the first (AbeBooks) in an important series of search service Pros and Cons from Chris Volk. The IOBA Bookseller Profiles feature fun in the sun, a serious case of building envy, and more Africana. Addenda ends.

The next issue of the IOBA Standard will be so great that it will be celebrated by fireworks, though it will probably take everyone about four days to organize that.

Change, Challenge, and Response

Michael Watson

I had an article nearly finished for this edition of the Standard, and took the article to my “day job” today to finish the last ten percent. Today turned into an exercise in how to make smooth transitions between crises and the article went unfinished. After dragging myself back home I reflected on the day and found that it illustrated some things that I was struggling to explain in my article. Following one of my numerous credos—“never be afraid to throw it away and start again”—I did exactly that and wrote a new article based on my day. At first glance it may not seem related to bookselling or the IOBA, but, if you’ll indulge my rambling, the meaning may be clear to you by the last word.

My favorite author is Dr. Seuss, and just as his Cat In The Hat introduced you to Thing One and Thing Two, I’ll do the same.

Thing One: I have a day job. Like many of your day jobs, mine has nothing to do with bookselling. While acclimated to bookselling by temperament, previous ownership of an open shop, an illogical affinity for the general public, and simple desire, my financial situation doesn’t allow full-time participation. Life dealt me some cards, some I chose, but it all adds up to the hand that I hold and it doesn’t allow me to have an open shop for the foreseeable future. If you get a daytime missive from me it’s because I’m leaned over the keyboard and a plastic tray of Lean Cuisine’s finest during my lunch break at the job that pays the bills.

Like being a full-time owner of a bookstore, my situation is tenuous. I’m a contractor who manages IT projects for one of the largest hospital systems in the US, but being a contractor I’m always “on the bubble” of being bumped out of my current situation if my work is done, or I’m not needed, or any number of other reasons.

Thing Two: My day job was one long series of crises today. Just when it seemed like things were getting under control, a car hit a utility pole a block away and cut off power to our office where all IT operations occur. On emergency power only, with no lights in a generally windowless building, and late in the afternoon, it was rational for me to just give up and go home. I was certainly willing to do so, since my day had consumed most of my energy and good will.

At that point my pager produced its hysterical beep and suggested that I bring my laptop computer to the café down the street. I did so and met my boss and his boss, not to partake of the specialty of the house, but to continue the workday. We logged into the house’s free wireless Internet service, hopped from there to our own network via a secure connection, and continued the day’s efforts. Undisturbed, we produced a rough draft of a plan we’d been working on. It was easily the most productive 1 ½ hours of our day.

So what on earth does any of this have to do with bookselling or the Independent Online Booksellers Association?

Thing One: The odds are good that I'm like you, given that most online booksellers have a primary job unrelated to bookselling and are part-time booksellers. As the incoming president I represent not just the majority of IOBA members, but the majority of online booksellers. I have experience that enables me to understand the needs of the high and low ends of the trade, but I'm working in the same manner as the majority and that majority is the group that drives and directs the trade.

I see my presidential task as a project management task, specifically to support the full spectrum of online sellers while strengthening the part-time majority that may feel threatened by changes to the trade.

Thing Two: I'm familiar with change on short notice. When circumstances turn for the worse I'm as adept as anyone at wringing my hands and emitting whining noises, but that doesn't make anything better. When electric power went away there was still a way to change how I worked and made progress. When the IOBA is faced with change and crisis there is still a way to navigate through it and find an appropriate direction. 2007 is a year that will bring questions and decisions.

The IOBA faces change. How might we offer more tangible benefits? How can we increase membership? What kind of organization are we today? More importantly, what kind of organization should we be today and what kind should we be in five years? The long-range answer will give us a definite direction for our short-term decisions.

I appreciate the opportunity to work beside a capable, energized board of directors and appreciate the responsibility of improving our members' collective lot. Let's get busy.

Best regards,

Michael Watson
president@ioba.org

Michael Watson operates 20 Ants out of Indianapolis, IN and can be contacted at http://www.20ants.com.

An Interview with Paul Mills of AuctionExplorerBooks

Shawn Purcell

-What is AuctionExplorerBooks, in a nutshell?

AuctionExplorerBooks is an on-line auction site dedicated to the sale of rare and out-of-print books. Only booksellers who are members of the major trade associations may become sellers. This is to give buyers confidence in the accuracy of the descriptions when bidding. Fees are low: $1 per lot to list and 5% commission on successful sales. There is no buyer’s premium.

Sales are held monthly running for a week at a time. Viewing and bidding takes place throughout the week. In the nature of the internet it is truly international. The site’s servers are in Germany, the programming and support is done in South Africa where costs are competitive, and we are represented in Britain by Richard Sawyer. We presently have dealers from around the world listing, including the United Kingdom and the USA.

We will soon announce a fixed price database site to be called “Book Shop” to complement the “Auction House.” This will be a no-frills site to which dealers can upload at very low cost—the equivalent of $5 per 1000 books per month. No commission will be charged on the sale of books listed in the Book Shop section nor will there be credit card charges or other interfaces. The buyers deal directly with the seller.

We are a web based business built by booksellers for booksellers.

-Who are the founders, and how many people are presently involved?

James Findlay (37), a South African bookseller, was the founder. Finding sales reducing on ABE and other sites he conceived the auction site as a way of providing himself and other dealers with an additional selling tool in changed times. Starting in a modest way in Johannesburg six years ago he developed the concept and the sophisticated software needed to run an efficient and user-friendly auction site.

James is now based in Edinburgh, Scotland but travels extensively. I purchased a half share in the business in 2003. My own business, Clarke’s Rare Books, was founded in the 1950s and I have been involved with it for thirty years. We are general antiquarian dealers but with a specialty in African material. We are members of the British Antiquarian Booksellers Association (celebrating its centenary this year), SABDA (the South African Bookdealers Association), and of course IOBA. Our chief programmer is Pablo Casado who is assisted by Billy Einkamerer. Recently my son Tony (21) who is studying commerce and IT at university has become involved on the development and promotional side.

-Where did the idea come from?

James, realizing the effect of the internet on our trade, is the originator of the idea. ABE, Biblio and other sites have shown precisely which books are scarce and which are not. Books previously thought of as quite rare now appear on the sites in multiple copies. In effect what could be called “static auctions” are held on these sites with numerous copies of a title being offered at different prices. James’s solution was to formalize this into an internet auction venue run by booksellers for booksellers, collectors and librarians.

Today, we have over 60 registered sellers and our extensive mailings of registered buyers reach thousands of bibliophiles for each auction.

-When did you start?

The software development started in 2000 and the first auction took place in March 2001. The sales were held locally in South Africa with James as the only seller. It took some time to develop the concept and the software and to iron out all the bugs. In early 2004 we converted the site to US dollars, and from Auction 25 we invited qualifying booksellers from around the world to become sellers.

-How many auctions have you had, how long do they last, and how often are they held?

We have just concluded Auction 48. Sales are presently held every five weeks with the auction running for a week—so a six-week cycle. From the fall this year we intend to run them monthly with an auction ending on the first Thursday of every month.

-I imagine the numbers go up a bit each time, in terms of participants, sold versus unsold, average price realized, etc.

The number of registered buyers goes up steadily. From our statistics we know there are many more people who watch the auctions and then register and bid once they see books which interest them. At present about half the items listed sell on each auction—this is comparable to other online auctions. The percentage is rising. We encourage our sellers to set reasonable reserves.

-What criteria do you use for allowing booksellers to list on the site?

Our aim is to provide a site where bidders can buy with confidence knowing that the books offered are properly described by professional book people, and that there will be after-sale service and active assistance provided with any problems.

Our criterion is to allow only booksellers who are members of the major trade associations to become sellers—groups such as the ABA, ABAA, ANZAAB, IOBA, PBFA, and the various trade associations affiliated to ILAB. This vetting process is fundamental to our business model.

-Is special software required?

Yes, our user-friendly software is downloadable, but dealers with broadband can upload on-line directly to the server and in that way there is no need to use our software. We have also built conversion programs that automatically convert for example a HomeBase file into our format. In that way the seller does not duplicate cataloging.

-Can anyone register as a buyer?

Yes, anybody who has a functioning email address can register. Should a buyer default on a sale he is immediately removed from the system.

-Is this strictly for books, or is there room for other paper items?

We encourage sellers to list anything that is related to the field of books—pamphlets, maps, and other paper ephemera—but there are no restrictions. Medals, stamps and watercolors have sold quite successfully on past auctions.

-What are the essential differences between AEB and, say, eBay?

We are a site dedicated solely to rare and out-of-print books.

The fundamental difference is that professional booksellers stand behind the site both as the owners and sellers. We manage it in a hands-on fashion, are passionate about books and are independent and intend to remain so. If a buyer or seller needs help there are real people at hand to assist.

-What is the fee structure?

For the Auction House the fees are $1 per lot listed and 5% commission on successful sales. If a lot does not sell, then the fee is only the $1. The minimum reserve price is $20.

For the Book Shop there is a monthly fee of $0.005 per book. This is the equivalent of $5 for 1000 books per month. We believe in only paying for what you use, so if a customer uploads 250 books, then for that month the fee is just (250 x $0.005) $1.25.

How the billing works is much like a mobile phone “top up as you go” system. The sellers will debit their credit cards for say $20 or $50 on our secure paygate site (this is a banking site and we never see the credit card details at all). All Book Shop fees and auction charges and commissions will automatically be deducted from the credit. A detailed account page will be provided for each seller.

-How can the buyer pay?

The buyer deals directly with the seller. AuctionExplorerBooks.com does not get involved in the sale in any way. It is important to note that before buyers bid they must check at the bottom of the bidding page for what forms of payment the seller accepts. Usually credit cards are preferred but PayPal and other methods are accepted by some sellers.

-What kinds of problems have you had so far?

People think that the site is specifically for travel books due to the “Explorer” part in our domain name “AuctionExplorerBooks.com.”

A problem, if the term is correct, is that we find the established dealers are very slow to see the advantage of what we offer. Many dealers, particularly in Britain, consign books to auctions paying up to 30% in commissions and buyer’s premiums to do so. We offer a site where for 5% the dealer can auction his books himself and in so doing meet new customers.

In changed times dealers must endeavor to expand the scope of their businesses. We offer them a way to do so. We all have slow moving books on our shelves or items outside our fields of specialization. When offered on ABE and other database sites these items may take years to sell. If auctioned at reasonable reserves they will sell. In my case the auctions have become important as they allow us to take in on commission many items we might reject in the normal course of buying or which we may have directed to the conventional auctioneers. The important point is that we offer dealers an entirely new way to sell and to promote themselves.

