Table of Contents Email the editor

This has been a difficult issue to get out—troubling times in the world, friends and various article writers ill and a few (to me, anyway) overwhelming projects in my own life—but we made it, and I think we've got an interesting and varied cornucopia of articles for you.

By the way, we're always looking for new writers so feel free to contact me at editor@ioba.org or aaabooks@azalea.net about ideas you'd like to develop into articles. We're always happy to get opinion items on any side of whatever issues affect our book world. My only criterion is that the items be well-written and well thought out... and not libelous.

Hope you enjoy this issue, perhaps learn something new or just get a giggle or two. And I have my fingers crossed for a prosperous and healthy summer for all of the book world inhabitants (and their critters)!

Shirley Bryant

Call for replacement

When the fall, 2003 issue goes live some time in November, I'll have been editor for 2-1/2 years and will have put out 10 issues of The IOBA Standard.

It has been great fun, and I've enjoyed very much helping it grow and watching it take on a life of its own. I hope it has been something good for the book world, and that it has helped educate and entertain.

But…that fall, 2003 issue will be my last as editor. To keep The IOBA Standard fresh, improving and growing in new directions, a new brain with unimagined-by-me ideas will be needed.

IOBA is, of course, an excellent “parent” for the newsletter and a wonderful and needed organization for the book world. I will remain an IOBA member—I fully believe in and support the organization. Deanna Ramsay is without peer—she is a computer guru deluxe, and there could be no one better for The Standard's editor to work with. Routines have been set up, and more are on the way to make the editor's life easier.

I'm hoping that among you readers there is an editor lurking, just waiting to take over The Standard and build it in exciting new ways. I'd love to slowly phase myself out over the next two 2003 issues with your help so that there would be a smooth transition in 2004 (first 2004 issue due in February).

Please contact me at aaabooks@azalea.net or editor@ioba.org, or contact Julie Fauble, IOBA's president, at books@centurybooks.com, or Deanna Ramsay, IOBA's webmaster, at deanna@ramsaybooks.com, if you're interested in the job so we can talk about it.

I can assure you that you'd enjoy it. Maybe I'm prejudiced, but I think you'd be doing something good for your fellow book people.

Shirley Bryant, Editor

By: Erwin H. Bush

erwin@erwinbush.com

Over the last few years the ISBN has become a lot more important to many, if not most, online booksellers. Many of the larger sites are using ISBN lookups to match a bookseller's listing to information about that title pulled from an ISBN database. When it works, it's a quick and efficient way to provide additional information about a book to supplement the bookseller's listing or free the bookseller from having to enter that information themselves. However, often it results in matches to information about a different edition of the book or, in some cases, matches with a completely different title than the one being listed.

Many booksellers are understandably frustrated by this, and many are questioning the need and/or feasibility of an ISBN lookup function. But there is a method to the madness, even though in it's current state it often does more harm than good. This article will examine how and when an ISBN lookup can be useful along with the pitfalls of using it today.

Buying Books Online

The market for used books had never been a homogeneous one. There have always been several different kinds of used books being sold for different reasons, from rare books sold to collectors to common mass market paperbacks sold to readers on a budget. There have also been different kinds of booksellers, from Antiquarian sellers who issued catalogues and whose store was open "by appointment only" to your local paperback exchange. No one would have expected these disparate sellers to use the same methods to sell their very different wares.

That seemed to change with the onset of online bookselling. In the beginning online bookselling was used in a way similar to the paper catalogue, with a limited but highly targeted audience. It operated in many ways like a giant catalogue of books from multiple booksellers that could be searched. But then the more general used books sites began to appear: Bibliofind and the Advanced Book Exchange appeared; Interloc morphed into Alibris; Half.com and Ebay arose and eventually merged. And there was Amazon.com…

Amazon.com changed the nature of used bookselling. As one of the first online merchandisers (and arguably the most successful, at least in terms of volume) they tapped a large new audience for used books. Originally all they did was take "want" requests and then tried to find copies by using one of the dedicated used book sites. But they quickly realized that this was a large and relatively untapped market and they decided to aggressively go after this business themselves. They, along with Ebay/Half.com, have turned used bookselling into a commodity business.

Or at least a part of used bookselling.

Used Books as Commodities

Before the Internet it was difficult for a customer to find most out of print books. It wasn't because there weren't a lot of them out there, it was because these books were "hidden" on the shelves of thousands of used bookstores. If it wasn't available in the handful of stores close to you then it might as well not exist. There were a lot of books, but limited accessibility.

Online bookselling changed that. With places like Bibliofind and Abebooks a customer could "search the shelves" of bookstores all across the country (and the world.) Availability opened up. But the customer base was still relatively small and primarily focused on the collector who was used to searching for books. When Amazon.com started to promote used book sales along with their new books they brought a lot of new customers to the used book market. Now you had a lot of common used books, ready accessibility online, and a large customer base who wants them. Used bookselling became a commodity market. The problem is that this only applied to a part of the used book market; the one traditionally served by the paperback book exchanges and booksellers of that kind. Readers on a budget looking for non-collectible copies of common titles. These customers are much more interested in the content and price of a book than they are of some other criteria commonly looked for by collectors, such as edition and condition.

So we have a large market and a lot of books to sell them. Now the challenge is how to get these books listed online in the easiest (and cheapest) way. It takes time (and therefore money) to create a listing for a book. Although there are a lot of these common titles out there, they aren't coming from one or two sources; there are hundreds of booksellers each listing one or two copies. Commodity selling requires low overhead costs; the profit on any one copy of a commodity book is small. The profit is in selling lots of them. But since any one dealer has, at best, a handful of copies, the overhead for each bookseller to create their own online listing is high. How can this be reduced?

The Good

Okay, you saw this coming; the answer that has been proposed is ISBN lookup. Most of these common titles are relatively recent releases and have ISBN numbers assigned to them. Bowker (and their International equivalents) have databases of these numbers with information about these books that was provided by the publisher when the numbers were issued. The ISBN number for a book can be used to pull up a lot of details about it; this information can be used to populate an online database. The overhead for the bookseller decreases dramatically.

The Bad

Unfortunately this approach is not without its drawbacks. There are some additional criteria for used books that aren't found in the ISBN database:

• Condition - used books can be anything from "as new/unread" to "well worn." Even for common, non-collectable books some gross indication of condition is necessary.

• First Printing - there is a large collector market for First Edition, First Printing copies of modern books. Although the ISBN can be used to indicate the edition (all new editions require a different ISBN number) it does not differentiate between printings.

• Multiple Editions - in addition to being reprinted, common titles often have multiple editions (and therefore multiple ISBNs.) Sometimes these are indicative of different formats (hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback) but sometimes there can be multiple editions in the same format. When a particular title has multiple editions (and therefore multiple ISBNs) they can often be easily confused for each other.

Some of these issues can be easily addressed. When dealing with common books a simple statement of condition (Fine, Very Good, Good) is probably sufficient. First Editions can be similarly identified (understanding that with a collectable book you also need to go into much more detail as to the condition.) Multiple editions can be more challenging, although the format (hardcover, mass market paperback, etc.) will often be a differentiator between different ISBNs for the same title. The good news about these kinds of problems is that they can be addressed by the listing services or by the booksellers themselves. Proper use of the ISBN is something the bookselling marketplace can control.

The Ugly

But there are some real nasty problems; those created by the listing services and/or booksellers in assigning ISBNs to a listing and those that exist within the ISBN system itself.

Problems with assigning ISBNs are mostly a result of trying to link an existing entry for a book with an ISBN number. As previously noted many common titles have more than one ISBN associated with them. Booksellers have spent a lot of time creating their book entries and are generally not willing to throw all that work away and start fresh using ISBNs lookups. Since the ISBN is often not noted in older listings, attempts have been made to use the title, author and/or format to assign a number to them. Unfortunately, these attempts often fail, with the result of incorrect ISBNs being assigned to a listing. This in turn angers customers when the book that they receive doesn't match the online description.

This problem is aggravated when the information in the ISBN database is itself faulty. Back in the early days of ISBNs there were a lot of opportunities for error. I can use my own experience here as an example.

Back in the late 1970's while still in college I started a small press, The Burning Bush Press, to publish some fiction by a friend of mine, Mark E. Rogers. Although the editions were small and the publisher was a poor undergraduate student, I made an attempt to do it "right." That meant registering the copyright with the Library of Congress and getting an ISBN from Bowker. (I'll admit that the only reason I bothered with the ISBN was that I wanted to get our books listed in Books in Print; I didn't get around to doing this until my third and final title.) I filled out the appropriate paperwork and was assigned a publisher's identifier and given forms to fill out in order to submit my titles.

Assignment of the title identifier was left entirely up to me. And adding this title to the growing list of assigned ISBNs was a manual process; I filled out and mailed the form to Bowker, and someone on their end had to enter the data into their "system." The first (and only) book I submitted was a short play-parody, Waiting for Gomot by Officer Joe Beckett (as transcribed from the original crayon by Mark E. Rogers,) ISBN: 0-937528-01-3. Essentially it was the Three Stooges doing Waiting for Godot. A silly piece that had only been performed once, on May 16^th, 1976 at the University of Delaware with an accompanying electronic music score by John J. Adams.

You can probably guess what happened. Bowker managed to screw up the listing, showing it as Waiting for Godot. For several years I received orders from teachers wanting copies for a class (at $2 ours were cheap.) Add to this another little problem; if you looked up "Burning Bush" in the Publisher index I was the only one listing. However, there was a Burning Bush imprint used by The United Synagogue Book Services. As a result I would get an occasional order for books about Jewish Dietary Laws.

These are the kinds of things that happened when you had a manual system of entering data. Add to this the potential problems created when the assignment of the title identifier was left solely to the publisher (if I hadn't submitted the paperwork Bowker wouldn't know that a title identifier had been used). These allowed for both errors on the transcription side by Bowker and errors on the assignment side by the publisher. Also, as the number of titles grew the larger publishers began to run out of numbers. This meant they had to get a new publisher identifier; unfortunately some chose to reuse numbers instead. This problem was magnified by all of the mergers and takeovers that occurred in the publishing industry over the last 25 years; often the publishers themselves lost track of what ISBNs they had already used.

Today these problems aren't quite so severe. Computerized databases and submissions have helped, and Bowker now issues title numbers to publishers in groups of five. This makes it easier for them (and the publisher) to track which numbers have been used, helping to prevent the issuance of duplicate numbers. This also helps to minimize transcription errors, although good copyediting on the part of the publisher is still required when submitting information. But the damage has already been done.

The Situation Today

There is a need for a simple and straightforward way of entering information about common, commodity books for online listing. One more focused on the content of a book than with details about a specific copy. The ISBN is a likely source for such information; however as had been noted above, this approach has a lot of pitfalls today. Changes are needed before the ISBN can be used successfully to list and sell commodity books.

And these are coming. New standards are emerging in the new book world that will help. In a future article I'll talk about these new standards, what they'll mean to online book community, and some proposals as to how they can be successfully implemented by the online book community.

Different Times,
Different Climes,
Different Crimes!

This review includes a trio of books that differ greatly, even in the broad genre of mystery novels. Settings and periods range from Vienna at the in 1910 and Melbourne, Australia in the 1980s to Washington D.C. in 2000. The protagonists differ drastically too, almost as much as the authors of the books. One thing the writers do have in common: this is the first novel for each of them

Another is that none of the three have made it big since they appeared a couple of years ago, though each is worth reading for different reasons: The Fig Eater, for its appeal to those who like historical and period mysteries; The Brush-Off, because of its engaging, offbeat principal, Murray Whelan; and Run, because of the frightening picture it paints of a dark side of our society, the illegal gun trade.

The Fig Eater by Jody Shields features Erszébet, wife of the Inspector, obsessed with solving a crime her husband is investigating. Author Ms. Shields is a Renaissance woman. She was design editor of the New York Times Magazine and an editor at Vogue and Home and Garden, wrote two non-fiction books and several screen plays, has a master's degree in art. Her prints are in several collections, including the Museum of Modern Art.

In the The Brush-Off, Shane Maloney introduces us to Murray Whelan, political aide to Australia's newly-appointed culture minister. Maloney has been a newspaper columnist, lifeguard and director of the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Run comes from the keyboard of Douglas E. Winter, a Washington, D.C. attorney, a member of the National Book Critics Circle and editor of Prime Evil, a best-selling anthology of horror and suspense fiction.

The Fig Eater, by Jody Shields; Little Brown & Co.; $23.95 - This is a mystery with historical novel overtones, stressing the cerebral more than physical action. It opens with the Inspector (as he is referred to throughout the book), his assistant and crew of technicians studying the crime scene in a park where the corpse of a young woman has been discovered.

The body lies in a secluded area of the Volksgarten, not far from Vienna's notorious Spittleberg District. We learn that the victim's name is Dora and that she is the daughter of a respectable bourgeois family. The inspector, a pioneer in rationalist criminology, embarks on his investigation with his assistant Franz. They follow the latest scientific methods, including careful assembly of forensic evidence.

Jody Shields

Meanwhile his wife Erszébet, not Viennese but Hungarian and steeped in Gypsy lore and superstition, becomes interested and launches her own secret, parallel investigation. She enlists the aid of Wally, a young English nanny for a wealthy Vienna family. They find an ally in Egon, a freelance photographer often used by the police to take crime scene photos.

The Inspector pays little attention to portions of fresh figs found in Dora's stomach during the autopsy. Apparently she ate them shortly before she died because large pieces were undigested. To Erszébet, however, the figs are a vital clue, and they help her solve the crime.

The Brush-Off, by Shane Maloney; Arcade Publishing, $23.95 - This one fits somewhere between the cerebral quality of The Fig Eater and slam-bang violence of Run. Murray Whelan, advisor to the newly-appointed Minister of Art and Culture for the state of Victoria in Australia, runs into problems not normally expected in the art world.

These problems include two murders, art forgeries on a grand scale and financial shenanigans that threaten the political survival of Murray and his boss.

