Bibliodirect Opening

When the announcement of the formation of http://www.BiblioDirect.com was made, Bibliophile Books,.Inc. vowed it would be a site with a difference. It is making good on that promise.

BiblioDirect.com began with a new philosophy of only accepting dealers with at least a basic knowledge of the book trade and requiring all dealers to accept some form of easy payment. The overall approach for the site was developed by booksellers (Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson and Roger and Jan O’Connor) and then the website design was developed by professionals with expertise in designing and implementing a site for book buyers. Bibliophile Books, Inc., the corporate name of the site, is dedicated to the concept of “quality books from quality dealers.”

Much of what the buyer sees on the site is totally new to the used and out-of-print book trade. Probably the biggest difference is how a particular book’s information is displayed to the user. No longer will the potential buyer be presented with a book’s information in a long string of information, but the information is neatly broken down into categories and, as such, is easier to read. There is no denying that presenting the information in this easier-to-use format caused headaches for the programmers because of the wide variety of database formats used by book sellers. However, the overall appearance of the material should be of great help to the buyer.

On BiblioDirect, a dealer’s information is easily accessed. All dealers who have their own website will see that their URL is prominently linked with their information.

It is also very easy for a potential buyer to inquire about a book. By clicking on “Inquire about this book,” an e-mail form pops up and the inquiry can be made with copies going both to the consumer and the seller.

Furthermore, a buyer can safely enter credit card information for the purchase of books. When in their shopping cart, buyers can still elect not to order a book or can just leave a book in their shopping cart for later purchase. If a book in someone’s shopping cart is sold to someone else and removed from the database by the dealer, that book will automatically be marked as previously sold in the buyer’s shopping cart.

Book sellers will only have access to a customer’s credit card information when they process the order. Once the seller has marked the order completed, the customer’s credit card information is no longer available to the seller.

Both the basic search and the advanced search will continue to be refined. A new program that will improve the searches immeasurably is not yet available to the public; however, the BiblioDirect.com programmers will be among the first to avail themselves of this new technology which is coming any day. Our programmers are on the cutting edge of all current technological advances that will continue to make the site bigger and better.

Bibliophile Books, Inc. also promised an advertising campaign. It has already started with some on-line advertising on the major search engines, a banner ad on the Book Hunter Press site, and ads in the programs of various major book fairs. In addition, there will be ads in scholarly publications (both print and on-line) and in the more widely read book-related publications.

BiblioDirect.com will continue to be refined and improved in the days and months ahead. We now vow never to become complacent, but continue to be aggressive for the dealers who elect to list their books on our site.

We want to thank the dealers who placed their confidence in us when the site was still in the planning stages, and we promise to continue to earn that trust. For dealers who want to consider joining the BiblioDirect community, dealer information and a dealer application is available at http://www.BiblioDirect.com.