-Have you had to mediate any disputes?

Happily we have not had any disputes so far. Should something arise we would involve the seller’s trade association in the resolution of any issue.

-What part of the auction process is the most labor intensive for you at this stage?

Technical support for first time sellers can take an hour over the phone, however we encourage customers to contact us and we are more than willing to talk them through the process. We pride ourselves on maintaining the personal touch, much like a traditional bookshop.

Whilst extensive technical expertise is not required it does need some practice and the correct software to take good pictures of books, to size them appropriately and to upload them to the site. Our mantra is “the better the pictures which are uploaded the better the chance of achieving good prices.”

-Are you profitable yet?

All running costs are now covered as well as development expenditure.

-Can you share some auction offerings that surprised you for one reason or another?

On Auction Number 47 In Darkest Africa by Henry Morton Stanley sold for $6000 when the seller was expecting only $3000. However, this is a very scare set, being a signed deluxe edition. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck attracted 38 bids on the last auction, reaching a hammer price of $1103.

On Auction 42 an album of autographed photos and autographs of famous entertainers was reserved at $120. After enthusiastic bidding the hammer price was $1691. It is this sort of unique material that works best on the site. In this case bids came in from all over the world. We find that where practical when a seller lists a low reserve, the bidding gets stimulated and more attention is

Aquatint Plate from African Scenery and Animals

drawn to the lot than normal. The reason for this is that the lot will appear in the featured section on our home page under the “most visited lots” and the “highest bidding activity” sections. Some sellers use this as a tactic to maximize exposure to a lot.

On Auction 31 African Scenery and Animals by Samuel Daniell sold for $63,000. This was our highest hammer price so far and is a clear indication that very rare material such as this can be successfully sold on AuctionExplorerBooks.com. On Auction 35 Live and Let Die (First State) by Ian Fleming was reserved for $2500 and ended going for $4416 because it was, as the seller described, “in first issue dustjacket identifiable by not stating ‘jacket devised by the author and executed by Kenneth Lewis’ on the front flap.” This lot drew 193 visits.

-It’s hard to start up against an eBay, ABE, or Amazon, and if you make it really big they just buy you out. Are there any other good bookseller-run online auction start- ups out there you are aware of?

Yes, you are correct. But we do not see ourselves as direct competitors to these huge general sites. We seek a niche market for old books, where collectors, librarians and dealers can focus and search for items of interest without all the clutter.

As far as I know we are unique. I do not know of any other bookseller-run online auction site.

-You provide additional increments of time at the end of the auction to safeguard against last second sniping, which tends to favor the seller. Buyers might argue that one’s maximum bid is as subject to late bids as it is to sniping, and hammer times are final in traditional auction settings. So, while this feature is genteel in keeping with your philosophy, it could alienate buyers a bit. This is a long way of asking how firm your policies are, as things evolve and you receive customer feedback.

All bids placed in the last five minutes of an auction will be extended for a further three minutes to encourage a counter bid. Usually around 5% of the lots go into extended time. We find that this is the fairest system and it’s in keeping with the traditional auctioneering model that we are all used to. In the conventional auction room an auctioneer will usually call for “any more bids” before the hammer falls.

We find that most of our users like the extended bidding system. Buyers who bid according to a budget now have the opportunity to place a bid on another item if they have been outbid (in the final minutes) on their first choice of book.

-All property on AuctionExplorerBooks is sold as is, where is, as the saying goes. How does this policy coexist with the unconditional satisfaction guaranteed returns policy most professional booksellers live by?

Because we only have professional sellers from accredited trade associations, mistakes are easily resolved. If a buyer is not happy with a description, they would simply send the book back to the seller and request a refund. It is in everybody’s interest to run everything ethically.

-Are you AuctionExplorer (as it appears sometimes), AuctionExplorerBooks, or both? Two URLs lead to your home page (www.auctionexplorerbooks.com and www.auctionexplorer.biz). Auction Explorer, “the first and only Internet Explorer add-on for eBay,” is a fairly well-known downloadable software product (www.auction-explorer.com). And www.auctionexplorer.com (without the hyphen) is a whole different company that points to all kinds of ongoing auctions. When one Googles “Auction Explorer” as one word or two you seem to come right up at the top, but do you have any concerns about branding?

Yes, we evolved and merged to www.auctionexplorerbooks.com from the .biz domain name. There are so many suffixes these days that it would be an impractical exercise to try and secure branding via a domain name.

-Right now, your functional and friendly home page features a list of results from the previous auction, with the highest winning bids at the top. This includes the hammer price, reserve price, number of views and bids, and the seller’s name. There are links to log in, and to review your profile and bids, but naturally one must register first. Details and tips can be had in your Help pages. There is a keyword search box for previous auctions, as well as an archival categorical breakdown of prices realized on the far left. There is an informative and highly reassuring list of sellers for the upcoming auction; as well as a preview of that auction, with images, reserve prices, and estimated prices, though sellers and their offerings are not matched up until the auction begins. What website enhancements do you have in the works?

Thank you for these compliments. Music to my ears. We have worked very hard to make the site intuitive and easy to use. We do need to improve our help pages although we try, where possible, to speak to anyone experiencing difficulties—a few words of explanation can save many pages of help!

As to enhancements to the site, I mentioned earlier that we are soon to announce the addition of a no-frills database to be called simply “Book Shop” to complement the Auction House. Our site attracts a growing amount of traffic but as the auctions happen only monthly this traffic is highly cyclical—very busy during an auction and dropping off between sales. We think the Book Shop will take advantage of the auction traffic and lead buyers to the fixed price books between the sales. Buyers will be able to contact sellers directly from the Book Shop.

As a dealer myself this is what I want—simply to meet customers directly without any interference from the listing site.

-I became aware of your site a year or so ago, but must confess that I thought it was strictly for South African material. I know better now, but on reflection, perhaps this was a good way to get some experience and some traction. What will you do to internationalize AuctionExplorerBooks?

We started out in South Africa, and thus became known as a venue for rare Africana material. Even our overseas sellers used to list a lot of books relating to Africa. However, now most of the traffic to the site comes from the USA, then Australia, then after the UK is South Africa. So in terms of that exposure we aren’t parochial any more. Word of mouth is still the greatest contributor to the growth of the business.

We plan on doing book fairs in various countries starting later in the year. We look forward to this as it takes us back full circle to how books have traditionally been traded. This is a symbiosis for us, for we strongly believe that the essence of book selling has not changed with the internet and that is what we want to encourage. We stand for specialists, ethical dealers who are bibliophiles before being businessmen. That’s what we try to do, use these traditional methods of selling to shape the operating model of AuctionExplorerBooks.com.

-As a buyer, I would be drawn to your site because the owners and sellers are professional and trustworthy, and because there may be some good bargains there. As a seller, however, I might think twice about whether eBay can deliver lots more eyeballs, and money is money no matter who pays me. Buyers get cheated on eBay a lot more than sellers do. Although your highly reasonable fee structure in combination with a judicious reserve provides a nice margin of safety for sellers, is it fair to say that this is one of your greatest challenges?

We believe that buyers are returning to the trusted way of transacting with booksellers. All our sellers are vetted dealers who have proven their honourable track record. Likewise one wants serious buyers, and we know that many top international book collectors have registered on AuctionExplorerBooks.com. That is what we are after, not the quantity of viewing.

Yes, we would like more dealers as sellers, but not to the detriment of the system. We have turned down many sellers.

One must remember that with other generalized sites, rare books can end up being lost as there are search and cataloging constraints. Our target market is the rare and collectable book market only. With the massive number of general online sellers, we believe that more and more people are gravitating towards specialized sites such as ours. Many of our buyers wait for our auctions and have told us that they spend most of their budget for books on AuctionExplorerBooks.com.

It must be noted that if a buyer does not follow through with a sale, the seller does not get charged for the commission and the buyer is barred from participating in future auctions. This is the extreme and has only happened twice since 2003. The point is, we protect our sellers just as much as we advocate a secure and reliable site to the buyers.

-Common books that used to do well on eBay (and ABE et al) die there now, so rare and collectible are the watchwords with online book auctions these days. I like your $20 minimum reserve, everything is well organized and transparent, and the site in general is like stumbling across a bookish oasis. Looking back, what has surprised you the most about this venture?

What has surprised us is how much images contribute to the successful sale of a book. In the past catalogues were issued as text only. These days a lot will draw very little attention if a digital image is not added to the text description.

The internet is international. An auction can be run from anywhere in the world. Our server is in Germany, Paul is based in Cape Town and James travels a lot. Provided there’s a reliable internet connection we can respond to customers from a Melbourne internet café or from a hotel in Dubai.

-AuctionExplorerBooks shares two main goals with IOBA—a concern for professional standards, and wresting back some control. I think it’s great you are a member of IOBA, by the way, and wish more ABA, ABAA, and ILAB level members who do online business would enlist. On behalf of the entire professional bookselling community, Paul, I would like to thank you and your cohorts for your stellar efforts, and wish you great success with AuctionExplorerBooks in the years to come.

Thank you. Very much appreciated. We see our goals as very similar to those of IOBA. We seek to improve the standard and ethics of online book dealing. Several members are already sellers on AuctionExplorerBooks and we hope many more will sign up in the future. I look forward to chatting with them and to helping them make AuctionExplorer a profitable and pleasant bookselling experience.

Paul Mills operates Clarke’s Africana & Rare Books out of Constantia, South Africa and can be contacted at http://www.clarkes.co.za. AuctionExplorerBooks queries to support@auctionexplorerbooks.com.

Book-Buying in Middle America, or, A New York Dealer’s Visits to Three Middle American Cities

Joe Perlman

Born in New England, and a New Yorker by adoption, I have lived all of my life on the northeastern coast. I have flown across the country numerous times, both for business and for pleasure, but until recently I have rarely set foot in that vast tract known as “Middle America.”

In the past few months I have made brief forays to three non-coastal, Middle American cities. Each time I was there for a purpose other than book-buying, but I did try to carve out some time to scout the local bookshops, both used and new. The first city that I visited was Dallas, Texas. I flew into Dallas in early December, and had one long afternoon at leisure. I had hoped to have the opportunity to visit some bookstores, or book-related places of interest, so I put out a query or two on the bookseller listservs. It was disheartening to learn that the only used bookstores of possible interest were at least an hour’s drive from downtown. Since I did not have a car at my disposal, I arrived at the hotel and hoped to place myself in the capable hands of the hotel concierge. I told him I was interested in bookstores in Dallas, and he sighed and said that there were none. When I told him that I had finished my book on the plane ride down, he recommended the hotel gift shop which it turned out carried only the latest Grisham, Patterson and some paperback romances. The closest bookstore to downtown was a branch of one of the two major chains, and it was a 20-30 minute trip via public transportation. He pulled out a map and circled the major downtown attractions that were within walking distance of the hotel.