It all starts during a reception at the Center for Modern Art in Melbourne, where Murray meets the lovely, playful Salina, an art magazine editor, and has high hopes that a romantic interlude will follow. Instead, a young artist turns up dead in an ornamental pool, and turns out to be Salina's fiance. So much for romance!

Shane Maloney

And was the death suicide or murder? Whelan has to become a “reluctant detective” to fend off fall-out from threatening his job. He proves to be remarkably effective at it, despite having to entertain his young son at the same time. (He is divorced and his wife moved away, so 10-year-old Redmond's visits are rare.)

Maloney writes with humor as he deftly weaves a plot line that moves his hero from misadventure to misadventure. There is a hint of Robert Crais' Elvis Cole in Whelan, though without the bravura and underlying hard edge—and there are times when Murray could use a partner like Joe Pike, Cole's formidable, enigmatic sidekick.

I enjoyed this book a lot, and am anxious to read Maloney's second and third Murray Whelan books: Nice Try and Stiff, which is a prequel to The Brush-Off.

Run, Alfred A. Knopf, $23.00 - With the Million Mom anti-gun march hot news as this is written, it seems appropriate to review Run, a book that gives us a look at the seamier side of the gun industry. Though fiction, it rips the lid off the culture of guns, violence and the greed that sustains it in very convincing fashion.

Run is bloody and violent in the extreme ... but, if widely read, might do more for the anti-gun movement than a half-dozen marches.

The protagonist, Burdon Lane, is no hero. “I'm not one of the good guys,” he tells us up front. His business card lists him as Executive VP of UniArms, Alexandria, Virginia He is in fact a gun-runner, a “good soldier,” his boss calls him. On the job, he carries two Glock 19 pistols and a duffel bag loaded with a Mossberg shotgun and assorted ammunition. An excellent marksman and arms expert, Lane makes illegal gun runs, often up the “Iron Highway,” “from the Dirty City” (D.C.) to Manhattan. Gun-runners call it that because so many guns (“iron”) follow the route north.

Douglas E. Winter

Lane has misgivings about his latest run from the start. It involves delivering a large shipment of guns to a powerful New York gang of African Americans (the “N” word appears frequently) with the help of the U Street Crew (USC), which rules a black D.C. ghetto. “Don't worry,” he is told, “it will be a milk run.” It proves anything but! Nothing is as it seems and many of the characters are not what they first appear to be. The delivery ends in the assassination of a popular black civil rights leader and a blood bath in which members from both gangs are slaughtered.

Lane lands in the middle of a wheels-within-wheels conspiracy of major proportions. It involves shadowy figures from both government and the arms industry. His partner, Renny Two-Hands, is killed and Lane himself escapes death narrowly. He partners with Jinx, a USC gangsta, and they set out for revenge. Climax is a mild term for what follows: a firefight in a cathedral, during a wedding! The body count soars but Lane, though wounded, survives.

Run is one of the most powerful, disturbing novels I've read in years. Although destined to be lumped in the “Mystery” genre, it is more than that: a mirror reflecting some of the sordid facts of life that plague our society today.

The Independent Online Booksellers Association promotes high standards of professionalism in the fast-changing world of online bookselling, and provides educational and business benefits to its dynamic and growing membership.

Annual dues are just $60. But new members are invited to join IOBA now, and receive full membership through June of 2004. Please visit the website at http://www.ioba.org for more information and a membership application.

Tom, is BookWriter Web being used successfully by dealers as you hoped?

Yes, sales are good and the program is doing its job well. I think the nicest compliment I received was from a dealer who was also an Interloc subscriber years ago. She called me up and thanked me for creating BwWeb. She said: "It's just like the old days. I get a message from someone wanting to buy a book. I write back and sometimes they call back and we have a nice chat. I sell a book and get a new customer -- and I don't have to pay anything to anyone!"

That's encouraging! What kind of results are dealers experiencing overall?

Overall it's been very good, but some unexpected things have happened too. For example, one dealer used BwWeb to compose his entire stock of some 45,000 books and prints into web pages, 5 per page, and we then did a Google site submission for him after he uploaded the pages.

A couple of weeks later, he called and demanded to know how he could get his listings REMOVED from Google, because he was overwhelmed with orders! I told him he could remove his own pages easily, but as far as Google went, I had no idea how to pull listings from their cache, and I didn't even know if it was possible. Boy, was he angry! He accused me of creating a monster, told me that I didn't know what I was doing, complained he had to go out and spend money and hire people, he was going to miss his vacation, and basically said I had ruined his life.

I take it he wasn't prepared to handle the order volume.

That's an understatement -- not by a long shot. He had been selling 3-5 books a day on-line through listing services like ABE, a comfortable and manageable number for a Mom & Pop shop. But when that number hit over 100 orders a day, his blood pressure shot up correspondingly. If he's reading this, Sir, I'm sorry, but that's how it goes sometimes. There are many things over which I have no control.

Do all dealers who use your program experience these kind of results?

No, certainly not -- this was an anomaly. The average results are pretty much what you'd expect: Some dealers get a few orders, some do reasonably well with sustained order volume, some do very well all at once, and a few, like this gentleman, do unbelievably well. This dealer happened to have really distinctive books that were priced well, beautifully described, and as it turned out, were in demand.

What kind of books is he selling?

All kinds, I think. For example, he said he sold a 1st/1st Madonna's Sex for $425 to a gentleman in the UK who bought it for his wife's Madonna memorabilia collection. Out of curiosity, I checked around a bit and found that price is about in the middle of the range for that particular book. But, it also appears that most of them are languishing in the listing service databases. None of the ones I looked at are appearing in Google search results, though there may be some way further down in the results list. I believe most of the people who actually want to buy this book have no idea the copies in the ABE database are there.

Personally I think it's odd that ABE has decided to tout the fact that they consider themselves "the best kept secret on the Internet" or words to that effect. "List your books with us because no one knows we exist???" What's that all about?

What do you think is the reason for the variation in results among dealers using BwWeb?

I think it mainly due to how distinctive the books are, how fairly they're priced, and how well they're described -- you know, the things that have always mattered. Most dealers see a slow, steady increase in orders coming from out of the blue as they get more records listed on their sites. The dealer I just mentioned was an exception. In retrospect, given the number of books he posted in his site, I probably should have warned him, but then again I don't have a crystal ball either.

But we're talking mainstream retail here, and no one can predict what will happen. Remember, it's a World-Wide Web, after all. Only a handful of people have ever heard of sites like ABE. When you sell a book to an ABE customer, you're selling that book to a person belonging to a small minority of the total buying public, the ones who know enough to "go" there in the first place. Most don't know, and don't care to know.

This seems to fly in the face of common knowledge among booksellers. Are you saying most people don't know how to use their computers to find web sites?

That's exactly what I'm saying. The steps required to enter a URL in a browser's address box are mysterious to most people. In some computers, the address box doesn't even appear in the browser by default. And, most people who want to buy something could care less about web sites as such.

The vast majority of people who want to buy something over the Internet type what they want to buy into a search engine, like Google. There's even a Google search box appearing now in the standard version of Internet Explorer. THAT's what people use to find things. Where they end up is mostly a matter of chance.

But, if your books don't appear in the search results, there's very little chance the customer will find them -- how could they?

Is this due to a lack of skill on the part of the average computer user?

Despite all the hoopla and hype, we're still in the pioneering stages of the computer and information revolution. If the dot-com boom and bust taught us anything, it's the same old saw: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

The level of sophistication among the average home computer user is still very low. Not many people "go" anywhere as such, because they simply don't know how. I know, it's hard to believe, but it's true. Some customers are savvy enough to type a URL into the browser's address line, but they'll usually go to Amazon, because that's the company they've heard of. For the most part, the rest don't exist as far as they're concerned. Ask most people what Internet companies they've heard of, and they'll probably name two: Amazon and eBay. Beyond these, the rest are just a blur.

But -- and this is the really important point -- for the average bookseller, big or small, promoting a business as such does little to sell books. The only people who care about a business are in-house, and their view of reality is distorted. Real people want what they want, and they want it now! If a dealer's books aren't showing up in search results, they're just spinning their wheels trying to promote themselves.

Why do some pages show up in search results and other don't?

Believe it or not, the majority of web pages I've looked at, particularly those done in Microsoft Front Page and DreamWeaver, are not coded correctly. Microsoft is the main offender when it comes to violating the HTML specification. Many pages aren't indexed in search engines because they violate some basic rules of the HTML spec, or they've offended the page ranking system in some way through spamming or omissions. I know what spiders look for and I've coded BwWeb to produce web pages that search engine spiders just LOVE to index. They slurp them up like a bear eating honey.

But even more fundamentally, most dealers have their on-line records in Microsoft ODBC databases, which effectively hides their records from search engines. Very few databases are indexed by search engines! And, even if they were, the computer cannot differentiate the information properly to create a meaningful abstract. Remember, computers still can't read and interpret information in context. Relevance is extremely important to page ranking systems.

So, for a dealer who has a web site now, but has their books in an on-line database, you're saying their books aren't showing up in Google search results?

Generally, that's true. Any dealer can find out very easily. All they have to do is type the title of one of their distinctive books into a Google search and look at the results. Chances are good their book won't be listed at all. That's why BwWeb is so important -- it not only gets their books listed, it places them in the top results by satisfying all of the criteria of the search engine's page ranking system.

Can you give an example of books that show up and books that don't?

Sure, I'll use the example I have in the BwWeb site: Let's pretend you want to buy a copy of Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay. Go to the ABE.com site and type the title in their search box. You'll find about 20 or so.

Now go to Google and type the same thing. You'll find my mother's book listed as #1 out of nearly 5,000 hits. Not only that, you'll only find a couple of others listed. None of the ABE copies show up. You can do the same thing for any book.

What about Froogle? Isn't that supposed to fix the database indexing problem?

No. Froogle is another vast electronic mall, and like any other web site, you have to know enough to "go" there to find what you want. And, there are other problems with Froogle. For example, every record you send them must have a URL associated with it, which means your record must already "be" somewhere else. Froogle will not close a sale for you.

If you do the same test with Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay by performing a Froogle exact match search, and then do the same thing on Google, you'll immediately notice one of the books listed in Froogle by a dealer linked to the TomFolio database is suddenly missing from the Google search results. That's because the record was uploaded to Froogle, not spidered from a TomFolio static web page. To get the same results in the main Google index and achieve top rankings, you have to have web pages that meet their page ranking requirements. That's what BwWeb produces.

So, BwWeb composes web pages that insure a presence in the main Google search engine?

Correct. A significant presence. And it composes the pages automatically. To compose ten thousand pages, you select a layout, match up your book record fields, and click on the Start button. That's it. When you upload the pages to your web site and submit the site to Google, you're done.

One of the reasons TIAS.com does so well is that they were savvy enough to create a "live feed" into the Google system. I have great respect for Phil Davies (CEO of Tias.com) and the people he works with. They are a top-shelf, class act and I recommend them without hesitation, especially for dealers who sell antiques and collectibles as well as books.

But, TIAS also charges for transactions and services. As a general rule, book dealers need to look closely at all of their hidden costs before committing to any sales venue that imposes commissions and monthly fees. "Everybody's doing it" is not a meaningful rationalization.

Does this work for other things besides books and collectibles?

Oh boy, it sure does! I can give you a good example here: Back in January, I set up a very simple web site for a well-known forensic specialist who wanted to gain some exposure. I did some test searches beforehand and got about 15,000 hits for "Forensic Consulting Specialists." I then used BwWeb to compose his final pages, and submitted the site to Google.

About 7-10 days later, I did another test search for "Forensic Consulting Specialists" and lo and behold: His site was ranked #1 out of nearly 15,000 hits! It still is. That experience told me the premises upon which my software was based were sound, and could be applied across the board to any product or service.

What's the main advantage of putting our book records into web pages?

Many, many advantages, but aside from the utter simplicity of it all and the world-wide exposure your books will receive, the real practical advantage is the savings of all the "hidden" costs of doing business. Remember: there are no middlemen in this scenario. The customer finds your books and buys them from you directly. It's what I call a "Direct Find/Buy Relationship." I personally think it's the best way to do business. There are no commissions, no fees, no markups -- none of that.

It's also a way to regain true independence from middlemen. That's why I was so keen to get this out the door and start presenting it to dealers. It seemed like the right product at the right time.

What does it actually cost to do this?

Aside from the one-time cost of BwWeb, the only on-going cost is the web site itself, and that all depends on how much storage space you buy. Remember, a web site is nothing more than a directory on someone's disk drive connected to the Internet through a server.

These days, the average hosting site charges less than $10.00 a month for 250 MB of storage space, or more. Competition is fierce among hosting companies and this has really driven prices down. Some BwWeb users have set up sites on some of the free servers out there, but I'm not yet convinced doing this is a good idea.

Can non-technical dealers do their own site setup?

Yes, most can, it's pretty easy. But for those who don't know how or who don't want to be bothered or spend the time learning how, I've worked out a good arrangement with a company called Site Flite (http://www.siteflite.com/ ). They will do all the busy work for a dealer: They'll set up the web site, register a domain name, perform the site submission, etc. Their rates are reasonable and it's a one-time cost. They'll even design a layout and compose and upload your pages for you on an on-going basis, if that's what you want. They're the only company who has satisfied all of my criteria. I've been really pleased with their performance so far.

What about the dealer's home page? How do BwWeb's pages integrate into it?

They don't. BwWeb's pages exist as independent, static entities. If the dealer already has a home page, then all that needs to happen is that a link to the home page gets automatically placed on every page BwWeb composes, and a corresponding link to the BwWeb pages gets placed on the home page. BwWeb has link generators that will do this automatically.

But -- if a dealer doesn't have a home page, guess what? None is needed! This may seem to defy common sense, but I must stress again: It's not about the dealer or their business. No one cares. The only thing a customer wants is the book he/she wants to buy. The pages BwWeb composes containing the dealer's book records take care of that very nicely. Not surprisingly, people will go to the pages that contain the book records in which they're interested, not to a home page that talks about someone's business.

What about images? Does BwWeb handle these as well?

Indeed it does. It will read images and integrate them perfectly within each composed page. You can control the layout, the number of images, their size, alignment and other variables.

What about shopping cart and payment systems? Can BwWeb handle these as well?

Yes, it can. Using such systems amounts to adding a small piece of HTML to BwWeb, which the payment company provides. You simply paste this into the BwWeb setup and the rest is automatic. You can use PayPal or a credit card processing system through a merchant account with VeriSign or whoever you choose to use.

You can even add multiple choices, as I did with BwWeb's own web site -- it allows you to pay by credit card, by PayPal, or send e-mail to us directly or just mail a check. I've helped a lot of dealers set up this "mysterious" aspect of their web pages and, like anything else, once you've done it, you don't even think about it anymore.

What database programs will BwWeb work with?

It reads any standard Microsoft Access database, which means it works with HomeBase and most other programs like it using standard, off-the-shelf database engines. It also reads BookMaster, Record Manager, and BookMate databases directly. It will also work with a simple tab-delimited or UIEE file, so there's very little it won't work with. There is no import/export process required.

Can you create more than one layout?

You can create an infinite number of them. The program automatically remembers everything that was done last, so you never lose your settings. I also designed the program so that users can exchange setup files with one another. I know of two dealers who are doing this as they decided to work collaboratively on a common site containing both of their books.

Why aren't more dealers using your software?

It's an interesting conundrum. When a dealer puts their first batch of composed web pages up on their site and their books get indexed by Google and they start making sales, their first reaction is NOT to go tell the dealer across the street all about it. When you get sales and you don't have to pay any listing fees or commissions to get them, that's a real competitive advantage. There have been a number of passing references to BwWeb here and there, but by and large, dealers are just quietly selling books and not trumpeting the fact to their peers. And, in retrospect I suppose that's not a surprise either.

I should also mention: I'm not recommending that dealers should do this INSTEAD of using listing services -- I'm suggesting that they should do it IN ADDITION TO using listing services. Dealers should use every resource they have to sell books, and abandoning a source of revenue is never a good idea, unless it's just not cost or time effective.

BwWeb creates a viable alternative. It creates a direct means of selling books to the general, world-wide public, not just the few collectors or OP aficionados who know sites like ABE even exist. This is what commercialization of the Internet was ultimately intended to accomplish -- the ability for a consumer to directly find and buy what they want.

What do you see for the near future with respect to BwWeb?

Booksellers have been good to me, and I love working with them. I've been fortunate enough to be involved with a group of honest, intelligent and hard-working people, for whom I have a lot of warm feelings. But business conditions in the trade are grim right now. I'm concerned about some dealers' ability to survive at all.

It's fine to be a bookseller because you love books, or you like the community, or you enjoy providing reading treasures to people. But when a business is in trouble and finds itself in survival mode, it's suddenly all about sales -- nothing else matters.

I created BookWriter Web because it really can get books in front of buyers. It can help dealers achieve independence from listing services. It can get around the penny-seller problem. It can help dealers re-create the customer bases they had years ago. In short, I think it has the potential to do a lot of good for a group I think deserves a significant boost.

I've had numerous conversations with dealers in the past few weeks and most tell me the same, sad story: business is lousy, and a lot of it is due to screw-ups on the part of the listing services, including Amazon. So, I've extended the sale deadline for BwWeb to May 31st, just because so many dealers have told me they're short of cash after paying their taxes on April 15th. And, as before, the entire purchase cost will be applied to the complete BookWriter suite when it rolls out.

Tom, thanks very much for this interview. Where can dealers go to find more information?

You're most welcome, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you again! Interested dealers can visit http://www.bookwritersoftware.com. I've added the ability for interested dealers to download the software and try it before they buy it. There are also some sample pages up there so people can get an idea of the range of possibilities the program offers.

From a bookseller's viewpoint, “military books” are usually lumped together as a subset of the history section. But this popular genre has many sub-categories. Among military buffs are those who read biographies of the great leaders; others whose interest is the minutiae of a particular war or even a specific battle; some with an abiding interest in the theory and principles of warfare; a significant number for whom the weapons and equipment of warfare (or of a particular war) holds a fascination; espionage buffs; and a few whose reading tends toward the underlying political and diplomatic issues.

Perhaps the tiniest segment of military readers and collectors are interested in what we'll loosely call anti-war books. But even this tiny specialty can be sub-categorized into fiction, first-person accounts, politico-theological doctrine, and polemics. Anti-war fiction--the antithesis of hero-worship--includes a number of interesting twists. Early works include such short stories as Mark Twain's The War Prayer, and Ambrose Bierce's An Incident at Owl Creek Bridge (arguably two of the finest bits of American short fiction.)

Some may disagree, but I'd put Catch-22, Gardens of Stone, and most of Tim O'Brien's novels into the anti-war category. Going After Cacciato, O'Brien's first novel, demonstrates the mental dissolution felt by many Vietnam combatants, just as Catch-22 chronicles the breakdown of its principal character, Yossarian. But Cacciato lacks Joseph Heller's black humor. O'Brien's characters—in this and his other novels—are mad as hatters, but dead serious.

I find Nicholas Proffitt's Gardens of Stone (1983) intriguing for several reasons. First, because it treats a subject of which I have first-hand knowledge—the activities of a stateside burial squad during the Vietnam War. Second, because it contains one of the most wonderfully foul expressions of male sexual desire outside the works of Henry Miller and his cohorts. In a brief passage one, career soldier describes his fascination with a particular woman thus: “I'd drag my balls over ten miles of broken glass to listen to her pee into a tin cup.” Soldiers, particularly the career types, can be appallingly crude, and as shocking as this passage may sound, it pales in comparison to the level and constancy of verbal crudity that the average soldier experiences.

In Erich Kuby's 1962 novel, The Sitzkrieg of Private Stefan, the title character is a bookseller, drafted into the German army in the second World War. Stefan's obstinate refusal to be assimilated into what Kuby calls the “gray, corporate world of military existence” provides amusement, but ends in tragedy.

Stanislaw Lem, best known for his science-fiction writing, produced The Hospital of the Transfiguration, in which a young Polish physician finds himself escaping the war by serving in a rural mental institution. Like so many such places (at least in fiction), events lead the reader to wonder whether the inmates are crazier than those running the place.

The First World War seems to have been the most fertile ground for anti-war fiction. (This should be no surprise, as the post-war years were the golden age of American writing.)

In The Paths of Glory (1935), Humphrey Cobb writes of three soldiers executed for charges trumped up to save face for a superior officer. The novel does not preach against war so much as it depicts the corruption inherent in such strict hierarchies as the military (in this case, the French army).

Kenneth Reed, writing in 1974, produced Mennonite Soldier, an intriguing tale of two brothers who part politically in the most dramatic possible way during the First World War. One goes to prison as a conscientious objector, even as his brother enlists as an infantryman. Though he inadvertently becomes a war hero, the second brother finds himself shunned by his family as a result. As the dustjacket blurb indicates, this war was a watershed event in the lives of most American Anabaptists.

But the quintessential anti-war novelist is Dalton Trumbo, best known as the author of Johnny Got His Gun. This first-person narrative, set in World War I, consists of the unspoken thoughts of a grievously wounded soldier, who for all practical purposes is unrecognizable, and whose only fully-functional body part is his mind. The narrative is as chilling as a Harlan Ellison tale:

      He had no arms and no legs.
      He threw back his head and started to yell from fright. But he only started because he had no mouth to yell with. He was so surprised at not yelling when he tried that he began to work his jaws like a man who has found something interesting and wants to test it. He was so sure the idea of no mouth was a dream that he could investigate it calmly. He tried to work his jaws and he had no jaws. He tried to run his tongue around the inside of his teeth and over the roof of his mouth as if he were chasing a raspberry seed. But he didn't have any tongue and he hadn't any teeth. There was no roof to his mouth and there was no mouth. He tried to swallow but he couldn't because he had no palate and there weren't any muscles left to swallow with.
      He began to smother and pant. It was as if someone had pushed a mattress over his face and was holding it there. He was breathing hard and fast now but he wasn't really breathing because there wasn't any air passing through his nose. He didn't have a nose. He could feel his chest rise and fall and quiver but not a breath of air was passing through the place where his nose used to be.
      He got a wild panicky eagerness to die to kill himself. He tried to calm his breathing to stop breathing entirely so he would suffocate. He could feel the muscles at the bottom of his throat close tight against the air but the breathing in his chest kept right on. There wasn't any air in his throat to be stopped. His lungs were sucking it in somewhere below his throat.
      He knew now that he was surely dying but he was curious. He didn't want to die until he had found out everything. If a man has no nose and no mouth and no palate and no tongue why it stands to reason he might be shy a few other parts as well. But that was nonsense because a man in that shape would be dead. You couldn't lose that much of yourself and still keep on living. Yet if you knew you had lost them and were thinking about it why then you must be alive because dead men don't think. Dead men aren't curious and he was sick with curiosity so he must not be dead yet
      He began to reach out with the nerves of his face. He began to strain to feel the nothingness that was there. Where his mouth and nose had been there must now be nothing but a hole covered with bandages. He was trying to find out how far up that hole went. He was trying to feel the edges of the hole. He was grasping with the nerves and pores of his face to follow the borders of that hole and see how far up they extended.
      It was like staring into complete darkness with your eyes popping out of your head. It was a process of feeling with his skin of exploring with something that couldn't move where his mind told it to. The nerves and muscles of his face were crawling like snakes toward his forehead.
      The hole began at the base of his throat just below where his jaw should be and went upward in a widening circle. He could feel his skin creeping around the rim of the circle. The hole was getting bigger and bigger. It widened out almost to the base of his ears if he had any and then narrowed again. It ended somewhere above the top of what used to be his nose.
      The hole went too high to have any eyes in it.
      He was blind.
      It was funny how calm he was.

Trumbo, along with other members of the so-called Hollywood Ten, was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in October 1947 as an "unfriendly" witness during its investigation of Communist influence in Hollywood. The others--producers, writers, and directors--included Ring Lardner, Jr. All refused to say whether or not they were Communists, all served prison sentences for contempt, and were blacklisted in the film industry.

Johnny was published in 1939, shortly after the start of World War II in Europe, and was clearly intended as a pacifist polemic. The book was re-released in 1970 as an anti-Vietnam war polemic, with a new introduction, in which Trumbo wrote:

Numbers have dehumanized us. Over breakfast coffee we read of 40,000 American dead in Vietnam. Instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast. Our morning rush through crowded streets is not to cry murder but to hit that trough before somebody else gobbles our share.*** Let us use this same arithmetic for World War I; 9,000,000 dead young men equal 1,350,000,000 pounds of bone and flesh, 27,900,000 pounds of brain matter, 11,250,000 gallons of blood, 414,000,000 years of life that will never be lived, and 22,500,000 children who will never be born. The dry if imposing figure "9,000,000 dead" seems a little less statistical when we view it from this perspective.

In 1971, a movie based upon the novel was released, with Trumbo as the screenwriter. The following year, he wrote the screenplay for F.T.A. [“fuck the army,” for the uninitiated]. This execrable quasi-documentary starred Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and Peter Boyle (among others) as themselves, in a series of street-theatre sketches performed outside military bases in the Pacific Rim. A reviewer in the Internet Movie Database sums up the film tersely: “I would rather watch Congress perform 'Oh, Calcutta' WITH the nude scenes than sit through this mess again.”

Trumbo was primarily a screenwriter. His credits include Kitty Foyle, a controversial Christopher Morley novel of the late 1930s, which included an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and abortion. Others are A Bill of Divorcement; Spartacus; Exodus; the movie adaptation of Bernard Malamud's The Fixer; Roman Holiday; and finally, a television adaptation of Theodora Kroeber's documentary Ishi in Two Worlds.

Roman Holiday earned Trumbo a posthumous Oscar, forty years after its release, and in 1975 he had received an Oscar for The Brave One, another work from the era when he was officially blacklisted in Hollywood, and forced to work under a variety of pseudonyms. (Rather than make up names out of whole cloth, Trumbo managed to convince a few of his non-blacklisted colleagues to lend their own names to his screenplays. Thus the original Oscar for Roman Holiday was awarded to Ian McLellan Hunter.) So, while many anti-war novelists have been one-book wonders, or have written mere variations on the same story, Trumbo wrote copiously, and from any number of political viewpoints. Whether or not you would consider his costume epics to be pro-military films, his anti-war politics did not appear to have colored Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell.

Alas, there is no comprehensive biography of Dalton Trumbo, so we're left to our own conclusions about his personal politics. At least unofficially, he admitted to membership in the Communist Party of the U.S.A., years after his grilling in the HUAC hearings.

Curiously, little if any anti-war fiction has dealt with post-Vietnam warfare, despite the fact that U.S. citizens have been bitterly divided on the justification for the Persian Gulf wars, the war in the Falklands, the ongoing Arab-Israeli and Irish-British conflicts, to name only the most obvious examples. I cannot but wonder whether this stems from lack of artistic inspiration, or fear of reprisals.

Or perhaps there is simply nothing remaining to be said. Trumbo's Johnny concludes with what must be the most poignant possible statement against warfare:

We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.

Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquility in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun.

By: Joyce Godsey

People have been pestering me for years to write a book. I have yet to accomplish this. That is not to say that I haven't written reams of things that could probably fill many books. However, collecting enough singular thoughts or trains of thoughts into a book-sized collection of pages seems beyond me.

No one in their right mind wants to write a book, but EVERYONE I have ever met wants to have written a book; these two things are completely dissimilar. Writing a book is a painful laborious process of putting one word in front of the other and rewriting until your brain bleeds, but having written a book is like a runner's high (or so I am told). Unfortunately you have to work very hard to get high. I am lazy. I don't run; I poke along enjoying the view.