The first stop on his tour was the original Neiman Marcus store. It was so close to the hotel that I decided it was worth a look. When I walked in, I felt like I had entered a movie set. It was only a few weeks before Christmas, but there was nobody in the store. I needed some shaving cream, because the baggage scanners strictly enforced the three ounce limit and tossed out the tube in my carry-on bag. I had three sales clerks helping me with one small purchase and I think it was their major sale of the day. Needless to say, there was no book department.

I left the store and headed over to the main tourist attraction in downtown Dallas, the Sixth Floor Museum. This museum is dedicated to the Kennedy assassination and is located on the actual sixth floor of the former Texas Book Depository where the shots were fired from. The exhibition hall looks like an expansive SoHo loft with large blown up photographs and video monitors playing newsreels from that weekend in November, 1963. I was 12 years old then and remember that Friday vividly. It was an eerie feeling to walk around the museum. About a ten foot by ten foot area near the window overlooking the grassy knoll has been preserved with the original flooring and stacks of textbook boxes. It is sealed off by a glass wall. I watched the old newsreels of the early years of the Kennedy administration, the Pablo Casals state dinner, Carolyn playing in the Oval Office, and Jackie speaking Spanish in Mexico. Then I stared out the window and saw that the traffic pattern and that grassy expanse have remained pretty much the same as they were that day. It must be sad for a city to become known for such a tragic event. If I was a poet, I would write a haiku about Dallas. Something like . . .

The Texas Book Depository

The musty book boxes
stand like gargoyles
scaring the book people away.

Shortly after I returned, I received a call from a new customer who wanted me to overnight a book to someone in the New York area, who for a fee would go to a reading and have the book signed. This customer was willing to spend $20 to have a $16 book sent by Federal Express to someone else who would charge a substantial amount to have the book signed and then mail it to him. As it turned out, this customer was from Dallas. “We don’t get many authors to come down here to read,” he lamented. I was not surprised.

Two weeks later, I found myself in Kansas City, another Middle American metropolis. This time I made sure that I had a rental car at my disposal, and I had done some research on the internet and found a used bookshop not far from downtown that specialized in Irish books. I was excited because in addition to being a book dealer, I am also a Joyce collector. This shop was in an upscale strip mall that was both clean and well lit. The Irish offerings, however, were scanty and disappointing. I did manage to find a small carton of items that I was interested in purchasing for resale. The proprietor gave me a nice discount, and we had an interesting conversation about the book business. He also mentioned that there was one other used bookstore in town that was a “must stop.”

He gave me the directions and I hurried uptown to arrive before closing time. This shop, Spiveys, is not in an upscale strip mall. The building is at the intersection of two narrow streets, and one must search for a place to park. It is neither clean nor well lit. It smells of tobacco, and cat and dog and dust. What it has is books, thousands and thousands of them on two huge floors. They are stacked from floor to ceiling, in alcoves and under tables. There are old books, newer books, common books, and scarce books. It reminded me of the last of the stores on Fourth Avenue in Manhattan that I used to frequent when I first moved to New York, and alas have all closed down. This is one of the great old-fashioned used bookshops left in the United States. I could have easily spent several days there.

They graciously stayed open while I, the last customer of the day, browsed around. I ended up shipping back both a very large carton of items for resale, and for myself, one very nice first American edition of Finnegan’s Wake which had just come into the shop. I also had a nice conversation with the owner, Mr. Spivey, who is quite elderly but as sharp as a tack. We talked about New York City bookshops closing, and he had read in The New York Times about the two bookstores on the Upper West Side that were about to close. He had been astonished when he read the rents they were paying. He told me a number of stores in Kansas City had closed also, but that it was good for his business. Since he was one of the last venues people had for selling their used books, he was able to acquire some really good ones. His shop certainly attested to this.

Again, if I were a poet, I would write a haiku, something like . . .

Spivey’s Kansas City

Gateways to the west
know books are necessary
for the long journey.

The day after New Year’s I found myself in Minneapolis, another Middle American city this time way up in the northern part of the country. Minneapolis in January is only for the hardy traveler, unless one keeps to the downtown area where all of the buildings are connected by a second floor skyway. If you stay in a downtown hotel you can manage to wander around without ever having to go outside. There is one used bookstore right in the heart of the city. They were in the midst of a winter sale, which was rather unusual. The cheaper the book, the bigger the percentage discount. When I questioned the clerk, he rightly told me that it was much harder to find a good $100 book than to find a good $20 or $30 book. I readily agreed. The pricing structure was such that it was hard to find much that I could re-sell at a profit despite the sale prices, but I did find a few obscure academic Joyce books for my own collection.

There is a “funkier” neighborhood containing several used bookstores a few miles out of the downtown area. It is called “Uptown” even though it is actually south of the center of the city. It is more like the Greenwich Village of Minneapolis, with low buildings, ethnic restaurants and cafés. There are no indoor concourses or skyways. One walks on the street like in most other American cities. I easily hailed a cab from a downtown street corner and reached the area with the bookshops after a short but expensive ten minute ride. As I exited the cab a bitterly cold wind blew into my face, so I hurried across the street and into a warm, welcoming bookshop. The rents must be cheaper here, because the stores were much larger than the one downtown, and I managed to find a number of books for re-sale at both of the shops in this area, even though they were much less generous with their dealer discount policies, and arranged to have the boxes shipped back home. The only problem arose when it was time to leave. I walked over to the corner to hail a taxi back to my downtown hotel. I stood there in the wind for a good ten minutes and not one taxi passed by, with or without a passenger. So, I went back to the store across the street and was told that in this neighborhood one had to call a taxi company and order a cab over the telephone. I called a local number, and was redirected twice to other companies before I was told that a car would be there shortly. For forty minutes I kept going from the shop to the street corner and back, afraid that I would miss my last chance for a ride back downtown. Eventually a taxi cab did pull up and I arrived back at the hotel with a lot of good books and only a little bit of frostbite.

The next day I decided to go book shopping like the rest of the city, so I took the light rail, a commuter train from downtown to the Mall of America. This forty minute ride costs all of $1.50 each way ($2.00 during rush hour). The famous Mall of America is like every other mall in America only more so. It is four stories high, with a giant indoor amusement park in the middle. I think it contains a branch of every single chain store in America except for Borders books, which is strangely absent. At present there are three bookshops in the mall: Steven Covey, Barnes & Noble, and Atlantic Books. I go out of my way to avoid anything with the name Covey on it, ever since I received one of his business self-help books as a Christmas gift from a clueless department head many years ago. We all got one and were supposed to read and be prepared to discuss a chapter at the beginning of every departmental staff meeting. I read four pages, and immediately listed it as new on Half.com. I priced it cheaper than the current lowest price and it sold in half an hour. Over the next year, I found several copies abandoned by employees who left the firm, and proceeded to sell them all, but I would walk a plank before I purchased anything that he has published.

One can’t miss the Barnes & Noble, as it is on the first floor right next to one of the main entrances to the mall. It is quite large with a coffee bar and a respectable local interest section with a large selection of small press books about Minnesota and some rather obscure books by famous local authors.

The third shop, Atlantic Books, is a part of a smaller chain, and is located way up on the third floor at the opposite end of the mall from Barnes & Noble. I had never heard of this chain, so I hiked the mile or so it took to reach it, passing a branch of every chain restaurant in America. This store was in the process of going out of business, so they were having a liquidation sale of 40% on all new and remainder books. I bought some quality remainders (without remainder marks) for very cheap prices, as well as a couple of new books. If they had been willing to ship from the store I would have bought quite a few more. The clerk told me that several of the staff were banding together to open a new independent store, not in that mall where the rents were astronomical but in a small suburban area nearby. They had submitted a business plan and customer base list to a local bank and were expecting to receive the financing by the end of the month.

I boarded the light rail and headed back downtown, encouraged. If I were a poet I would write one last haiku.

Atlantic Books

Even Arctic air
can’t keep the bookstores hidden
behind a mall’s doors.

Joe Perlman operates Mostly Useful Fictions out of East Northport, NY and can be contacted at http://www.mostlyusefulfictions.com.

Ephemeral Assays: Jumpin’ Jehovah

Shawn Purcell

Organizations often produce very dry and seemingly worthless records and publications. I remember an early book show where my young daughter and I felt sorry for the woman next to our four table spread, as she only filled up part of a single table with a handful of Alcoholics Anonymous books. It really looked pretty pathetic until she sold the first one for $15,000 or so.

One of the biggest surprises I have had in what might be called the “organizational ephemera” market is the value of early Jehovah’s Witnesses material, as the literature they currently push falls somewhere on the paper food chain between scented cards that fall out of magazines and last year’s phone book, and it didn’t seem like aging would help all that much. I almost recycled a few boxes of it, as there was little pricing information out there, even utilizing eBay’s market research feature where you pay more to look back further at the record of completed auctions. I floated some test pieces but instead of sinking they walked on the water, with most averaging over $25 and some going in the hundreds.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have a nice website, but I will reprint the first three paragraphs of the Wikipedia entry, without all the hyperlinks.

“Jehovah's Witnesses are an international Christian denomination which originated in the United States with the 19th century Bible Student movement. They adopted their present name in 1931 under the leadership of Joseph Franklin Rutherford. Believing that all other religions are false, Jehovah's Witnesses reject traditional Christian doctrines such as the Trinity, eternal torment in hell and the immortality of the soul. The central theme of their preaching is God’s Kingdom (that is, God's rule over the Earth) with Jesus Christ as its king. The Witnesses believe this rule began with the Second Coming or presence of Christ. Originally, this was believed to have occurred invisibly in 1874, but this date was later revised to 1914.

“Witnesses believe that their faith is the restoration of first-century Christianity. In areas where they are active, they are commonly known for their door-to-door preaching and their objection to blood transfusions, and for not celebrating birthdays or holidays. Their most widely-known publications are the religious magazines The Watchtower and Awake!. Official membership of the organization, counted as those who preach each month, is 6.7 million as of August 2006.