Why do people feel the need to have their name on a book jacket? It can't be just the name on the jacket, hell, gimme PhotoShop 7 and an Epson printer and I can have your mug smirking out from a back flap before you can say "Jackie Collins." But that doesn't seem to be enough. And you can't get by with writing anything else. You can write bits and pieces for magazines and newsletters and even assemble entire issues of magazines, but unless your name is on a real genuine book, it doesn't earn the same appreciation.

There is an entire economy out there revolving around and benefiting from this urge to expose ourselves in public: schools, guides, manuals, magazines, seminars, software. (I have this theory, about reading about how to write being a form of mental masturbation that allows you to think you are actually being productive, when in reality you should be writing--but it's just a theory.)

Whenever you get a published writer in a room full of wannabes you inevitably get questions about the actual process of writing, regardless of the fact that each person has their own unique methods that probably won't work for anyone else. This always amuses me. If you are asking how to write, you aren't one. (I know this because dwelling in the in-between world I get to lurk ambivalently on the sidelines.) Writers write.

I never asked how to be a writer, before I was one, I didn't want or expect to be one, and most days still don't. First you write something here and then you write something there and then someone pays you to do it and sure enough you become addicted to the act of trading words for money. It also doesn't hurt that you never have to make yourself presentable anymore.

Perhaps it is the illusion of immortality? The masses believe their words will live forever once it's bound inside several thousand copies. But booksellers know this is another untruth. How many nothing books by no-name authors do we discard when burrowing through a box looking for just one that might have still retained some value. Too many. More books are written and forgotten within the year than anyone ever remembers.

But still people try and after having plugged away and produced 189 precious pages it starts logging air miles being mailed it to some very busy people in New York. And after it's been rejected by publishing houses that are already busy churning out unreadables that they actually paid money for, the authors can invest their own money into the dreaded 'self-publish' previously known as the 'vanity press.' One of the unspeakables no one ever utters to someone who is full of pride at their investment is the invariable fact that self-published books suck. Even self-published items by authors who became well known are never as good as their later professional works. Doubt me? Go do some research, come back and we'll talk.

Another myth is that writing a book will solve all your financial woes. Trust me, another pipe dream. The average writer in this country, Steven King included, makes 8 G's a year. That's it, 8 G's. If Steven King and Anne Rice are making megabucks, some of us are well, writing for free. This part is true. (I have seen it said only 5 thou but I wanted to be hopeful.) There's a local writer in these parts, by local I mean he lives here, not that he only writes about local matters, who has had 2 books published by Crown in the last 3 years. He and his son still live in his brother's side of a duplex. So much for retiring early.

Regardless, I still walk through Barnes & Noble on a Sunday night, running my fingers across the covers of the new books, and it just reinforces my belief that 90% of them are crap. The covers are great, I mean really great, worlds away from what they were 20 years ago, even 10 years ago. But still they are just delicately molded Easter chocolate; all foil wrapper on the outside and big fat hairy nothing inside. Why do I still feel like a slacker cause my name isn't on one of them?

Joyce Godsey
Sic Magazine
http://home.attbi.com/~gods/sicmagazine/index.html
"J Godsey" gods@attbi.com

In August 2001 the FBI appeared in Arundel Books' Los Angeles store with a US Justice Department subpoena demanding 6-1/2 years of customer records from our entire company. We fought John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller, and the US Government. We won. Two weeks ago I paid off the last of the legal fees, and celebrated by publishing a poetry
magazine (more about that below).

You can read more about this case on-line by searching sites like that of the New York Times, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, etc. (CNN did a special on this, but access is a problem, and Roll Call, the Congressional journal, has a site index I have not mastered).

But if you run a bookstore I will try to give you the stuff you need to know. Disclaimer: I'm a bookstore guy, not a lawyer. But this is what worked for me.

First things first. If you own a bookstore you need a privacy agreement. Here is ours:

Privacy Policy: Arundel Books will NEVER sell, trade, or otherwise disclose ANY information regarding our customers to any person, organization, or government entity, unless fraud is involved.

A privacy policy like this gives you an advantage when dealing with privacy fights. Make sure your staff understands and honors it, and you will find it also protects your confidential business info as well.

Second, do not keep info about your customers, their interests or preferences (yes, the subpoena will ask for this), if it would embarrass your customers. If your customers think that their reading habits will not be private they will not read controversial books (this is called the "chilling effect").

Second: Join or send some money to ABFFE (American Bookseller's Foundation for Free Expression). Trust me, you'll be happy you did, because these are the folks who'll help when you need it. Visit http://www.abffe.com for more info.

If the FBI or officers of any government agency including local police, come to your door:

1. Be respectful and polite. Odds are the people you meet are not the ones who thought this one up. Tell them that you will comply with "any lawful subpoena" (which you will be fighting) but that it will take some time. Be aware: the Feds have served fake 'supoenas' before (in the Tattered Cover case). Make sure your staff knows who (you) is the only person who can handle this stuff.

2. Call your lawyer.

3. Judges do not review subpoenas before they are issued. Federal and local prosecutors frequently over-write them (making them so broad that they are unlawful) figuring that you will negotiate. DON'T NEGOTIATE. The more absurd they are, the easier they are to fight.

4. Call ABFFE, your local ACLU chapter, and Judith Krug at the American Library Association.

5. Draft a press release and send it out. Local, state, and national. Stress universal themes (not your own issues), and how this situation threatens not just Constitutional rights but the liberties and freedoms that are our inheritance from the Founding Fathers by way of the blood, sacrifice and patriotism of our forefathers.

6. Make it politely clear to all the Government types that this is going the distance and that this will NOT be the case that gets them promoted.

7. Be smart, keep your nerve, get the help you need, and WIN.

8. Pay the bills.

And then, when the bills are paid, do something to celebrate. My celebration was to be the guest editor of a Special Issue of "Spread" magazine: the "Democracy" issue.

There's nothing like a little oppression to focus your patriotic commitment to democracy and free speech. I was able to get some Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners to join in: Philip Levine, W. D. Snodgrass, Charles Bukowski (unpublished work courtesy of the estate), Robinson Jeffers (courtesy of the estate), and a long list of others. The cover art is by DeLoss McGraw, whose Alice in Wonderland (Harpercollins), won the 2001 Gold Medal from the New York Society of Illustrators.

$5 mailed gets you one from orders@arundelbooks.com.

You'll notice that I have not mentioned the "USA Patriot Act." The portions that pertain to bookstores have not been reviewed or upheld by a court and, as I personally believe they will be held to be unconstitutional, Arundel Books would act accordingly. Hint.

I believe that this period of difficulty offers all Americans an opportunity to rediscover the history of our great nation, and of the true meaning of the rights and liberties handed down through generations from the Founding Fathers themselves.

And please remember: your First Amendment needs YOU.

Press Release (reprinted)

Spread: The special Democracy issue

Spread: The Monthly Journal of Poetry has just released its Democracy issue, guest edited by Phillip Bevis, and underwritten by Arundel Books of Seattle and Los Angeles.

This special issue of Spread is dedicated to Democracy and to the rich traditions of Liberty and Freedom of Speech which are the birthrights of all Americans. This issue includes celebrated names who have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, or who have been on the cover of Time Magazine, as well as emerging voices who we hope will reach equal fame one day. Authors include: Philip Levine, W.D. Snodgrass, Charles Bukowski, Robinson Jeffers, Jose Montoya, Holly Prado, et.al. Cover art (Alice in Wonderland and the Bombing of Innocence) is by DeLoss McGraw. Local Seattle writers represented include Michael P. Smith, Ira Parnes, Eli Richardson, Lawrence Coffin, Nicole Sarocco, and Harvey Goldner.

The poems in this issue speak passionately of the freedom and rights of the individual, of the blessings and responsibilities of Democracy, and of the pride and heartbreak of being American. Collectively these works offer a tribute to the heritage and traditions of a great nation.

This issue was underwritten by Arundel Books. Arundel Books is one of the few booksellers in America to oppose successfully John Ashcroft's Justice Department during one of its many crude attempts to trample constitutionally-protected rights.

To reach the Guest Editor for comment or information, contact
Phillip Bevis, c/o Arundel Books at (206)624.4442 or mrarundel@arundelbooks.com .

Spread: The Monthly Journal of Poetry was founded in 2000 and is edited and published in Seattle, Washington by Chris Dusterhoff. Contact info:

Spankstra Press P.O. Box 224 Seattle, WA 98111. E-mail to: spankstra@hotmail.com .

Please note: While Spread is free, there is a $3 (or $5 by mail) suggested donation for this issue.

By: Rhett Moran
http://www.bookavenue.com
http://www.gutenbergholdings.com

Where to start?

THE OLD STORE:

Our store was located in the Apollo Plaza, Monticello, Sullivan County's only indoor Mall. It had Sears, Bass Outlet, Fieldcrest-Cannon, Dress Barn, and a number of nationally known stores when we moved in, but was nearly half-empty. We got a great deal with the promise that they would be renovating and gathering new nationally known tenants within a short time. We took a 6000 sq ft space right next to the Bass Outlet. A very busy place. They pulled out the day we opened!!!!

After 2 years of horrible mismanagement, transfers or non-transfer's of ownership we were store 8 left in the Mall. With Sears still there, we were still getting customers. Then the Mall was thrown into litigation for non-payment of a 3.6 million dollar mortgage. So we decided to leave, it was getting crazy, and the maintenance suffered even more than when we opened. We found a store in Middletown, in a secondary Mall, but still a much nicer place, and in an area with 110,000 folks within 10 miles, instead of 70,000 folks in 1000 sq miles. It's 14,000 sq ft on two levels with a downstairs entrance and a mall entrance on the second level, and a big passenger and freight elevator.

Even though we had signed a lease for the new space in December we didn't have the key, awaiting the signing of the lease by the Mall owners. So we were still open in the Apollo. We kept the store open, all of the store owners knowing the Mall was going to be closed but expecting a 15 day advance notice so we could all run a closing down sale.

Not to be. On Jan 13th the Village code enforcement officer (poor fellow died of a heart attack a month later; he was too young, tough job, but he was nice), came into the Mall and told us all that the Mall was being closed to the public at 1 pm on Jan 15th. Not even 2 days notice. While we contemplated going to court over it, we had the key to the new location by then, and decided to just close down on the morning of the 15th and start moving. We did do that, and ordered a couple thousand boxes to be delivered. Our supplier could only deliver 1000, so we had to bring stored boxes of books to the new store, then unload the boxes, and go back with the empties. Had I to do it over again, I might have driven to the Bronx for some boxes from another supplier. Trying to save some bucks, and it worked because the amount of money we paid out for taking the books out of boxes, and breaking them down, was less than buying new boxes would have been. Still I should have paid extra.......

What the code enforcement fellow didn't tell us was all utilities, the water, sewer connection, remaining heat, and everything else was going to be turned off, removed, or stopped on the 15th. So from the 15th on we didn't have electric, bathrooms, etc. 8 stores were still fully stocked, being dismantled, and since we were open for customers just 2 days earlier, we hadn't progressed all that much with boxing our 60,000 books. We had another 50,000 or so boxes in the back storage room in boxes.

It also opened new opportunities for us, as all the shops were rushing to leave, and so we were known as folks who bought fixtures from closing shops, we were inundated with offers. One was a beautiful set of shelves from a shoe store (10,000 sq ft store lots of shelving), who will go nameless, because of something strange that happened later on that I will get to. So we purchased, and we figured out how many trucks it would take to move 6000 boxes 40 miles to our new location.

So first thing we hired the fired Mall maintainance man and his son to dismantle the shelving from the store and reassemble the shelving with new shelving at the new store. We also hired 4 day-laborers to start boxing up the books, with 2 workers from our warehouse. Now the temperature was running between 5 degrees and 25 degrees during these days. All of the mall doors were open to accommodate the use of the generators to provide some sort of lighting and to run the screw guns etc. Ice formed on the inside of the glass, in the store. While Helen and I are a bit older than our workers, we got into it, and while I was making boxes Helen was filling boxes and generally maintaining a highly efficient pace. I was the first one to crack, and I went to the van, ran the engine and put on the heat, and hid out until Helen noticed I was gone. I admit to the fact I cannot work in 5-15 degree temp for any length of time, no matter what I'm wearing or how bundled up I am.

Now comes the fun part. There was no light, no sewer, no water, no working bathrooms. So we were off to the Burger King at regular intervals for bathroom breaks. Some others, working for other stores, sought refuge in empty stores or empty parts of the hall. Which could lead to interesting and not at all pleasant encounters. The amount of work needed to empty shelves in a heated store, with lights, is not as much work as trying to do it with minimal lights and well below freezing.

Since it was so cold, the water had been shut off, but whoever did it forgot that they had a whole lot of pipes in the Mall, and they failed to look at the plans for a 12-inch water main that was clear down at the other end of the Mall. It burst sending a whole lot of water through 6 stores, destroying the complete contents of the Hallmark store, and a couple of closed stores, and the shoes which were ready to be taken into trucks from the shoe store. It did not affect the shelving, as the shoes worked as a dam to the water and the store was several away from the main break. Since they didn't drain the sprinkler system many sprinkler heads burst sending ugly dirty water down on everything. We lost lots of books to black water.

While some stores were out quickly it wasn't so easy for our store. Even so we were the 4th store to leave completely, out of the original 8. To do this--we had 6000+ boxes and tons of shelving--we needed trucks. We started by renting a 24 ft Ryder truck. Helen drives them and has been doing so for years. So we rented one and we had our day laborers fill the first one up, and they didn't entirely follow directions, so they filled it from front to back from top to bottom. WAY over the weight limit. Also, way too much for the nearly flattened tires. So when I noticed the problem, Helen went out in search of another rental truck and rented a 15- footer, which was the only vehicle available in the county. We backed to backed it, and unloaded as much as we could to try to get the tires on both trucks somewhat even. One of the carpenters drove that one, and when we all landed at the new store, he had stories about the wobbling of the truck, and the inability to fully control the vehicle.

After a few more trips, we decided that it would take ages to do it that way, and so rented a 48 ft trailer and agreed to pay for each trip. So the cost was $35 per day rental for the trailer, $250 to drive the fully loaded trailer to the new store, $50 to bring it back empty. We agreed to limit the weight to about 40,000 lbs, which we questimated to be 2000 boxes. It took 4 day-laborers 6 hours to load 2000 boxes, but we had a 40 ft roller conveyer thing as you might see at a supermarket, that we had purchased for $25 from one of the shops that closed the year before, and we have big dollies, and push carts to help us move large quantities of books around, as we normally do when we buy large quantities of books. It took the same guys 7 hours to empty as we were sending up boxes in the elevator to the second floor. Our new store was a furniture store, so it has the largest elevator in the mall rated at 5000 lbs.

So, we'd have the empty trailer at the Apollo when we got there at 9 am, and the workers would load up, and then the trucker would pick it up at night and drive and deliver the loaded trailer to the new store so we could empty it the next day. We did this 5 times.

While all of this was going on, there was not an owner of the mall. It was said to be owned by the Ukechaug Indian Nation, who said they never owned it, and the mortgage was owned by a realty company who said they didn't own it, and a management company who claimed the Indian Nation owned it, said they didn't own it. So it was anarchy in the pure sense. There was a fellow who claimed he worked for one of the groups, mooching around making money by charging the stores to plow to the various entrances to the mall, but not officially hired by anyone at the mall.

Now the carpenters are working on removing the shelving from the shoe store, and everyone knows we purchased the shelving from the shoe company in December, and it was by this time nearly February. So we loaded the last 48 footer with the disassembled shelving, and at that point the guy who was hanging around plowing decided that he wanted the shelving and brought a fellow around to look it over and sell it to them, but it was in the trailer. So he comes up to me and says "Do you have a bill of sale for that, because I represent the owners and it's mine." "No we cut a check for the corp, they will send it to us in the mail, and since you say you work for xxx realty and they publicly acknowledge in the newspaper that they don't own the Mall, you have no say, and take a hike." He then goes to Helen and says the same thing, getting Helen upset, and I was sitting in the van and called out "Call the cops, call the cops, call the cops, let's get this fellow in jail today."

She on the other hand happened to have the phone number of the district manager of the shoe company and she told this nasty fellow to call this guy. He comes back an hour later and says, "I talked with the President of the shoe company, and he said this fellow didn't have the authority to sell it and it's mine, so you either pay for it, or take it off the truck." So I start yelling "Did you ever hear of extortion. It's a couple years in prison, and if you start threatening it's 10 years. Helen call the cops, this fellow is going to jail." So he takes off, never to be heard from again. Our check was cashed by the shoe company, and the bill of sale is in our records. Now I'm far from being a lawyer and I might just have been wrong about the legal stuff, but it got rid of him.

THE NEW STORE:

Front entrance of the new store

The new store is in a secondary mall, which means there are two others that have been built and the big stores are not around here. It's kind of a strip mall, except in our building we have three floors, and we have stores on the second level and an entrance from the enclosed hallway. One part looks like a mall, the other looks like a strip mall. It's about 15 years old. It's anchored by a Warehouse Food Store, and contains the following: Blockbuster, Family Dollar, Ground Round, Carvel, Dunkin Donuts, a Discount Movie Theatre (don't know how many screens), Curves, Italian deli, Indian food place, Pizza parlor, Chinese food, 2 banks, gym, insurance, rent a center, hair salon, Department of Motor Vehicles, Indoor Golf place (9000 sq ft-- it's huge), billiard parlor, stamp and coin shop, health food store, discount clothing place, liquor store, and we have the 2nd largest store there at 14,000 sq ft on 2 levels. The third level is mainly offices, such as the Federal Parole Office and other government offices.

Our plan was to demolish the downstairs and make it one level. Because it was a furniture store the downstairs was split into rooms--well 3/4 rooms or 1/2 rooms, on various levels. We were also told by management that we didn't need a c/o for the store which sounded suspicious to us, because whenever you change usage in NY you need a new c/o, except maybe in the City of New York where I think they don't have enough inspectors to go around. So we called the town, and this is again strange, we're located in the Town of Wallkill, but our mailboxes are in Middletown. The line goes down the parking lot in a meandering fashion. It's a real green line, because the local fire departments and police would argue on who had jurisdiction so they painted a line. Well we called the Town and they said we'd need an inspection to list all of the changes we had to make.

First level of the new store

That took a week, which halted almost everything, and the carpenters started new jobs, so we had the shelving in stacks everywhere. Finally the inspector comes and says that we'll have to build handicapped access ramps to cover every step in the place, or at least so that every level is accessible. It must be this pitch, this width, this length, etc, etc. We found we had to build 9 ramps. We had no problem with that, but our carpenters were only able to work 3 days a week, because they had taken on other jobs. Since the son had experience building the ramps for a new building for his church, we stayed with them, and they did a great job. Day before yesterday a wheelchair-bound author came to look at the store, went up and down all the ramps, and approved of them greatly, so we are happy on many levels. He says he has trouble with all of the Mall bookstores, running into sale bins, etc. Our store is fully accessible to those who are physically challenged.

Oh! We decided that breaking down the rooms on the bottom floor and making it one level, would run us about $50,000 and we thought that's a whole hunk of change, so we'll leave the rooms, and not worry about theft.

THE SIGN:

Front of the new store

Normally in a Mall when a store leaves they remove the store sign. Not this place. So we had a furniture store sign on two levels, 78 ft across on two levels, and all black vinyl. The owners of this Mall own 41 other Malls from MA to FL to MO and a number of other states. So they're not some fly-by-night. We have in the lease that we need to get the approval of the Mall owners about the signage. So the Manager doesn't tell us that it has to be a special type of sign, so we planned on using the vinyl across the 78 ft on 2 levels, because it's dramatic. We really try to pay as little as possible for signs and stuff, so we made many sign companies angry with us in negotiations. Well, we submit the sign, and it's not approved. We're told the Mall owners want only raised lettering. I point out that every other store has every sort of sign, and he says that he wants this sort of sign, and while he can't do anything about the others, he can about ours. I read the lease, and while it said we had to submit a design, and we had to get approval, it didn't say we had to have a sign.

Second level of the new store from the elevator

So I point out that we don't need to change the sign, we'll just tell folks it's behind the furniture sign. The mall made an agreement with us to cover 1/2 the cost of the sign. We've been open a month behind the furniture sign, but our new sign went up yesterday. Estimates on the sign came in from $1400-$5400 from companies in this county. We called another sign company 100 miles away and got the same sign for $700 installed.

We've been a-z'ing for the last month, breaking into subjects, etc. At the end, when we were closing the Apollo store, we were completely in the dark, and it wasn't until we moved everything to the new store that we noticed that some folks didn't mark the box by subject and alphabet. So it's been interesting.

Second level of the new store

Helen and I never want to move again. If we ever need to move, we'll leave the books. I'd seriously consider retiring. This move was life threatening. I've just gotten warm over the last month in our new store. I point out to customers that we have heat and three bathrooms, and if they seem to wonder why I've mentioned the number of bathrooms, I really have to explain the Apollo to them and the last days.

While Helen has fond memories of the Apollo, I have nothing but nightmares from the end days.

Editor's Note: I am so bloody jealous I can't stand it. Looking at all those bookshelves and all that space (not to mention all the books) has me in a tizzy. :>)

By: Michael Katzenberg

As I sit here at my desk this third week of April the War in Iraq, or at least the first phase of it, is just about over. Whether Saddam is dead or alive, “regime change” of some sort is happening, whether eventually to the United States' liking or not remains to be seen. Probably like most of us over the last few weeks, I have been consumed by the news of the war and the whole issue of the Patriot Act has faded to the background. War always seems to supersede everything else. But in fact the Patriot Act is very much alive and in the consciousness of many people. In early March, Vermont's own independent congressman and several others introduced The Freedom to Read Protection Act , a resolution that would change several aspects of the current act especially in regards to the right of reading. A number of cites, including Montpelier, have passed resolutions calling for changes and now our State Legislature is considering a resolution as well.

There has been a lot written on the Patriot Act so I am not going to add much here as to the specifics of the Act. However, it should be known that it was passed hastily right after September 11 when the country was reeling from the devastating attacks so that very little debate or thought went into its passage by Congress. The part of it that is truly threatening to bookstores and libraries and their patrons (that is, just about everybody) is Section 215.

Section 215 has a number of pernicious aspects. Unlike a normal subpoena, a bookstore or library cannot object in court. There have been several cases where bookstores were served with a subpoena regarding criminal investigations. When the stores refused to turn over their records of books bought the courts decided in their favor. Kramer Books in Washington, D.C. and The Tattered Cover in Colorado are two famous cases. But under the new Act, the courts are no longer of any help, and a bookstore can be required to turn over records immediately without publicly (or privately) telling anyone. The person whose records are being sought may not be notified and that person does not even have to be suspected of committing a crime. You better watch what you read, in other words.

We were concerned about this at the bookstore. We had the information that the Government would want if it were to approach us and we did not feel comfortable about this. To defy would put us in jeopardy and to comply in turning over records if asked would seem likes a real breach of confidence to our loyal customers. So, on January 23 we purged all our records of customer purchases we had on file through our Readers Club. Our Readers' Club consists of over 3000 members. Our computer system enabled us to not only keep track of the dollar amount of sales but the titles purchased as well. These titles went back a number of years. When we took them out of our system we lost a lot of data. Why would we do that? This was data that could be used potentially for marketing the right books to the right customers. A prevalent buzz phrase in business these days is, “know your customers.” Certainly, destroying these records would not help us know our customers or at least their particular reading habits.

But one thing we do know about our customers is their rightful demand for privacy. The more we learned about the Patriot Act, and particularly Section 215 of it, the more it seemed that this privacy could be put in jeopardy. It has always been a principle of this bookstore and most other bookstores as well to protect this right of confidentiality and to fight against censorship, whether of the outside kind or self-censorship arising out of fear. We did nothing wrong in destroying records ahead of time as there is no law demanding records be kept. However, under the new law we would have no choice but to turn over records and to do it secretly with no recourse to a court of law such as would be the case in a normal subpoena such as I mentioned earlier.

We understand that the threat of terrorism is real but this focus on bookstores and libraries is an ill-conceived notion and not helpful. Think what the acronym means for the USAPATRIOT Act. It stands for “UNITING AND STRENGTHENING AMERICA BY PROVIDING APPROPRIATE TOOLS REQUIRED TO INTERCEPT AND OBSTRUCT TERRORISM.' By calling this law the “Patriot Act” is was sure to resonate in every good American's heart. By being against this, are we being unpatriotic? Does the Patriot Act unite and strengthen America by eroding our very basic civil liberties to read? By making us afraid to read certain things because the Government might just happen to want to check up on us? An educated public does not mean an indoctrinated public. Libraries and bookstores are places where people can attain the means to become better educated and are important pillars of our democracy. Imagine a nation with no free bookstores or libraries.

What are some of these appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism? Unlike before, the FBI can now investigate a citizen even though it does not have to say that the person was connected to a foreign power or involved in a criminal activity. Could a case be built against an individual because he or she was reading material the government might deem offensive or subversive? It seems possible. Under Section 215 librarians and booksellers are prevented from even telling their customers that they are under investigation. In fact, they are compelled to keep quiet about the whole process.

Back to censorship, education, and democracy. If patrons begin to self-censor their library use and bookstore purchases because of fear of government surveillance, then their freedom to access information is limited and we have a less well informed democracy. The right of privacy so implicit in the 1^st and 4^th Amendments of the Constitution is being threatened here. The 4^th Amendment protects from unwarranted searches and seizures and the right of free assembly is guaranteed in the First Amendment. There is no right to privacy unless you have the right to assemble. Protecting the Constitution is generally thought of as keeping the country strong, something the Patriot Act does not do despite its claim to “unite and strengthen.”

Independent bookstores across the country are looking at this issue in many ways. For some, they don't keep records anyway so it is not a problem. For others, their purchase data is important for their customer service and marketing and they cannot afford to do what we have done. I totally respect this decision. Bookstores should not have to purge records. The law should be changed.

Last summer, Senator Leahy questioned the Justice Department about its expanded search of bookstores and libraries under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Leahy wrote, “Do you think that library and bookstore patrons have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the titles of books they have purchased from a bookstore or borrowed from a library?” Assistant Attorney General Daniel J. Bryant wrote back “Any right of privacy possessed by library and bookstore patrons in such information is necessarily and inherently limited since, by the nature of these transactions, the patron is reposing that information in the library or bookstore and assumes the risk that the entity may disclose it to another.” Well, Mr. Bryant has it all wrong. No one assumes that risk. What our patrons assume, in fact, is the exact opposite--confidentiality and their right to read whatever they want without the fear of intrusion by anyone.

The unintended media attention we got from our little action in Montpelier was incredible, as were the many responses from across the country. The AP story ran in hundreds of papers and likewise the television recording apparently played across the country as well. Consequently we received so many positive emails that it became a job just to read them all. People were so grateful to us that it was embarrassing. In one case we received a check for $100 with the simple inscription, “good work.” We turned that over to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. We also received many new book orders from people who no longer wanted to take the risk of ordering from Amazon or the other giants. (One negative email accused us of creating a huge publicity ruse. If only I were so smart.) . What this all showed was that generally people see the Patriot Act for what it is--a threat to the basic civil liberties which Americans across the political spectrum hold so dearly.

BEAR POND BOOKS
77 MAIN STREET
MONTPELIER, VERMONT 05602
http://www.bearpondbooks.com

By: Joe Spoor

It really is an exciting time to be a bookseller. Some may say the golden years are gone, sentimental feelings now setting in for the slow-paced past of primarily brick and mortar (B&M) businesses. But like other points in history, bookselling is simply undergoing its latest transformation. Let us not look at it as a bad thing.