“Other Witness teachings include the recognition and use of a personal name for God, translated as Jehovah in English, as vital for acceptable worship. They believe that Jesus' death was necessary to atone for the sin brought into the world by the first man, Adam, thus opening the way for the hope of everlasting life for mankind. It is also taught that 144,000 people will receive immortal life in heaven with Jesus Christ as co-rulers guiding the rest of humankind to perfection on a paradise earth during the 1000 year reign. More specifically, Witnesses believe that in the war of Armageddon, which they believe to be imminent, the wicked will be destroyed. The survivors of this event, along with individuals deemed worthy of resurrection, will form a new society ruled by a heavenly government and have the possibility of living forever in an earthly paradise.”

Anyway, most of this material was from the 1930s through the 1940s. It included broadside sheets titled Informant, Bulletin for Jehovah’s Witnesses, Kingdom News, and the apparently very rare Director for Field Publishers; periodicals such as The Scope and The Golden Age; interesting foreign material including issues of the large format German language Trost magazine from 1940 that was probably not tolerated much after that date; annual worldwide assembly programs and convention reports; JW examinations and applications;

printed songs of praise; little solicitation and testimony cards they used to hand out; instructions on how to behave while being arrested; fliers for radio broadcasts; letterhead correspondence; and all kinds of printed matter. “Riches of Jehovah’s Kingdom,” for example, was described as follows. “Four page pamphlet, does not give the dates (just days), but looks late 1930s or so, measures 4.25" by 5.75" closed, inside is a list of Nassau County towns and the times and home addresses of study meetings, one in Freeport for ‘Colored’ members, list of five minute Judge Rutherford radio lectures by radio station.” This nondescript little thing went for $169.49. The jewel in the crown was an original linen cloth banner used at the August, 1944 St. Louis Assembly where Judge Rutherford made one of his earthly appearances. On the down side, anything after the 1940s got low or no bids.

Buyers of organizational ephemera are typically nice paper people. They tend to be focused, knowledgeable in their field, prompt in all dealings, and polite (though chances are some of them don’t like each other). The JW buyers were especially swell. Some of these items went into private collections (which will perhaps be made more public some day), some went to institutions (including a donation I made), and others were headed for display cases in new Assembly Halls. All that collection and construction makes one feel a little better about the nearness of Armageddon. In the meantime, always check on the collectibility and value of these kinds of things before discarding or passing them on. Especially early 1900s stuff, which was truly ephemeral, and not really meant to be witnessed again.

Shawn Purcell operates Balopticon Books & Ephemera and can be contacted at http://www.balopticon.com

Books About Bookselling: Bookstore
Shawn Purcell
Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & Co., by Lynne Tillman. NY: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999. Books & Co. was situated in a wonderful location on the Upper East Side of Manhattan not far from the Whitney Museum. It was the kind of place where you’d see somebody like Woody Allen browsing the shelves, as he fondly recalls doing in his foreword. Allen even included the shop in one of his later films. An excerpt from the author’s introduction follows. “Bookstore is the history of Jeannette Watson and Books & Co., the independent bookstore she owned that opened its doors in 1978 and shut them in 1997. Closing the century, Books & Co.’s near-twenty years represent a significant sample of this country’s literary, social, and cultural life. It is a history rich in books and people, in the lives of writers and readers. It is a story representative of its period, of issues germane to writing and publishing, to bookselling generally, and to independent bookstores specifically. “The genesis of bookstores and of writers, editors, and readers is shared. Why people love books, why they write or publish them, why they read or sell them spring from related interests, needs, and desires. Books & Co. was a nexus for literary achievements and hopes, for readerly proclivities, for human interactions—from a child’s love of writing to a novelist’s debut, a chance encounter to a love affair, from a casual comment to a book deal, a book’s indelible effect on a reader to a memorial reading for its author. “While histories are subject to contestation and elaboration, they are essentially stories. ‘Story’ lives inside ‘history,’ and both share an etymological root with ‘store.’ Not coincidentally, what’s in a bookstore is not only books on shelves, but also the stories of those who enter—customers, staff, editors, browsers, publishers, publicists, writers. Books & Co. was literally, and virtually, filled with stories. “Readers and writers met and embraced there. It was a lover’s embrace, usually metaphorical, and, in a powerful sense, Bookstore is a love story. Book lovers often love bookstores and are faithful to them. They discover their tunnel of love in a bookstore. It’s their clubhouse, too, and, since bookstore lovers are a floating group, happy to discover a good one anywhere, the club can meet anywhere.” From here, Ms. Tillman provides a quite good summary of American bookselling from its earliest days to its late 1990s incarnation. This in turn is followed by a description of how she tackled this project, which involved numerous interviews, as well as delving into diary entries, scrapbooks, and old correspondence, programs, fliers, and publications. The result is half biography and half cultural history, and it all works very well. The format of the book follows the form of the project. Jeannette Watson speaks in the first person, interspersed with hundreds of indented related commentaries from those who knew and worked with her. She explains that she could never address people by their first names, for example, such as director/screenwriter Robert Benton, and in the next passage Benton himself says the only thing he didn’t like about going into the shop was being called Mr. Benton, as it made him feel so old. There is much of interest between these covers. Jeannette considered her privileged upbringing a hindrance—from which reading books was the principle escape—and her father was the powerful and charismatic Tom Watson of IBM fame. Adrift and uncertain in life, the bookstore plan came firmly to mind during a long recovery from surgery. A good friend of her father’s, the seemingly ever-present Brendan Gill, became the reassuring godfather of the new bookstore. Jeannette took a crash course in the profession, wooed noted bookman Burt Britton away from the Strand, and found a suitable location at 939 Madison Avenue. This was a fixer-upper, on two floors, but was soon fitted out with nice traditional bookcases and famous features like the Wall, the island horseshoe counter, and the upstairs deep green leather couch. It was to be part literary salon and part bookstore, with an emphasis on poetry, fiction, and signed works. Britton knew absolutely everyone, and fashionable blonde Jeannette had the vision and the financial resources, so off they were on a bold adventure. Soon enough there was trouble in paradise, however. Bookkeeping methods were lax, there was no room for the overstock, staff turnover was high, Madison Avenue rent and piles of bills kept them in the red, and Jeannette was relegated to the cash register while Burt held court. “When Paul Goldberger’s article appeared in the New York Times on the architecture of the bookstore, he called it Burt Britton’s bookstore. I wasn’t mentioned.” Things came to a boil, and Britton left the concern in 1980. A triumvirate of talented clerks was promoted, there was lots of money around in the go-go ‘80s, and Books & Co. made a nice recovery from the brink of ruin. Jeannette somehow found time to marry Alexander Sanger, the president of Planned Parenthood NYC, raise three sons, and read voraciously. “I’m scuba diving with Ralph,” says Alex, “and she’s polished off all of Proust, on a six-day vacation.” As Jeannette found her footing, Books & Co. became a Mecca for serious book lovers in search of the important and unusual. The philosophy section became the jewel in the crown, poetry flourished, the classics survived, and great works on art, photography and erotica helped support some of the more esoteric inventory. Books were hand sold, which is fast becoming a lost art. The store wasn’t simply stocked—it was curated. Writers received strong support, most notably through a reading series breathtaking for the number of events held (often several per week) and the authors involved (a complete list is provided at the rear). Many of them went on to true fame. Books on bookselling should give lots of details, and here we are privy to Watson’s initial investment, annual expenditures and income, lease agreements, profit margins, return rates, wages, floor space measurements, and all kinds of good solid data. There are funny anecdotes throughout. A young Fran Lebowitz recalls paying her rent by selling review copies to the Strand. “It was the only experience I’ve ever had in life where I got more than I thought I was going to get.” Roy Blount, Jr. inscribed a book for Jeannette, “This is my favorite copy. I sewed the binding myself.” Calvin Trillin weighs in. Scandalous literary gossip abounds. There’s lots on everyday operations too, like dealing with reps and returns, decorating windows, and telling grateful customers like Susan Sontag what they should be reading. Jeannette had dinner with the legendary Frances Steloff of the Gotham Book Mart, then in her nineties, who confided she could still stand on her head. She reminisced about paying clerks thirty-five cents an hour, and firing Tennessee Williams for being late his first day on the job. Steloff advised, “You never say to customers you’re out of a book; you walk them to the section. Even if you don’t have the book, they may see something else they like.” Celebrity shoppers included Jackie Onassis, Kurt Vonnegut, Neil Simon, Robin Williams, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Edward Albee, Romare Bearden, John Cleese, Elmore Leonard, Candice Bergen, Jacques Derrida, and many others. General William Westmoreland was in griping about a Viet Nam book the same week Michael Jackson picked up a British import on skinhead photography and Aesop’s Fables. Margaux and Mariel Hemingway popped in for a Sagan novel. Truman Capote would whisk Jeannette away to the Carlyle for a Tab. Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange smooch in the back of the store, a smiling James Baldwin is outside looking in at a window of his works, and John and Yoko walk their Great Danes past in the middle of the night. Like so many other idealistic 1970s endeavors, Jeannette’s unique combination of nineteenth century salon and cutting edge literary modernism struggled to survive in more dire times. After the stock market crash and amid the rise of chain stores and the advent of deep discounts, revenues dropped, and key staff departed for greener pastures. Books & Co. had enjoyed a fruitful relationship with the nearby Whitney Museum, but they bought up the block, and would not come to terms on a new lease agreement. All of this played out in the media, with much wailing and finger pointing. One observer likened it to a cultural institution acting like a business against a business that was serving as a cultural institution, but the Whitney had problems of its own, in part due to less governmental support. Hundreds of independent bookstores were closing their doors, but this time around others did not spring up to replace them. Fran Lebowitz in particular rails against the Disneyfication of Times Square and the disappearance of iconic oddities in favor of bland, tourist-friendly, profit-driven homogenization. Jeannette let Fran smoke in her office too! There’s an eight page photo section, and the index is very functional. In a nice afterword, Jeannette Watson lets us know what she’s been up to. She thanks Lynne Tillman for her splendidly woven account, and we even learn the small town library in Maine where Books & Co.’s famous green leather couch ended up. Excerpts follow, from Jeannette unless otherwise noted. “Jeannette talked to a lot of the bookshop owners, and I remember that a couple of them weren’t that nice to her. They thought, She’s a dilettante. She’s the daughter of so-and-so . . . They didn’t take her very seriously. But Jeannette was serious. She is a person who is very low key, but very intense underneath it all. When she wants to do something, there isn’t anything that’s going to stop her, and she wanted a bookstore.” – Jane Stanton Hitchcock “Burt selected most of the books, some of which went on the Wall. The Wall was his invention. It was intended to represent a complete spectrum of hardcover books, with as many translations as possible, of the great works of literature from Shakespeare to living writers. When you entered the bookstore, it was on the left. The entire left wall consisted of important works of literature.” “All of Burt’s favorite writers would be on that wall, contemporary writers along with the good classics. Some of these were very popular writers—John Cheever was a big favorite of his. He knew all of these people from the Strand over the years, and they would come in, and in a matter of less than two months, the bookstore was a hit.” – Albert Murray “The image of the store was essential, and the window was an important part of it. We had a point of view, we were a curatorial eye focused on books, a gallery of books. The first window featured Barry Hannah’s Airships, and in July 1978, a beautiful edition of a Colette book filled the window. Lee Radziwill came in to buy it.” “It was still a very heady moment in the cultural world. There were bookstores on Fourth Avenue, there was Max’s Kansas City, there were still salons where the art world went. There was certainly nothing like Books & Co. when she started it. The last bookstore like it was Haywood Wakefield, on Madison Avenue and Sixty-fifth Street, started in the early forties by Betty Parsons, Ila McDermott, and Marian Willard. It closed in the mid-sixties. What Jeannette created was an instant salon. She provided a meeting place for writers, where writers felt nurtured.” – Alexandra Anderson-Spivy “I had been in love with Books & Co. from the very first time I came to New York with my college girlfriend, Dara. I was in graduate school, in Iowa, in the MFA program, and it was 1979. We wandered around the city all day in a sort of combined fit of ecstasy and terror. We went to the Whitney and stumbled back out; we’d been out on the sidewalks by then for about fifteen hours, and I said, ‘Look, there’s a bookstore.’ We walked in, and I knew immediately. You can just tell when you cross the threshold that there’s something profound there. That it’s more than just a bookstore. I don’t know what it is. I think all those great books must actually exhale into the ether. Dara and I looked through the books and went upstairs and realized there was a big sofa up there, just sat on it, and no one was going to tell you to get out, no one was going to tell you to buy anything, you could just sit on the sofa. I felt like a refugee who had suddenly been picked up by a boat. We sat on that sofa for an hour, reading books of poetry we couldn’t believe she had. Dara picked up books from the philosophy section. Jeannette has stuff that you could find other places, but you’d have to really search for it. I was just starting to write and sitting on that sofa with Madison Avenue roaring around below through the glass, all these books around us, I kept thinking, This is that thing that’s been in the cartoon balloon over my head. This is what I’m sitting in my shitty little apartment in Iowa City trying to create and get to.” – Michael Cunningham “Over 70 percent of the people who came into the store didn’t want to be helped. We recognized that by the way they walked in. They moved purposefully past the register, didn’t make eye contact, and didn’t want to be greeted. For them the bookstore was a solitary experience, and they wanted to make their voyage alone.” “Readings were not my cup of tea. Usually it was an overexposure to the author’s ego. It was as often as not a disappointment to meet an author—you’d have read wonderful prose for a long time only to find out that the author was sort of a jerk. The readings were often difficult from the standpoint of watching the hungry arrive. Everybody involved was hungry. The author involved had such a hungry ego, and a certain segment of the public was so hungry for the author, for the fame and all of that stuff, that it was hard to watch after a while.” – Susan Scott “You always feel like a fraud as a writer. It’s such an ephemeral art. You never feel quite real. It helps to make you feel real and part of a community and part of an ancient tradition when you’re reading aloud.” – Barbara Lazear Ascher “When Gary Snyder read, in a tribute to North Point Press, Allen Ginsberg introduced him. During the reading, little white things flew across the room. I thought, What are they? I looked around. Ginsberg was sitting next to me, using a Swiss Army knife to clip his nails. Very peculiar. When Ginsberg spoke about Snyder, he referred to him as ‘an antenna of his race’ and then eloquently quoted Shelley, who called poets ‘the unacknowledged legislators.’” “I could always remember the stock really well, how many copies we had. This is why people—now that computers came in—can’t really understand how people could keep all this information in their head. It was always pretty easy. I knew every book we had in the store. I think it was almost a visual memory. I remembered what a book looked like, what the spine looked like, and all that.” – Peter Philbrook “I believe that prices have to be protected. Price controls are the only thing that can save independent bookstores. No discounts. No underselling to drive the little guy out of business. One standard, fixed price for every book—period. Some other countries have done this, and it works. We’ve done it with milk. Why can’t we do it with books?” – Paul Auster “One of the wonderful things about being in the used-book business is that you’re constantly putting out odd things. You watch how quickly the odd thing sells, and you always say, ‘Jesus, I never would have thought there would have been a market in Portland for a book on Cleveland, or a book on nuclear physics.’ We were much more willing to broaden the selection, because we had the experience of what could sell as a used book. We didn’t go into it with a prejudice that Americans are dumb and stupid.” – Michael Powell “When Arthur left, Steven Varni stepped in or up, to become our buyer. Our buyers or employees usually emerged organically. Steven had been trained from our Dante’s inferno, the basement, up through to the celestial harmony of the philosophy section on the second floor.” “But I’m hopeful that what will happen is there will be a kind of countervailing feeling, which will drive people to more original, idiosyncratic places. Ray Oldenburg wrote a book, The Great Good Place, about great good places that help weave a community together. People are going to be searching and yearning for this sense of an essential experience, not a manufactured experience. I think reading gives that to you, when you’re sitting alone with a book, and I think going into a weird, unusual bookstore does that to you as well.” – Mitchell Kaplan “For obvious reasons, one might expect New York to have more enlightened bookstores than any other city in America. But no, I can think of four or five cities that are better for book buying than here. And what New York has isn’t much—certainly there’s nothing now like what Books & Co. was—and that’s a major handicap for lives in which reading plays a large part. I don’t want to buy only the books I already know I want to acquire. I want to discover books and writers I don’t know about. That happens in a great bookstore. On-line ordering can never match the informativeness of being able to browse.” – Susan Sontag “Though I loved meeting writers and being surprised when they came by, I was sustained, as was Books & Co., by the weekly and daily customers, the regulars, and the beauty of daily life in the store. It was through the bookstore that I learned to enjoy people and to be easy talking with them. It was the bookstore’s gift to me.” “I’d hit my stride, been in the business twenty years, knew something about it, knew the writers, and knew the ropes. I could do an even better job if I could continue. If I couldn’t be a world traveler, rock star, ethnobotanist, or live with some tribe in the Amazon, I could sell books and publish them. I wanted to continue, but the climate was undermining. There was turmoil and fear in the industry. My fiery determination was burning low. Structural and other changes were affecting all of us, booksellers, publishers, writers, editors—everyone.” “I returned to the podium and gave my last speech at the store. It was a singular moment. It was the store’s swan song. But I was a bookseller to the end. I thanked the audience for coming, thanked Edna [O’Brien] for her reading and gracious remarks, and then encouraged everyone to buy a copy of her book and get it signed. Edna had ended the evening just the way I liked it—on a hopeful note. I did hope that Books & Co., and what it stood for, would live on in people’s hearts and minds.” Shawn Purcell operates Balopticon Books & Ephemera and can be contacted at http://www.balopticon.com.

Anyone for the Forsythe Saga?

Stuart Manley

A quick scan of search sites reveals that 537 people can’t spell “Tolkien.” (And a further 58 can’t spell “Hobbit.”)

“The Forsythe Saga” notches up another 129 errors.

Does it matter?

We all make typos from time to time, but this sort of error displays ignorance rather than a typing mistake and I reckon that it does matter. Quite apart from customers being unable to find your book (unless they have matching ignorance!), I, for one, given two reasonably equal copies of a book for sale, would go for the one who has Forsyte and knows Tolkien from Tolkein.

In this age of ever-diminishing quality of book listing standards caused by the flood of wannabe bookdealers, it is important that IOBA members stand out above that crowd. This will lead to extra sales. Sure, sloppy catalogue entries will still get some sales, especially if they are cheap enough, but there are a lot of knowledgeable people out there. They have had their fingers burnt before—they have learnt that a poor listing often means a poor bookseller, inaccurate descriptions, and poorly packed books—and therefore they avoid them like the plague.

I keep hearing moans on the various forums about poor sales. Not true. Internet sales have continued to rise and those who pay attention to detail benefit. In the early days, you could sell almost anything you could list, but it is now much more competitive, so you must keep on looking for ways to sharpen up your act.

Making sure that your listings are professional, clear, accurate and fully informative is an inexpensive way that you can improve your sales. Here are the most important points:

The Database

Get a good one.
(See Inventory Software on http://www.ioba.org/links.html or work with your local IT consultant.)

It amazes me how many people cheapskate and go for freebies such as HomeBase. They simply don’t have the capacity to give you the control that you need. Given that your database is your prime business tool, it is not an area to economize on. (A bit like opening a bookshop and selling the books out of boxes rather than bothering to build shelves or decorate.)

Our database has 28 fields so that each detail can be uploaded to each site in the correct order. It can control the prices up or down by any percentage for any listing site. It can generate a separate Google page. It can select or deselect books for any site (for instance, withdraw Mein Kampf from ZVAB). It can add extra shipping for heavy books or Amazon supplements. And so on.

If your database doesn’t get near this, it is time you looked into the matter.

The Listing

There are four ways to go wrong.

1. Too much.

Example: “This book is fitted with a removable, protective, trim sleeve cover. Book is in good condition throughout with light foxing to the page outer edges and minor bumping and browning to the top and bottom of the spine. Jacket is in good condition but has quite heavy foxing and tiny nicks and creases along its outer edges and where it folds. Tiny patch missing from the upper right hand side of the back cover. Contents include The Authors and Their Books followed by the four condensed stories. Microbe Hunter's is illustrated by Anthony Saris, Devil Water is illustrated by Noel Sickles, To Sir, With Love is illustrated by Francis Marshall and The Golden Rendezvous is illustrated by Henry Seabright (Title page by Paul Bacon).”

All this for a Readers Digest Condensed book!

Quite apart from the book being unsaleable, any thoughts that the bookseller is not completely mad are quickly dispelled by it being described as a First Edition.

The above in an extreme example but many seem to believe that such wordiness helps sales. In actual fact it tends to do the reverse, making it hard for the potential buyer to find the information they actually want, even if that information is included somewhere within the torrent of words.

2. Too little.

Example: “Hardcover. Book Condition: Used; Good. Hardcover with good d/j.”