For starters, the advent of online bookselling opened opportunities for sellers to actually interact with customers in parts of the world most have only read about. I can't say I ever expected to spend much time conversing with a citizen of Brazil or Yugoslavia. I never even considered either location as a vacation destination. Instead, the common interest of books has brought me into contact with citizens of approximately 20 different nations on our ever-shrinking planet.

Dealing through the digital world has also allowed us to find books we may never have been able to, and obviously to sell to customers we most likely never would have. More obvious benefits are quicker response through email, often-quicker payments, better communication, and less expensive communication. Plus, we pay less postage and have less paper waste in mailing post card quotes to other sellers!

But what one benefit did I not mention? Interaction with our peers. Not only are we able to have more chance to correspond with colleagues and to discover new colleagues, but we are able to interact on a more frequent basis. As well, "support groups" like email lists allow for the cultivation of budding sellers who may otherwise never have been inspired or able to learn as quickly on their own.

It is necessary for most hard copy publications to adapt to the above changes to stay relevant. Book wants, for sale, news, book-related questions (only to have answers published next issue) are no longer viable for print--kept only for mostly sentimental reasons or to satisfy the last remaining bit of non-technically savvy sellers. The idea of publishing "news" and "books wanted" on a monthly, bimonthly or quarterly basis in the face of instant digital chatter seems mostly pointless. The only real alternative is either to report the news in greater detail (similarly how newspapers have responded to cable news) or to offer a more fundamentally different service altogether.

My tenure overseeing Bookseller Monthly began after many of these industry changes already took place. As a result, I don't look at the publication as a cutting edge source for news. It is provided for sellers and collectors alike to enjoy interest stories at their leisure, when their eyes become strained from the phosphorescent glow of their computer monitors. A format of collective, basic news that might only be found through multiple or obscure online sources. A chance to allow individuals to participate by sending along local news, respond with letters, or enjoy on their schedule, eliminating the artificial rush created by online life. So, no, I don't think of hard copy as a thing of the past. Just as books will be around forever, so will publications about our passion for books.

Discouragingly though, I noticed that advertising has become the primary function over content for many of our so-called primary book-related publications. It seems rather than adapt, many are conceding to the 'net advantage. Not wanting to mention particular names, they seem more like a "yellow pages" than anything of reading interest. Ironically, it seems many non book-related publications continue to have some type of book review or book-related section, sometimes with more content on books than our own industry publications. As well, more and more book-related newsletters are popping up online. A "hats off" to Joyce Godsey for creating Sic. And we see that most, if not all, hard copy publications have web content now.

I am always trying to improve features and to keep Bookseller Monthly from becoming outdated, or at the very least a redundancy to what we can learn instantly online, or from being another "yellow pages." Granted, advertising pays the bills. But I try to keep a good balance of content versus advertising. One thing that I realize though is that the transformation to the new technology is not yet complete. I have never researched the ratio of booksellers that interact online, but from those I have dealt with over the past two years I would have to guess that approximately 60-70% do not deal with online bookselling beyond listing on a paid-for service. A good majority, if asked, would not know what the Bookfinder Insider list is, or the IOBA, or the Bibliophile group. They may list on the Advanced Book Exchange, but often that is where it ends. Therefore, they often do not receive the information regarding current online issues so many 'net savvy sellers do.

But is that a bad thing? Does the new wave of bookselling have to include complete online interaction? Or can the above benefits primarily be achieved simply by listing online and then going back to dusting shelves of paperbacks? Additionally, will we ever see a complete transformation to the 'net for booksellers so that most do get their news online?

It is wonderful to see how things are unfolding. So many times with the growth of technology we hear the doom and gloom of losing tradition and appreciation. I think we are seeing that the worthwhile and good things about this trade continue, and will continue, to advance, prosper and be handed down to future sellers.

I still print "book wants" in Bookseller Monthly, a long time tradition still keeping some post card suppliers in business. To some this is an insane effort considering the efficiency of the Internet as I alluded to above. And I freely advertise monthly book shows to remind everyone that browsing for titles and personal interaction are still enjoyable experiences, even though there are numerous places online to find the same data. But I do feel I publish good enough feature articles worthy of a read in the tub! Now THAT can't be attempted with a computer.

Change keeps us on our toes, having to continually improve what we do. Unless one's desire for sentimentalism helps keep an inefficient system alive out of a sense for history, it will either disappear or stay alive because it serves a useful purpose. I always have to try to think of better ways to keep reader interest, to find unique services to offer. I believe most would never honestly expect to lose hard copy entirely. I, for one, hope to continue to adapt and provide something worthwhile in Bookseller Monthly, if only to serve a small group (even if it is just for those who read in the tub).

A dear friend—one I've never met face to face but have grown to love and trust—will be leaving us soon, as she is in the final stages of an incurable disease. I do not want to wait and do an obituary for Alyce—I want to tell her how I feel about her now, while she is still able to read my words.

I first met Alyce when we were both involved in starting IOBA. But I really started to get to know her when we both were new board members at Book CoOp. Our friendship has grown through emails and the occasional phone call over all the years since to the point where she is one of the few completely trusted and most loved best-friends that I have.

Alyce is my hero. She has fought overwhelming odds health-wise to remain a good and active bookseller, and she has given unselfishly and very generously of her time— to her family where she has served as historian and put out a newsletter , to IOBA where she is on her second term as a hard-working board member, to Book CoOp in its formative period, to the IOBA newsletter where she has contributed many articles and much good advice to its editor, and to the bookseller community at large, where she's never too busy to answer newbies or book buyer questions on email lists, and where she also brings us back down to earth occasionally with her droll wit and clear thinking. She also always makes time to listen to and help with personal problems.

Alyce has truly given her all for books; she has been on oxygen for several years thanks to a water leak near her book storage area and the mold that got into her lungs from it. It never stopped her, though. She has found ways to continue selling and cataloging books, promoting ethics and education for booksellers, and leading an active and full life as a mother to twin sons, a friend to many, and a caretaker for various dogs in her life.

All I can finally say is that our world will be much poorer when Alyce is not with us.

I will miss you, Alyce.

Shirley Bryant

P.S. Alyce died on May 8^th, in the company of her son, Jeff. The above note to her and that from Julie Fauble were sent to her son to read to her, earlier. We have a great hole in our midst.

GERMANTOWN, N.Y.—Alyce M. Cresap, 70, County Route 8, died May 8, 2003, at her home.

Born April 27, 1933, in Evergreen Park, Ill., to Robert S. and Lavinia Henry Cresap, she attended high school in Hinsdale, Ill., where she was also active in summer stock theater. She graduated with a degree in theater from Northwestern University in 1955. She was a co-founder of Argonaut, Inc., a Chicago publishing company specializing in Greek antiquities, and later owned her own typesetting business in New York City.

After her retirement in 1988 she moved to Germantown, where she was a bookseller, treasurer of the Germantown Library Board, president of the Germantown Garden Club, and a master gardener for 10 years with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia County. She was also secretary-treasurer of the Cresap Society, a national genealogical organization.

Survivors include twin sons, Douglas (Tammy) and Jeffrey (Terri) Rankin, both of Monmouth, Ill.; a sister, Roberta (Neil) Jones, of St. Louis, Mo.; step-grandchildren, Tony Cox and Amanda Cox; three nieces—Robin Taber, Kristin Tegethoff, and Carrie Arnold—nine grandnieces and nephews; and two special friends, Kenneth Klammer of Panorama City, Calif., and Jack Bates of Tavares, Fla.

Memorial contributions may be given to the Germantown Library or the Columbia-Greene Humane Society in Hudson, NY. Private burial will be in Chicago and a memorial service to celebrate Alyce's life will be held in Germantown at a later date.

(Written by Jeffrey Rankin.)

I've procrastinated writing this. Alyce won't be surprised by this confession.

Alyce knows well this particular foible of mine. In fact, she's on a first-name basis with several of my foibles, and the great thing about Alyce is that she has never made me feel bad about them. She just patiently and persistently - VERY persistently - pushed me to keep going, finish what I needed to finish, and address what needed to be addressed.

I'm supposed to be writing about all the things Alyce has done for IOBA, but it's not working. Not that there isn't plenty of material there. Alyce has been involved since the earliest days, contributing her ideas and energy and time. She's served on the board and as chair of the Internet Operations committee, and I don't know how anything could have gotten accomplished without her.

No, the problem is that when I think of Alyce, I don't first think of IOBA. I think of the dozens and dozens of times when she's made me fall out of my chair laughing. Alyce has a wonderful, wicked sense of humo(u)r. I've been searching through hundreds of e-mails, trying to find an example that would serve, but everything either requires too much context to understand or is a shade too blue. All the best ones are short and subtle, wry observations or the written equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

Another thing about Alyce, she can use that sense of humor to cut through crap better than anybody I've ever seen. Specious arguments, weasel words, and lame excuses don't carry any weight with her. And believe me, I've tried my share of lame excuses.

And here's the main thing about Alyce. Despite all the lame excuses and whining e-mails and complaints, she's always been gentle with me, whether I deserved it or not. If she ever lost her temper or got irritated with me, she never showed it. She never passed judgment. She just kept gently pushing me to do whatever I needed to do.

For that, I will always be grateful, and for that, I will always call Alyce friend.

H.O. Ethel, you're the greatest.

Julie Fauble

Thinking of Alyce

It's taken me a few days to finally decide to send this post. Like many of you, I have been thinking of Alyce and catching myself getting ready to send an email or give a phone call.

My first meeting in the flesh occurred several years back when she and I were volunteering toward getting the "first printing" of Tomfolio tee shirts distributed. As David, I, too, met a tall thin woman in coveralls, with a long braid. She was already tethered to supplementary oxygen at the time. I met her Dalmatians and was given their approval. Over ensuing years, we discovered mutual interests in chocolate and cheese, in gardening (she was a master gardener) and in sharing observations of the antics of our indoor and outdoor animal friends. I did not realize, until recent weeks, how much I had grown to look forward to her emails and rely on her ever-presence.

As I live about 1.5 hours to the southeast of Germantown, I was lucky to be able to visit Alyce several times in the past few months. Although she was getting very weak, and growing frustrated with the increasing limitations of her body, she was taking it in stride, still retaining her "Alyce-ness". I admired her strength and bravery. On one visit, she brought me to her kitchen door to look out over her garden and watch the newcomers at the bird feeder. She grumbled about not being able to reach something in the kitchen any more. "I'm short now." Looking up at her (I am 5'1"), I said "If you are short, than what am I?" She snorted.

A few days before her 70th birthday, at the end of April, we had a nice long telephone chat. At this point, sitting at the computer was too difficult for her. She gave me some input on a beaded lampshade I was completing. We discussed her sons and she reminisced about their birth (they were surprise twins). I updated her on the progress of my tomato seedlings. It was the last real conversation we were to have, and I think we both sensed it.

I saw her again briefly a few days before she died. "I'm dying," she said. "I know," I said, as I rubbed her arms a little. She still had that darn twinkle in her eyes. And her long braid.

I like to think that she is still keeping an eye on my garden.

Susan Pav
Ravenrooost Books
ravenbks@optonline.net

Alyce Cresap – Comments Invited

I’d like to invite each of you who loved Alyce to add comments to this issue of the newsletter. Even though the newsletter will have already gone live, it will be a continuing project that will honor her and allow us to express our feelings for her and our sense of loss.

Just send whatever you’d like to say to me at editor@ioba.org or aaabooks@azalea.net, and Deanna and I will get it into the newsletter.

Shirley Bryant

I didn't know Alyce as well as some of you did, but that did not matter as far as she was concerned.

I can't remember how many times she e-mailed me directly when I had a small problem or felt put-upon for some reason or other.

She was always there to help.  When I needed volunteers for Education Committee, and no one came forward, Alyce did.  I did not know then how sick she was, but I will always remember her kindness to me, and her willingness to help.

Jean S. McKenna
Jean S. McKenna - Books

This is the second of two articles on notable events, books, and ephemera of the 19th century suffrage movement. The first article is in the IOBA Standard, Volume III, Number 4. Both articles are just overviews. I've tried to emphasize the most often repeated stories and the major books and, very cursorily, the ephemera of the movement. Although much new material continues to be written, The History of Woman Suffrage is still the main source of information.

The period from the late 1870's through the early twentieth century was a comparatively quiet time in the history of the suffrage movement. As passage of a federal amendment seemed increasingly distant, many suffrage workers turned to the approach favored by conservatives, campaigns for passage of state amendments. These campaigns were time-consuming and, often, frustrating; by the end of the nineteenth century, only four western states, led by Wyoming, had actually enfranchised women. The first of fifty-six state votes on women's suffrage was in Kansas in 1867, and legislatures refused to allow referenda almost five hundred times. These efforts were organizing and unifying events for suffrage supporters, but they were draining and expensive as well. ¹

Two dramatic events particularly captured public interest during the 1870's and are important in the history of the suffrage movement: Susan B. Anthony's arrest for voting in the presidential election of 1872 and the suffrage demonstrations at the 1776 Centennial Celebration in Philadelphia.

Anthony's 1872 vote in the Presidential election is often represented as an almost accidental and spontaneous event. That wasn't the case. It was a considered action, part of larger effort to effect change at the federal level. Since no federal amendment seemed likely to pass, suffrage supporters turned to a natural rights constitutional argument. Previous similar attempts had occurred. In April of 1871 a group of sixty-four women, accompanied by Frederick Douglass, had been turned away in Washington, D. C., when they attempted to register to vote.

Other groups of women attempted to register in the same election as the one in which Anthony so famously succeeded. The only successful group was the Rochester, New York group of fifteen women led by Anthony, but others who attempted to vote included Sojourner Truth, probably the best known of the African American suffrage workers, Isabella Beecher Hooker, and approximately thirty-five more women in Rochester as well as scattered groups and individuals elsewhere.