Gee, that’s a great help.

The minimum specification should be:

Author.
Title.
Binding. (“Green hardback cloth cover,” “Brown half leather with marbled boards and gilt tooling”—and so on—clear and complete.)
Publisher.
Publisher city.
Publication date. (Go on—research it if it is not stated.)
Edition. (First, reprint, Limited, etc.)
ISBN or BASIN.
Number of pages. (Don’t forget to include prefatory material such as “xxxvii” if relevant.)
Size. (Your database should be able to auto-convert between millimetres and inches.)
Dustwrapper. (With or without, clipped or not.)
Condition. (Clear and honest, without writing a thesis, and under no circumstances boilerplate—“may have” is an instant turn off for any experienced buyer. If you can’t afford to catalogue the book properly, it is too cheap to be catalogued and you shouldn’t be wasting your time on it.)

In addition, where relevant, the illustrator, the nature of the illustrations (“25 b/w steel engravings” for example), translator, etc., should be included.

Avoid overuse of capital letters and exclamation marks, and pay attention to punctuation marks. Colons and semi-colons have their place.

3. Too sloppy.

They are not desirable, but typos do have a way of creeping in. However, triple check the author and title fields—a typo there can ruin sales.

It does no harm to get into the habit of double checking the rest of the entry too—the odd typo would not normally hazard a sale, but several might.

4. Boilerplate.

Examples: “Book Condition: VERY GOOD. USED No major defects: clean, complete, not falling apart; some light wear.”

“Creasing/edgewear/shelfwear, may have other defects such as discolouration to block edges etc.”

“Used items at a great price! Come to xxx for all your media needs. We have hundreds of thousands of items available today!”

“This book is Acceptable: A readable copy. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (the dust cover may be missing). Pages can include considerable notes—in pen or highlighter—but the notes cannot obscure the text.”

Why anyone buys from outfits like this defeats me. They are the listing equivalent of spam and do our trade no good at all. What I do know is that these bottom-end feeders are not able to sell worthwhile books this way.

It goes without saying that many other factors are relevant for successful online bookselling—the quality of your stock and the quality of your home page, to name just two—but paying full attention to your database and book presentations is of the greatest importance.

Stuart Manley operates Barter Books in Alnwick Station, Northumberland, England and can be contacted at http://www.barterbooks.co.uk.

The Pros and Cons of AbeBooks.com for Buyers and Sellers

Chris Volk

This is the first in a series of proposed articles taking a brief look at the pros and cons of the various multi-dealer book listing databases. The three largest of these databases—AbeBooks.com, Alibris.com and Amazon.com’s Marketplace—all have two things in common. So far, at least, they have the most traffic, the most books listed, and they generate the most sales; and they are also the sites which have changed the most over the past 11 years, for better or for worse, and they are continuing to change the most dramatically.

AbeBooks.com was originally started as a simple, traditional multi-dealer listing site. Most of the original dealers on the site were experienced professionals, the majority of the customers on the site were collectors or experienced buyers of used books, and even after all of the changes, the bones of this simple listing service still remain. However, as other database services like Bibliofind and Bibliocity were bought out and shut down by the new owners, AbeBooks grew significantly in size, and that growth brought both benefits and problems.

FOR BUYERS: PROS

- Possibly the largest database. AbeBooks now states that it has over 100 million listings from over 13,500 dealers, and it is definitely the easiest database to search. No restrictions on prices of listings (other than a $1 minimum) and no requirements that books fit into an existing database, so ephemera, manuscripts and many unique items can be listed and found here.

- A “keyword” search which is in reality an “almost any word” search (searches title, author, description, publisher information and actual keywords). If you are looking for a book about the Andersonville Prison and the author’s name was “Robert something” and you know it was published before 1880, a search on AbeBooks will give you the title (only one in this case, but sometimes there might be a few different results to choose from). This is a great feature and surprisingly one that AbeBooks does not seem to promote.

- Simple “all in one” search results, easily modifiable. Of the three largest databases, AbeBooks is the only site where all of the results are returned at one time. In other words, there is no need to select several variants of the title or author and click on each one to see 25 books here, or 10 books with this variant. The entire list of 5, 10 or even 10,000 books will be returned, sorted according to your preference. While getting an extremely long list of books might also be a “con,” the fact that you can modify or narrow your searches in so many different ways (including using optional Boolean searches) means that AbeBooks is the most efficient and fastest database to search.

- Ability to save your search preferences. While this is rather limited, you can save the default order for results (highest price, lowest, newest listing, alpha by author or title), Boolean search on or off, etc.

- Want matches. AbeBooks will store want matches indefinitely based on many different criteria, from a simple author’s name or keyword to a want for a signed first edition in dust jacket of a specific title. This was a feature of AbeBooks from its inception, and unfortunately, recent changes reduced its utility. Email notifications are only sent out once a day, increasing the possibility that you will miss a “hot” match, the full description of the books is no longer included, and the all of the books are not shown—just the lowest priced and most expensively priced. In addition, wants are no longer matched on “edits” so if a seller listed a book with an error in the author or title or reduces the price of the book by 50% you will not see a match when the spelling is corrected, or the price discounted. The plus side of these changes is that a buyer no longer gets so many matching emails, or such long ones. In addition, AbeBooks added a feature where you can click on see all listings matching your criteria by newest first. Despite the changes, this remains the most effective want-matching search of any database.

- Easy contact with booksellers. While not as easy as it used to be, it is still the most friendly in terms of direct contact, either through the AbeBooks system (which retains a copy, and sends you a copy of your inquiry) or by bypassing the system and emailing them directly. The “ask a bookseller a question” link is displayed with each book on the “first” results page, and if a buyer clicks on that, the email address is open and available. In addition, there is a link to the bookseller’s homepage (either an AbeBooks homepage or the seller’s own website) under “bookseller and payment information.”

- An international site. While North American dealers predominate, AbeBooks has a significant number of dealers from other countries, and all of their books can be searched at one time in one place.

FOR BUYERS: CONS

- Possibly the largest database. Unfortunately, among the 100 million listings are many repetitive listings, “re-listings” of books not actually in the possession of the seller, listings of photocopies, print-on-demand books and e-books with sometimes inaccurate information, books inadequately described (“unknown binding”) or with little or no condition descriptions.

- Lack of quality control. If a bookseller calls a book club edition a first edition or uses “autograph” to mean that the previous owner wrote his/her name in the book, then these books will be included in the search results for “first edition” or “signed” books respectively. AbeBooks takes a “hands-off” approach when it comes to dealers’ pricing and descriptions, which means that the buyer must exercise due diligence, read descriptions carefully and ask questions before purchasing. AbeBooks has taken some steps recently to clear up some of the most egregious offenses: it added a quantity field so no longer will 20 identical copies be shown individually, and it removed some “booksellers” whose listings consisted of nothing but hundreds of thousands or even millions of books they did not possess. Nevertheless, dealers on AbeBooks are still permitted to upload long lists of new books, where wholesalers or publishers will do fulfillment.

- No ratings or other indication of the reliability of a bookseller. This has been proposed for years now, and it will eventually be put into place.

- Inaccurate search results, when modifying factors are selected. The problem of non-qualifying books has already been mentioned, but it is also true that books which do meet the search criteria are sometimes screened out.

- Inaccurate help fields. Even though it has been almost 3 years since the “keyword search” changed from a keyword only search to one which searches author title and description as well as keywords, this information was changed in the “top 5 search tips” link (which appears only on the advanced search page), but not in the much longer and more detailed “search tips” shown at the bottom of every results page. The same is true of punctuation in searches: the top 5 tips warn you that apostrophes do affect the search results; the search tips tell you that punctuation does not count.

- Shipping rates shown for the country of the bookseller only. This should be a buyer-centric field. After all, a US customer wants to know how much a German seller will charge to ship the book to the US, not how much he charges to ship a book in Germany.

- Changes that are often cosmetic and not clearly thought through and navigational quirks. For example, for many users, the “back key” in search results will bring you back to a blank screen or back two screens instead of one, so in order to modify the search, “more search options” at the top of the page must be clicked. The search results pages were recently changed: the attributes and seller locations became pull-down menus, and were placed at the top of the page (a good change), but the blank field to type in additional criteria became “keyword” only instead of author, title, publisher or keyword (less precise and useful) and the link to the subsequent pages is only at the bottom of the page, necessitating scrolling up and down. Similarly a buyer can now “save” items in the shopping cart, but this can only be done one item at a time, and so is slow and cumbrous.

FOR SELLERS: PROS

(Note: The comparisons below are to the other major sites: Alibris.com and Amazon’s Marketplace. In most cases, the traditional smaller independent databases offer sellers significantly more freedom and flexibility than any of the large ones do.)

- Permits the most direct contact between buyers and sellers of all the major sites, including links to your own website.

- Gives sellers the most freedom to set their own shipping rates and policies, to describe books briefly or at length, and to price books as they wish. Other than the credit card processing fee, all of the shipping fees go to the seller.

- Accepts seller databases in virtually any format, and will customize the upload. Also provides a free database program called HomeBase for booksellers to use.

- Permits other forms of payment in addition to the MasterCard and Visa, which AbeBooks processes.

- Appears to still have a substantial customer base of collectors and frequent buyers, but also has an increasing visible affiliate program with links on many internet sites and appears to be increasing its advertising and publicity. According to AbeBooks, the overall sales on the site are increasing, but these increases are outpaced by the number of books being listed.

- Telephone customer support, including a toll free number.

- A relatively short holding period on AbeBooks ecommerce sales where they processed the payments, paid weekly with a holding period of from 8 days to 15 days for most booksellers.

- An active and often informative bookseller forum.

FOR SELLERS: CONS

- The cost of listing and selling. Depending on the number of sales, the average dollar value of each sale, and the number of listings, AbeBooks is arguably the most expensive site to list on, because the fees are a combination of flat monthly fee, commissions and credit card processing fee (charged on both the price of the book and shipping). Although the nominal 8% commission and 5.5% credit card processing fee is at 13.5% theoretically less than the 15% charged by Alibris and Amazon, the addition of 5.5 % on shipping, the higher flat monthly fees and the minimum fees on inexpensive books can push the total monthly bill higher.

- The “clutter” and “junk” in the database and the lack of quality control both in terms of sellers and inventory.

- Continuing move away from the traditional strong base of “frequent buyers” in an attempt to broaden its appeal—thus the addition of stock publisher photos, “BookHints” and many other features implemented in ways that disregard the traditional buyers and sellers.

- Mandatory use of AbeBooks’ credit card processing facilities at a high fee. What had been a convenience and an optional service for booksellers has become a profit center.

- Limited ability to charge sales tax, to modify shipping fees and even to reduce the price of the book. While at least there is some provision to do so, requesting sales taxes is combined under the term “requesting additional shipping” and there is no way to reduce the price of the book before you accept an order. (These were not an issue before AbeBooks took over all processing of Visa and MasterCard orders.)

- Glacial pace of change. Not entirely a “con” since often AbeBooks’ changes are not positive ones. Nevertheless among the promised features for over a year—and in some cases, many years—are a customer loyalty program for discount certificates on additional purchases, gift certificates, a seller-rating system, and an upgrade to the often-inadequate HomeBase system.

- A tendency to act as if AbeBooks is the only place sellers list books. For example, to opt out of isbn matching and the added muse information, sellers are instructed to use “noisbn” in the keyword field, yet most sellers upload keywords to other listing sites, and some of these other sites display the keywords.

- Sellers must be pro-active on AbeBooks. Often it is booksellers who first identify the problems and malfunctioning on the site, and even when these problems are called to AbeBooks' attention, sellers are often not notified or the notice only appears on the booksellers' forum (which not all dealers use). Sellers need to periodically check that their listings are showing up properly both on AbeBooks itself (especially when attributes like “first edition” are selected) and on the meta-listing sites like BookFinder.com and AddAll.com.

- No automatic link for PayPal payments.

- Inadequate follow-up when a credit card cannot be processed. Instead of the order remaining open while AbeBooks follows up with the customer, the order is immediately cancelled.

- For those who use the ISBN lookup to populate fields, there is inaccurate information, especially the use of the “warehouse” location as the place of publication.

Chris Volk operates Bookfever along with Shep Iiams out of the Sierra foothills of Amador County, CA and can be contacted at http://www.bookfever.com.

Cathy Graham and Serena Wyckoff of
Copperfish Books, LLC

Hi, we are Cathy Graham and Serena Wyckoff, owners of Copperfish Books, LLC, in sunny southwest Florida. Before going full time in January 2006, we had “real” jobs and sold books online as a hobby. Well, as often happens in this business, the hobby grew and we said a not-so-tearful goodbye to the time clock.

Becoming Booksellers

We have both always loved books—reading them, looking at them, touching them, collecting them, and just having them around. And yes, hanging out in libraries and bookstores has been one source of fun. So the book connection is easy to see. But online retail? At first glance, our professional backgrounds don’t seem directly connected. But maybe they are in a round-about way. Publishing, teaching, social work, languages, and communications all have elements of sales, business and books. And our histories of constantly seeking to learn and to change—these are qualities of the online retailing industry. Still, neither of us had imagined that we would be selling books online today.

Cathy had early interests in language arts. After serving in the US Air Force as a foreign language analyst, she completed her undergraduate degree and became a secondary school language teacher. Eventually, Cathy moved on from teaching to a corporate sales job in telecommunications. The sales job blossomed into personnel management and training, which she enjoyed for several years.

Then Cathy returned to school to earn a graduate degree and struck out on her own as a training and development consultant. The creative freedom of freelancing was intoxicating and a major motivator for maintaining an entrepreneurial work life. During this time she started selling books online, listing those from her own collection that she no longer wanted. After the thrill of her first sale, Cathy was hooked. Once she finished selling her own, she started hunting elsewhere for more books she could sell. She started building an inventory—shelves and piles of books everywhere. And it was fun! Bookselling began to replace Cathy’s work as a consultant.

Serena came into bookselling from another angle. With a BA in English, she had planned a career in book publishing. After graduation, Serena attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute, an intensive graduate-level course that focused on all aspects of book publishing. She worked as a clerk in a bookstore and a freelance proofreader, and took a job in the permissions department for a publishing firm. But her interest in publishing waned. Serena decided she wanted to help older people and so got a job at a retirement home. She went back to school for a master’s degree and spent several years as a geriatric social worker.

Serena left social work, ready for change once again. She did general office work before landing a job with a nonprofit. She transitioned from a help desk position to one in web services, where she developed and maintained the organization’s web sites. The job was pretty cool; she learned a lot and felt that she made a difference in helping the organization improve communications both within and to the outside world. A few years ago, Serena started selling books online as a hobby with Cathy. That’s how she got hooked. Eventually, she decided to leave the 9-to-5 world and start Copperfish Books with Cathy. She feels that it was one of the best decisions she had ever made.

About Our Company

Copperfish Books, LLC, sells all kinds of books: fiction and nonfiction, current and out-of-print, books for adults and youth, audio books, books in English and in other languages. We also sell CDs, DVDs, videos, and even a few maps. Our sales are worldwide through Alibris, Amazon, Biblio, Buy Bundle, and Half. At this point, we don’t sell directly through our website (www.CopperfishBooks.com), but plan to do so in the future.

While specialization is encouraged by many in the industry, we have not yet developed our own. Nonfiction titles are our most profitable and interesting offerings. Our personal preferences also color our inventory. Serena likes books about unusual crafts, film, nature, and out-of-print biographies of people not generally well-known. Cathy likes translations, first novels, small hardbacks, and unusual or attractively bound or printed old books in foreign languages (like the two boxes of Russian books stashed in the garage). Out of our varied interests we hope someday to develop a specialty or two. At this point, however, we try to stock whatever we think will sell.

When someone buys one of our books, we want them to be delighted with their experience. We make sure our packaging, shipping, and communication is just what we would want as buyers. Every so often we’ll get an email (not just feedback) from a buyer telling us what our book has meant to them. One woman was thrilled with the book about growing giant pumpkins that she bought for her husband. She wrote us several times to let us know how his pumpkin was coming along! We love to hear stories like that.

Satisfying Work

Copperfish Books is a great source of satisfaction for both of us. When we clean and repair books, it feels like we give them new life; when we sell them, we give them new homes. Books are something you can’t help but love!

Having our own business is both fun and demanding. The independence is great and the lack of office politics is so refreshing. We work longer and harder than when we worked for someone else. But we really enjoy the work and are excited about building and improving our business.

Online bookselling is fast-growing, ever-changing, and challenging. We both like having work that we can “sink our teeth into” and that allows us to be creative and to learn. And learning is such a big part of having a successful business. We constantly educate ourselves about online retailing, bookselling, book repair, inventory management, publishing, and so much more. Online bookselling is neither easy nor a way to a fast buck. But it is truly satisfying work. Running our own business, being around books, feeling satisfied with our work—what more could we ask for?

Cathy Graham and Serena Wyckoff operate Copperfish Books, LLC, out of Port Charlotte, FL and can be contacted at http://www.CopperfishBooks.com.

IOBA Standard: Volume 7(2) Addenda

Tami W. Zawistowski of Resource Books, LLC

I’m Tami Zawistowski of Resource Books, LLC, based in East Granby, Connecticut, USA. Resource Books offers its books almost exclusively online, with our current stock numbering about 7500 books dating from 1582 to 2006, with most from between the 1850s and 1950s. We also offer some ephemera and select accessories—unusual bookends and inkwells, other reading and writing related objects—anything that would look at home in a personal or institutional library. While our focus is mainly non-fiction, we also stock children’s books, literary classics, some modern first editions, special illustrated and limited editions, and signed copies.

Resource Books, LLC has been in existence for eleven years. The business started in the days when the Internet was not a part of everyday life. Waiting for the weekly issue of AB Bookman to arrive, scouring its long columns of Books Wanted and sending out quote cards to dozens of prospective buyers was time-intensive and resulted in few monetary rewards. Instead, I focused on renting space in antiques malls and smaller shops—up to ten at one point—which proved a better option. All of this changed with eBay, which was my introduction to online book sales, and eventually evolved to listing books on AbeBooks and then several other bookselling venues. Believing that an organization addressing the specific needs of booksellers who offered their stock mainly online was necessary and beneficial, Resource Books, LLC joined IOBA in 2004.

I’ve loved books for as long as I can remember, and starting a book business after dropping out of corporate life in the mid-1990s was a great alternative to the demands of corporate politics and a heavy travel schedule. I had experienced a long career in banking and commercial real estate valuation, and earned the MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute, the principal international organization for real estate appraisers. My most recent position in business was Executive Vice President and Chief Appraiser for Northeast Savings, F. A., a large thrift based in Hartford, Connecticut. After completing work there, I spent a year in academia as Assistant Director of the Center for Real Estate and Urban Economic Studies at the University of Connecticut. I’ve also taught courses and lectured on real estate related topics throughout the United States.

Throughout my business career, however, I sustained a love a books and an omnivorous reading habit. The book habit had deep roots—I had volunteered at my old hometown library in Stafford Springs, Connecticut back when I was in high school, running summer programs for children, etc. While earning a B. A. in English at the University of Connecticut, I worked in the university library. The wide variety of courses I took during college provided an excellent interdisciplinary background which helps significantly in dealing with the broad range of subject matter we now offer. And then there were the little things that I never thought would come to much—two years of Latin and Russian language, a family who loved travel, and an elementary school teacher who instructed her class to use Roman numerals to date their papers each day. I would never have guessed how valuable that skill would be.

In the summer of 2006, we moved Resource Books into a new building. The design was created specifically for books and for items bought and sold by my husband, Ed Zawistowski, who owns Gallery One. Ed has bought and sold original artwork, antique estate jewelry, coins, stamps and other antiquarian items for more than twenty years. Since our home is more than two hundred years old, we took care to design the new building in a style that would harmonize with its Old New England charm. Designed in a modified Cape Cod style, it contains more than 2,000 square feet on two floors, and has a full basement, heat and central air conditioning. The building was engineered to withstand the heavy weight of a large number of books, and the open floor plan allows optimal arrangement of the bookcases which contain consecutively numbered boxes (a system that we find works well for keeping the books organized). The very short commute (about fifty feet), paired with bright new surroundings, provides a very pleasant work environment.

I take personal satisfaction in connecting the right books to the right people, and love to hear stories about why my customers are so happy to find a particular book. I’ve also enjoyed dealing with international customers, and we list our books on ZVAB/Choosebooks (based in Germany), AntiQbook (Netherlands) and AbeBooks (Canada) as well as Alibris, Amazon, IOBAbooks, Froogle and our own website, www.resourcebooks.net. We also occasionally list on eBay, mainly ephemera, as well as a variety of high quality jewelry presentation boxes.

Tami Zawistowski manages Resource Books, LLC out of East Granby, CT and can be reached at tami.z@gallery-resource.com.