Although the legal case was somewhat tortuous, the basis of the suffrage argument was simply that voting was a right. Women had not been specifically excluded in the constitution and the amendments giving African-American men the right to vote first introduced the word male as a requirement for voting. In a speech first delivered on January 16, 1873, (between Anthony's 1872 arrest and her trial in the spring of 1873) at a NWSA meeting in Washington, Anthony presented her case, that voting was both a natural and a constitutional right. The text of the speech was reported and a revised version appears in Anthony's published account of the trial. ²

Anthony, the women who voted with her, and the election inspectors who allowed them to vote were arrested on November 18. At a subsequent examination before United States Commissioner, William C. Storrs, prosecution and defense agreed that the decision arrived at in Anthony's case would apply to all the women. The election inspectors were tried separately --- and convicted. They were the only defendants jailed as a result of the illegal votes.

At Anthony's trial, held in the spring of 1873 in Canandaigua, NY, about forty miles from Rochester, Anthony was found guilty in a directed verdict (it was a juried trial but the jury was not allowed to deliberate). The penalty was ten days in jail or a $100 fine. Anthony refused to pay the fine but was never jailed, perhaps because that would have enabled her to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. News coverage of the trial strongly criticized the Judge's refusal to allow the jury to deliberate.

In 1874 the Supreme Court ruled, in a landmark case, Minor vs. Happersett, that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone."

A complete record of Anthony's trial was published and paid for by her under the rather daunting title, An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony, on the Charge of Illegal Voting, at the Presidential Election in November, 1872. Three thousand copies of the paper-covered booklet were printed by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in 1874. As usual, Anthony carefully noted the cost, $700. At least one copy, inscribed by Anthony to one of the women with whom she voted, has turned up in recent years, but original printings are rare. Reprints of the trial proceedings are available. According to Anthony, there were also 5,000 copies made of Judge Selden's argument on the Habeas Corpus "which she scattered broadcast." I have not seen a copy of that. ³

By 1776, suffrage leaders were ready for another battle ---- this over the Fourth of July Centennial Celebration in Philadelphia. The Centennial was a national event of great importance and, to the suffrage leaders who were excluded from the proceedings, it was an opportunity to advance the cause. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage worked long and hard to produce a Declaration of the Rights of Women to be presented at the Philadelphia celebration and asked repeatedly to be on the program. Turned down, they decided on other action. Stanton and Lucretia Mott (then in her eighties) decided to hold a competing meeting for women's rights in a Philadelphia Unitarian Church. Anthony, a "spinster," was able to rent the space which Mott, a married woman, could not. They also pursued a more militant plan.

After repeatedly requesting to be on the Fourth of July program, Anthony, Matilda Joslin Gage and three other women obtained four seats on the platform (using at least one press pass from Anthony's brother, Daniel) but were denied permission to be on the program. After the reading of the Declaration of Independence, they rose from their seats, handed a copy of their Declaration to the acting vice president of the United States, and walked out scattering copies of their Declaration as they went. Anthony read the Declaration from a musicians' platform outside and additional copies were distributed to the crowd. Few copies of that Declaration have survived although the text is in the History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III.

Joslyn Gage and Anthony's militance in this instance is sometimes seen as foreshadowing the media-oriented militance of 20th century suffragists. Lucy Stone, who was part of the convention organized by Cady Stanton and Mott, apparently disapproved, but said the action would "no doubt go down in the history books" and twentieth century biographer of the movement, Rheta Childe Dorr, pointed to it as proof that Anthony, not Emmeline Pankhurst, "invented militant feminism." ⁴

Two interesting paper items came out of the suffrage demonstration in Philadelphia, but an item promised in the advance publicity by NWSA is especially interesting because it never appeared. In order to pay for the headquarters, Gage, Stanton, and Anthony offered, as a premium, a history of the women's rights movement to anyone donating $5. The three had long discussed writing the history and anticipated producing a several hundred-page pamphlet. The pamphlet was never written and the short history eventually turned into the six-volume History of the Woman Suffrage Movement. Anthony, always scrupulous about keeping promises, eventually sent each of the donors a $15 set of the history. ⁵

Work didn't actually begin on the history until 1880 although Anthony sent trunks and boxes of materials to Stanton's home in Tenafly, NJ in 1876. When the work did begin, in Tenafly, it turned out to be an enormously more demanding task than the authors had anticipated. According to Anthony "the task loomed up in an appalling manner." ⁵ Stanton did most of the writing with Anthony providing history and factual information and Gage contributing some sections. Anthony was also publisher (a pattern established when they produced their short-lived suffrage newspaper, The Revolution) and was critic and provider of factual information. They requested information and records from others active in the movement and, though most people responded, Lucy Stone refused to contribute because she objected to their "attempt to write the history" of the AWSA. ⁶

Anthony spent much time looking for a publisher. According to one biographer, Anthony took trips to NY as early as 1877 to look for a publisher. ⁷. The subject was unpopular and the books large and expensive. According to the Life and Work, the portraits of suffrage leaders (steel engravings) cost $126 apiece, an amount which some women paid themselves. Anthony paid for those who were unable to pay. The publisher finally found, Fowler & Wells, best known for their publications on phrenology, released Volume I in May of 1881 and Volume 2 in 1882. Volume 3 was held up due to lack of money. In 1884 Anthony inherited a little over $24,000 from an estate (Lucy Stone inherited a like amount), and work on volume 3 began. It was completed in December, 1885 and the book was copyrighted and published in 1886. At that time Anthony bought the rights to volumes 1 and 2 from Fowler and Wells. She also bought out Stanton and Gage's rights, and volume 3, along with a reprinting of volumes 1 and 2, was printed by Charles Mann of Rochester. Stanton, Anthony, and Gage held the original copyrights for volumes 1 and 2, but later printings show only Anthony as the copyright holder. The Fowler and Wells printings of volumes 1 and 2 are, of course, first printings and are quite scarce. Anthony's 1886/1887 reprints, also scarce, are often mistaken for first printings.

After Volume 3 was completed, Stanton wearied of the project and volume 4, which lists Anthony as first author, was edited and largely written by Ida Husted Harper, Anthony's biographer. It was published in 1902, four years before Anthony's death. Volumes 5 and 6, edited and written by Harper, were published in 1922, two years after the Nineteenth Amendment, enabling women all over the county to vote, was ratified.

Anthony gave copies of the early volumes to libraries, schools and individuals. They are often inscribed by her, often briefly, but sometimes with quite personalized and interesting inscriptions. One of three copies inscribed to novelist and reformer Albion Tourgee says, in part "In memory of his truthful portrayal of facts in Fools Errand and Bricks without Straw at the close of the war…his Sincere Friend and Coworker Susan B. Anthony." The inscription is dated 1893. That copies of the books were available for quite some time is indicated by a listing for the first four volumes in a 1911 NAWSA (National and American Woman Suffrage Association) catalogue, which also listed all three volumes of The Life and Works of SBA. Anthony had distributed many copies of both and willed the remaining copies to NAWSA.

The Life and Works of SBA, written by Ida Husted Harper, is both the official biography of Anthony and an invaluable reference. Anthony met Harper, a professional journalist, during the California suffrage campaign and persuaded her to move to Rochester and live at the Anthony home, promising her that the biography would be completed in a year. Work began in March of 1897. Anthony's estimate of the length of the biography proved to be optimistic----the first draft turned out to be much longer than expected and had to be cut. Anthony, Harper, and a typist/secretary, working together, completed the work in 1898 and sent the two volumes to the publisher, Bobbs Merrill. A third volume, written by Mrs. Harper, was published posthumously. Unfortunately for later historians, much of the original source material was burned after use. Ads promised "this is the only authentic biography of her that ever can be written, as the letters and documents will not be accessible to other historians." Anthony also insisted that "letters and documents that reflected badly on others must not be included." ⁸

Mrs. Harper, who had expected the work to be complete with the second volume, was almost immediately persuaded by Anthony to start work on volume 4 of the History of Woman Suffrage.

Although The History of Woman Suffrage is the primary source for 19th century suffrage history, two other collectible works should be mentioned: Stanton's very controversial Woman's Bible, and her autobiographical Eighty Years and More, an informal collection of reminiscences and personal anecdotes intended, in part, according to biographer Elizabeth Griffith, to counter some of the very bad publicity resulting from the publication of the Woman's Bible. ⁹

Part I of the Woman's Bible, published in November, 1895, by the European Publishing Company in New York, consisted of commentaries written by eight of twenty-two women on the "revising committee," a misnomer since they did not revise the Bible but rather commented on selected verses. (9) Part II was published in 1898. Despite Susan B. Anthony's pleas to the contrary, a resolution disavowing the Woman's Bible was adopted at the 1896 NAWSA convention, a victory for conservative leaders Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt. The day of the ultras (the radical suffrage wing led by Anthony and Stanton), was seemingly over. "By the last decade of the nineteenth century, woman suffrage had become respectable…a new generation of conservative women came into the suffrage movement to achieve the victory that the Stantons and Anthonys had made possible." ¹⁰

Stanton's autobiographical Eighty Years and More was, according to biographer Kerr, her "apologia" intended to create an image of herself as "benign, nurturing, good-humored…" downplaying both personal and political conflicts and the reality of an often irritating, radical, charismatic but demanding leader. ¹⁰

A conservative time in the movement had arrived. NWSA and AWSA had merged in 1890 and become NAWSA, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, with Stanton as President and Anthony as Vice-President. The movement had, by this time, arrived at such respectability that in 1892 the three leaders, Stone, Anthony and Stanton were invited to tea at the White House by first lady Lavinia Scott Harrison.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, most of the rights for which women had fought, including the right of married women to own property and to keep their own wages, the right to an education, and to enter a profession, had been won. A federal amendment giving women the right to vote in federal elections remained elusive and the traditional and, by this time, rather conservative women's suffrage association, was putting much of its energy into the campaigns for the vote on a state-by-state basis. Out of these state campaigns came mountains of paper ammunition including pamphlets, fliers, postcards, broadsides and posters.

Although state campaigns continued during the twentieth century, younger women formed the National Women's Party, led by Alice Paul, Harriot Stanton Blatch, and others who were impatient with the lack of progress toward a federal amendment and adopted increasingly militant tactics in their battle for a federal suffrage amendment: picketing, parades in Washington, and partisan political action. These ultimately resulted in the most violent phase of the revolution, the period between 1912 and 1919 when the 19th Amendment granting women the vote was passed. But that's another story.

(1) Jablonski, T. "Female Opposition The Anti-Suffrage Campaign" in Jean H. Baker, editor, Votes for Women: The Struggle for Suffrage Revisited) (NY: Oxford University Press, 2001).

(2) Anthony, Susan B. An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony, on the Charge of Illegal Voting, at the Presidential Election in November, 1872. (Rochester: Democrat & Chronicle, 1874).

(3) Harper, Ida Husted. The Life and Works of Susan B. Anthony, Volume 1. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1899). p. 446.

(4) Dorr, Rheta Childe. Susan B. Anthony The Woman Who Changed the Mind of a Nation. (NY: AMS Press, 1970). Reprint of 1928 edition. p 283.

(5) Harper, Ida Husted. p. 475.

(6) Barry, Kathleen. Susan B. Anthony a Biography. (NY: New York University Press, 1988). p 272.

(7) Anthony, Katharine. Susan B. Anthony Her Personal History and Her Era. (NY: Doubleday, 1954.) p. 341.

(8) Huth, Mary. From a talk delivered at the Susan B. Anthony House in 2002.

(9) Kraditor, Aileen S. The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement. (NY: Columbia University Press, 1965) p. 86.

(10) Griffith, Elisabeth. In Her Own Right The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. (NY: Oxford University Press, 1984) p. 207

Primary Sources

Anthony, Susan B. An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony, on the Charge of Illegal Voting, at the Presidential Election in November, 1872.

Gordon, Ann D., Editor. The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Two volumes have been published: Volume I: In the School of Anti-Slavery, 1840 to 1866 and Volume 2: Against an Aristocracy of Sex, 1866 - 1873. Part of a massive project from Rutgers headed by Gordon, these two volumes include letters, diary entries, speeches and articles. Wonderful notes go along with the entries.

Harper, Ida Husted. The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony. The first two volumes were written during Susan B. Anthony's life, based on her records, and with her active assistance. They were published in 1898 and constitute her "authorized" biography. The third volume was published in 1908, two years after Anthony's death.

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. Eighty Years and More, 1815 - 1897. Stanton's autobiography was first published in 1898. The most recent edition includes an Introduction by Ellen Carol DuBois and an Afterword by Ann D. Gordon, which add current scholarship and recent interpretation of Stanton's work.

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; Anthony, Susan B.; Gage, Matilda Joslin; and Harper, Ida Husted. The History of Woman Suffrage. The six volumes were published between 1881 and 1922. The first three volumes are by Stanton, Anthony, and Gage, Volume 4 is by Anthony and Harper, and Volumes 5 and 6 are by Harper. They have been reprinted a number of times and are also available on CD-ROM.

Secondary Sources

Baker, Jean H. Votes for Women The Struggle for Suffrage Revisited. An excellent collection of articles on topics relating to the suffrage movement which had not been much explored.

Barry, Kathleen. Susan B. Anthony: A Biography of a Singular Feminist. Published in 1988, this is the most recent biography of Anthony. Earlier biographies by Alma Lutz, Kathleen Anthony and Rheta Childe Dorr are, unfortunately, out of print. Barry's is the most scholarly biography; Anthony's is quite complete and very readable.

Dorr, Rheta Childe. Susan B. Anthony The Woman Who Changed the Mind of a Nation.

Griffith, Elizabeth. The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. This most recent and comprehensive biography of Stanton was published in 1984.

Harper, Judith. Susan B. Anthony: A Biographical Companion. This 1998 alphabetical reference includes entries on all the people and events of the suffrage and other reform movements with which Anthony was involved and is an invaluable "quick" reference.

Kraditor, Aileen. The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890 - 1920. Classic analysis of the philosophy and tactics of the leaders of the movement.

Rakow, Lana F. and Kramarae, Cheris. The Revolution in Words Righting Women 1868 - 1871. Excerpts and analysis of Stanton and Anthony's suffrage paper.