Addenda

Hartfelt Gratitude

Letter to the editor.

“Please contact Jim Hart and express my heartfelt gratitude for the wonderful article he wrote about Dr. Len Lanfranco [‘Thoughts on a Friend’s Passing—Leonard Lanfranco,’ IOBA Standard, May 2002, Volume 3, No. 2]. I met him as an employee of the Columbia SC Post Office and worked closely with him on the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Journal and many mailing projects. He was a ‘king’ among men.”

Andy Koin, Columbia, SC

Happy Hits

Excerpts from recent online book descriptions.

- Dust jacket is made from pieces of dust jacket pasted to color stock—looks good.

- This may be one of a kind. Front endpaper map is upside down.

- DJ is somewhat worn due to “big book” stress.

- Hardbound ex-library naturally in very good condition as it appears to have been checked out only two times.

- The Roman Numerals on the title page state 2047 (MXMXXXVII), however the copyright page states 1937.

And this last one was spotted by Joel Dilley of Outpost Books.

- If your name is Hazel M. Phillips you won't need to sign the front pastedown again.

Blurbettes

- “This is a book about one of the great untold stories of modern cultural life: the remarkable ascendancy of prizes in literature and the arts.” So begins the dust jacket inside flap blurb for this interesting work by James F. English (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005). The title on the front panel of the dust jacket reads, The Economy of Prestige: Pri ds, and ion of Cultural Value. That’s because there are four medallion decorations which obscure the text. Over all this, there is a round sticker with the full title, revealing such words as “prizes,” “awards,” and “circulation.” I queried the author and publisher as follows. “Good day. I was curious about the dust jacket design for this book. The subtitle on the front panel is partially obscured by some of the design work. Is the round sticker over that a corrective action, or part of the original plan?” They do not win any prizes or awards for favoring me with a response.

- From the rear inside flap of The Unusual Suspect: My Calling to the New Hardcore Movement of Faith by actor/family man/born-again Christian Stephen Baldwin (NY: Warner Faith, 2006).

“When thinking about the cover for this book . . . early on, I thought the idea of half my face would look suspect and cool . . . Later it occurred to me that with one side of my face on the front and the other on the back it would convey what this book is for me . . . The experience I’m having on the pages between these halves of my face . . . that’s what makes me whole.” [His pauses.]

Book Blogs

Bibliophile Bullpen
(A Whiff of Old Books with Your Coffee.)

http://bibliophilebullpen.blogspot.com

Posted 3/5/2007

Yes, a bomb went off in Baghdad's book district - big freaking surprise. Did the war finally get your attention? News Flash - we invaded Iraq FOUR YEARS AGO and it is still a war zone. People and things are getting blow up, killed and destroyed there EVERY DAY. Children, old folks, cab drivers, 95 journalists. What? did you think that bookstores were safe zones? whatever gave you that arrogant idea? War doesn't care about bookstores, or museums, or architecture, or children who may grow up to doctors. War is loud, messy, destructive and heartless and ultimately unwieldy enterprise. Did you think it could be contained? restrict it to certain 'zones'? Do you really think putting more bright young green soldiers riding around in humvees would some how placate a city 81 square miles of terrified civilians and screaming insane combatants? War will not be contained. Whomever had the bright idea that WAR was the first, best and controllable answer to a problem should be tied to an IED with small children throwing rocks at their head. I am sorry if I disappoint folks I won't rend and wail because a bookstore was bombed instead of an emergency room. It was inevitable. Besides I am already running at full pitch because of every bombing, every IED, every kidnapping, every mealy mouth denial that this was a

BAD FREAKING IDEA to begin with. You want to help the booksellers of Baghdad? don't offer to take up a collection - buy a stamp and tell your fat ass congressman/senator to get us the hell out of a country that we shouldn't have invaded in the first place.

Ye Olde Booksellers

Things that fall out of books can be as interesting as books themselves, as this 6.5” by 10” four page brochure for Blackwell’s in Oxford, England demonstrates. The only date we find is 1966, when the map was drawn, and the images have been cropped a bit for better resolution.

To find out more about this venerable establishment, opened by Benjamin Henry Blackwell on New Year’s Day in 1879 with an inventory of 700 books, click on the following link. Speaking of book fallouts, browsers in the shop were once treated to a “much publicized row” between Lewis Carroll and George Bernard Shaw.

http://www.blackwell.com/downloads/HistoryFlyer.pdf

Made in IOBA

My name is Craig Horle and I am a partner with my wife, Laurie Wolfe, in Classic Books and Ephemera.

The Quakers and the English Legal System, 1660-1688

Included in my publications are the following: Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. A Biographical Dictionary: Volume Three: 1757-1775 (chief editor; author of 28 out of the 131 essays, published by the Pa. House of Representatives, 2005, available from Penn State University Press); Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. A Biographical Dictionary: Volume Two: 1710-1756 (chief editor; author of 48 of the 228 essays, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997); The Records of the Courts of Sussex County, Delaware, 1677-1710, 2 vols. (editor, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992); Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. A Biographical Dictionary: Volume 1: 1682-1709 (chief editor; author of 89 of the 325 essays and several introductory essays, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991); The Quakers and the English Legal System, 1660-1688 (author, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988); The Papers of William Penn, 1701-1718 (co-editor, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987); and The Papers of William Penn, 1685-1700 (co-editor, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985). Laurie Wolfe was an editor and author on Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. A Biographical Dictionary: Volume Three: 1757-1775 and on Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. A Biographical Dictionary: Volume Two: 1710-1756.

House Calls

Most house calls are neutral to pleasant affairs, with some negotiating, some manual labor, and mutual benefits on both sides. Everything is relative, of course, but it can also be said that there are book buying house calls from Hell.

It was a dark and snowy night. The kind you wouldn’t go out into unless you had a chance to oust unsuspecting Redcoats from a distant Revolutionary War fort, or something like that. A hundred and fifty miles of Northway and muddy back roads (round trip), with nothing between the howling wilderness of the lower Adirondack Mountains and your bare skin but a heated Plymouth Grand Voyager and winter clothing. Sunshine patriots would have waited, but the whole region was about to be socked in for weeks, and the prize was some deceased guy’s early science fiction library. Yes, early science fiction, a holier grail than most. I interrogated the caller for ten minutes the night before, looking for all the telltale signs of a wasted trip. She was specific but nebulous, insistent yet not anxious. Something said Don’t Go, Don’t Go, Don’t Go, thrice no less, but I had to. It’s my job. I’m a bookseller.

I’ve been on countless backwoods roads, but this one was especially grim and endless. Perhaps it was the time of year, drear early winter, with fading light and slippery conditions; or perhaps it was because Google Maps and cell phones hadn’t quite been invented yet. When you don’t know where you are going, trips seem to take longer. Just when I began to doubt the county map, houses and farms appeared again, and a crooked mailbox displayed the correct number.

Knock knock. “Hi. We spoke last night. I’m here about the books.”

“You made it. Follow me,” she said, donning a winter coat over the house dress. Lead on to the cold room, I thought, but she goes back outside. To the garage! Location was a topic we covered on the phone. She had said something about them being inside, which was correct, strictly speaking. Strike One. Fifty years of hundred degree temperature swings and book bugs, with a possible topping of raccoon or bat poop.

Strike Two. There above the faithful old workbench in a frigid setting with very little molecular activity, on a short shelf over the window, sat a pathetic row of sawdusted and misshapen Popular Science magazines from the 1940s and ‘50s. My breath hung in the still air like a deflated dollar sign. Virtually worthless, even in perfect condition. Not even real science fiction. Not even hard cover. Thinking back, she referred to colorful dust jackets with futuristic designs on the phone. Technically correct in a way, I guess.

It was true then. I shouldn’t have gone. There was so much to do back at home, and this fruitless and somewhat dangerous trip had been a complete waste of time. How could it have been any worse, short of being murdered by rural miscreants or something?

“Sorry but I’ll have to pass on these. They aren’t exactly what I pictured from your description.”

“Well I’m just going to get rid of them then. None of the other booksellers who came out were interested either.”

Sheeee struck him out!

Library File

The following item appeared in the Youngstown Vindicator on 7/25/2006 and was reprinted in the 9/2006 issue of America

Table of Contents

Foreword

Change, Challenge, and Response

An Interview with Paul Mills of AuctionExplorerBooks

-What is AuctionExplorerBooks, in a nutshell?

-Who are the founders, and how many people are presently involved?

-Where did the idea come from?

-When did you start?

-How many auctions have you had, how long do they last, and how often are they held?

-I imagine the numbers go up a bit each time, in terms of participants, sold versus unsold, average price realized, etc.

-What criteria do you use for allowing booksellers to list on the site?

-Is special software required?

-Can anyone register as a buyer?

-Is this strictly for books, or is there room for other paper items?

-What are the essential differences between AEB and, say, eBay?

-What is the fee structure?

-How can the buyer pay?

-What kinds of problems have you had so far?

-Have you had to mediate any disputes?

-What part of the auction process is the most labor intensive for you at this stage?

-Are you profitable yet?

-Can you share some auction offerings that surprised you for one reason or another?

-It’s hard to start up against an eBay, ABE, or Amazon, and if you make it really big they just buy you out. Are there any other good bookseller-run online auction start- ups out there you are aware of?

-All property on AuctionExplorerBooks is sold as is, where is, as the saying goes. How does this policy coexist with the unconditional satisfaction guaranteed returns policy most professional booksellers live by?

-I became aware of your site a year or so ago, but must confess that I thought it was strictly for South African material. I know better now, but on reflection, perhaps this was a good way to get some experience and some traction. What will you do to internationalize AuctionExplorerBooks?

Book-Buying in Middle America, or, A New York Dealer’s Visits to Three Middle American Cities

Ephemeral Assays: Jumpin’ Jehovah

Books About Bookselling: Bookstore

Anyone for the Forsythe Saga?

The Database

The Listing

The Pros and Cons of AbeBooks.com for Buyers and Sellers

FOR BUYERS: PROS

FOR BUYERS: CONS

FOR SELLERS: PROS

FOR SELLERS: CONS

Cathy Graham and Serena Wyckoff ofCopperfish Books, LLC

Becoming Booksellers

About Our Company

Satisfying Work

Tami W. Zawistowski of Resource Books, LLC

Addenda

Hartfelt Gratitude

Happy Hits

Blurbettes

Book Blogs

Ye Olde Booksellers

Made in IOBA

House Calls

Library File

Cathy Graham and Serena Wyckoff of
Copperfish Books, LLC