George Alfred Henty, 1832 – 1902, History Teacher? By: Roger Childs Henty was a writer best known for adventure stories that taught history to generations of impressionable British and American youngsters, along with all the benefits of manliness, honesty and self-reliance. Many biographies from readers of the time tell the same story of schoolroom classes, after the boys being told that they may read, echoing to the sound of desks being opened, noisily closed and every boy banging down a Henty volume onto his desk ! Henty wrote 122 books, contributed to 72 books and annuals, and 34 periodicals and newspapers. More contributions and stories continue to be discovered as researchers for The Henty Society continue investigations. This 'essay' was prompted by the errors of judgment that well-meaning sellers of Henty books make with their internet listings. My main complaint being that these errors are always seen as fact by the reader, thereby compounding the problem. A common mistake is that of sellers stating that dated American editions of Henty are the 'true firsts'! Not so!?! Blackie & Son Limited was the prime publisher in the UK of Henty books. The majority of Blackie first editions were dated for the coming year so, for example, the Blackie first edition of Held Fast for England was published on 1st August 1891 with the title page showing 1892. The American first edition of Held fast for England published by Charles Scribner's Sons showed a title page date of 1891. The Blackie edition, despite the post-dating, was the very first issue of this title. There was just one Henty title published in America before the UK. That was In the Hands of the Cave-Dwellers by Harper & Brothers of New York with a title page date of 1900. The UK edition from Blackie was issued on the 18th July 1902 and the title page was undated. The very first authorised publisher of Henty in America was Scribner & Welford (S&W) of New York. The agreement was that Blackie printed the S&W titles and shipped them to New York. S&W then replaced the title page with their own and inserted their catalogue prior to issue. There were 32 titles issued by S&W between 1886 and 1890, some dated, but most not. An American collector of Henty researched these S&W editions and The Henty Society published a booklet of the results that is invaluable. Another bone of contention is the number of unauthorised or 'pirate' editions of Henty from American publishers. The many unscrupulous publishers of the time included Burt, Donohue, Hurst, Lupton and Mershon, who was probably the most prolific. The Boy's Dumas by John Cargill Thompson, published in 1975, lists 58 American publishers of Henty titles. The problem with these 'pirates' is that they were usually very cheaply produced on poor quality paper and within bindings that reflected patriotic American themes that were nothing to do with the Henty story. Collectors have nothing against Americans, but the sight of an American cavalryman leading a charge of uniformed troopers with a Stars and Stripes on the cover of a book about the freeing of The Netherlands in 1585 is extremely annoying. But that was the problem with 'pirate' publishers who also didn't pay a penny to the English author. If any reader is interested in collecting G.A. Henty, the following publications may help: Bibliography of G.A.Henty & Hentyana by R.S Kennedy & B.J.Farmer privately published in c1955 G.A.Henty A Bibliography by Captain R.L.Dartt published by Dar-Web Inc. and John Sherratt and Son Ltd in 1971 G.A.Henty 1832- 1902 A Bibliographical Study by Peter Newbolt published by The Scolar Press in 1996 Each is useful and includes information that the others do not, but by far the best is the Newbolt book of 710 pages of solid detail. Included are pictures of over 330 of the editions on 74 plates. Unfortunately now out of print. The Henty Society organised a 'Gathering' to remember the life of Henty on the one-hundredth anniversary of his death on his yacht in Weymouth Harbour, Dorset, England on 16th November 1902. The Gathering occurred over three days, with almost 70 attendees, was a great success and took place in an hotel overlooking Weymouth Harbour. If any reader is interested in joining The Henty Society, the contact detail is: Dr Bruce Lees, Hon. Secretary, The Henty Society, Hayfield, Bourne Fields, Twyford, Winchester, Hampshire SO21 1NY England The Henty Society was formed in 1977 by a small group of enthusiasts, led by the late Roy Henty, a distant relative of G.A. Henty, and has thrived ever since. We have members all around the world. It is probably fair to say that the best collection of Henty is with an American collector. The second best collection may also be in America, but there are some very good collections on this side of the 'Pond'. The titles shown in the picture are of Henty rarities from English publishers, with the one title to be issued in America before the UK, In the Hands of the Cave-Dwellers. Roger Childs Collector and Henty Society Researcher Email address: roger@childs.freeserve.co.uk April 2003

By: Shawn Purcell

In nuclear physics, a half life is the period of time required for the decay or breakdown of half of the atoms in a sample of some specific radioactive isotope. Plutonium 238, for example, has a half life of about eighty-seven years, while Uranium 238 takes about 4.5 billion years to decrease by half. (If you are thinking about relocating near a war zone, leaky reactor, or abandoned mine, numbers like these can come in handy.) I would venture that most ephemera has an average half life of something more along the order of one to five years. If ten thousand pieces were printed, five thousand will be left one to five years later. That still sounds like a lot, but using the one year half life model, that same large print run would be down to less than ten surviving examples in just ten years. Ephemeral depletion depends largely on the subject matter, of course. Condom wrappers and church supper menus would disappear a lot quicker than tickets to the seventh game of a Yankees-Brooklyn Dodgers World Series match, or that famous Marilyn Monroe calendar. As the decades fly by this disintegration by halves continues unabated.

Of the remaining survivors in any given era, half of those will be in rough or poor condition. Perfect copies will be thrown out when someone cleans an attic while their soiled and torn counterparts escape the purge. Survivors lose their crispness, sheen, and shape. Flakes, chips, chunks, creases, tears, and stains come next. Acidic post-rag paper generally doesn't look better with patina like early furniture does. The very best examples of old ephemera are in the fine or near fine category, and generally comprise less than 1% of the original printing run.

I have a Big Bang theory of ephemera. It shot out in all directions from one small place with great force, and some of this matter (energy is eternal but ephemera is not) is slowly coming back toward the center of the universe, which in our field are the public and private collectors. These collectors are the ones who can be most entrusted to track down, acquire, catalog, and safely preserve the best remaining examples. When I lose a nice piece at auction to the gravitational and monetary pull of a collector, or a dealer who has that collector in mind, there is consolation in knowing it has reached a potentially safe haven.

Once there, two hazards exist. One is the destruction (usually by fire) of a large collection which would have been safer dispersed in many hands. The other is that supernova which occurs when a collector passes away and her or his life's work once more hurtles through cold, hard space (i.e., at auction). The prudent collector pre-arranges a new home for these artifacts. Sometimes the best repository is a museum or library, where catastrophe and greed are less likely to intervene down the road, though there is always the danger of natural or unnatural disasters. If the donation is significant enough to warrant public attribution, that collector's name and effort will live on in a setting available to the masses rather than squirreled away in a former cutthroat competitor's trophy room. These are the stellar pieces though. The vast majority of good ephemera is worthy of collection but is not of museum quality. It is held by regular people who happen to have an interest in a certain subject and want paper collectibles to go along with and give context to their hard objects. The melancholy fact of life for most acidic paper items is that they will not be around by the year 2500 like many of their denser contemporaries will. But the information they hold can be researched and copied, and perhaps even the items themselves can be preserved in some way we don't yet envision, such as through holographic projection.

At any rate of decay, we have a certain duty to make sure we don't damage or destroy good ephemera. How does one define "good" ephemera? Simple. Send it to me for free. If it's good I'll sell it or keep it. Seriously, though, we have a duty to preserve these items during our commercial or collecting stewardship. "I can't afford to be the National Archives," as one inveterate packrat friend and colleague often says (he is a close second to the National Archives), but we are beholden. Our job is to make sure that a minimum of atoms depart while the piece is in our possession.

We can accomplish this in the following ways. Put your ephemera in a polypropylene or mylar protector bag, with an acid-free backing board behind it (the bag and board should be about 20% bigger than the piece it is holding). A bag without a board isn't much better than no bag at all. How you store your ephemera depends on whether it's at home in your personal collection or offered for sale somewhere. At home, it rather depends on what format most of the items are in, and whether you wish to display them or archive them. If pieces are stacked standing up they may bend, and if they are piled it may put too much pressure on the bottom of the heap. For uniform items such as baseball cards, archival plastic holders in binders may be best. There are good ways to preserve any item, from large movie posters to old cigar bands. Seek out experts in that line of collecting and learn how they do it. Keep your collection away from temperature extremes, avoid humidity, and shun immersion (leaks and floods) altogether. Most archivists shoot for 50% humidity and a little under 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Don't store your containers in uncontrolled basements, attics, or outbuildings, and don't rest them directly on the floor. Some folks microwave, spray, or “bomb” newly arrived books and ephemera to eradicate tiny paper-eaters such as silverfish. This can be time-consuming, as well as disturbing to family members and customers. Some northern purveyors put their containers outside once a year on the most frigid and still winter night when it is well below zero for a more natural solution to the problem of bio-predation.

When it comes to items offered for sale, you have to make it easy for customers to flip through and see what's there. It is frustrating and damaging to look through a large stacked pile top to bottom. Arrange these items standing up in a subject-labeled bin so they don't flop over. Personally I prefer large clear or blue stackable Rubbermaid-type containers over more attractive but often dirty and splintery wooden boxes, but your silage may vary. Graduate down from big boards in the back to smaller toward the front. If you are running low on ephemera in a certain category, like your bin of transportation stuff, stick some related auto, railroad, aviation and nautical books up front to keep the stack upright until you can find some more stock. Keep rare, expensive, and fragile items in a locked showcase if at all possible. Never put a sticker or a written price on the item itself. Clearly record the price and other pertinent information at the top of the backing board. (I used to price in pencil but you have to press harder, it's more difficult for the customer to read, and it's easier for lowlifes to discount. Let the ink dry before you slide the item in.) For tears, learn how to use archival quality document repair tape or leave it as is, but never use Scotch tape. Don't display outside, where polybags sweat and airborne grit can seep down. One day in the sun, outside or even in a front window, can bleed colors or curl photos like you wouldn't believe. If you have ephemera at antiques centers where others will be handling sales for you, outline your concerns and special instructions to the staff. Talk with the management about emergency preparedness. Consider leaving a couple of clean tarps under your tables for quick and ready protection against water or smoke damage. I showed up at one center only to find that the owner had decided to move his front desk operations to the middle of the floor, which put my booth next to a construction site. Everything was covered with a nice layer of sawdust and powder. It would have been pretty easy to throw one of the nearby affected quilts over my ephemera buckets beforehand, no? It's not like the ceiling caved in without warning overnight because a previously mentioned would-be National Archivist stored a pile of 1,800 worthless law books in the attic directly overhead. I am no longer in either of these buildings, by the way.

To obtain protection, there are some local and national distributors who advertise on the internet and in ephemera publications. Bags Unlimited will probably be around for awhile so I'll name that company as one example. If you are lucky enough to live near such a distributor you can save a lot on shipping, as the backing boards can be quite heavy (and if they ship for free the cost is built in). During lulls in New York State paper shows I became acquainted with bookish Bill Kammer of Mega-National Industries, Inc. (I kidded him that the Round Lake Polybag Company would sound a little less corporate.) M.N.I. carries an amazing inventory of hundreds of display supplies, from tiny jewelry tags to the gigantic tents favored at Brimfield and elsewhere. In terms of white backing boards, they cut thirty-five sizes, from 3 3/4" by 5 5/8" up to 18" by 24", with regular and archival quality polybags to match. Special size orders and volume discounts too. The prices are reasonable, such as 100 9" by 12" boards for $10.00, with 100 matching bags for $6.00. These very quickly pay for themselves in terms of presentation and preservation. At first I just purchased needed supplies from Bill but after awhile we started watching each other's booths, getting food for whoever was busier, etc. Eventually I began placing large annual orders approaching $1,000.00 worth of bags and boards which he was kind enough to deliver right to my back porch.

At first glance Bill appeared rather scrawny and reserved, but I learned that he took winter breaks from the breathtaking world of ephemera and antiques supplies to participate in more mundane Central and South American archeological digs, in addition to leading more profitable Euro-tourist jungle tours. I once sold him a major bibliography of early exploration of these areas and he seemed familiar with most of the titles listed. Bill told thrilling tales, and had interesting firsthand opinions on global trade, ecology, world peace, etc. I came to enjoy his company very much and planned to join him on treks (free assistance in exchange for free transportation and lodgings), but it wasn't to be. Everyone who knew Bill was devastated to learn of his sudden and early demise several years ago. “Ephemeral” is so often applied to paper, but it is only the written word which remains.

I'd plug his business here, but Bill's widow is winding it down. I purchased as much of the remaining stock as I could, which should last a lifetime. Bill Kammer put out a nice little catalog in his day and I'll close with a quote from that in this small tribute to his memory.

"This is our first Ephemera products catalog. Since it is issue #1, and limited to a few thousand copies it will probably be a collector's item someday. In the meantime keep it safe and close to you, and refer to it so you can make your orders properly. When the time comes for a new catalog (#2) this one can be put in your collectible archives (properly protected with one of our protectors I hope)."

On Collecting (and selling) Books on Bullfighting
By: Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson

The collecting of books on bullfighting is surprisingly organized. While not as popular as it was during the 1950's and 60's, whatever the field lacks in numbers of collectors it makes up in their aficion (love of the activity, nearly to madness). There are collecting clubs in Spain, Mexico, France, Sweden, Great Britain, and the United States (see, Taurine Bibliophiles of America, my home club, easily found through Google) and probably more throughout the world that I have yet to discover.

Bullfighting itself has, of course been around since Ur or before and is found today in different forms in Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Colombia, and to a lesser extent in some other Latin American countries, as well as such relatively unknown areas as Korea. “Bloodless” bullfighting (with Velcro where the only blood shed is that of the toreros) may be viewed in California and Arizona and Portuguese style, where the bull is not killed, may be found in California as well.

Wherever bullfighting has been a by-product has been great art, music and writing, followed of course by collecting and buying and selling. Goya, Picasso, Bizet, and Hemingway are probably enough to make the point, though one could begin with cave paintings.

Some of the fictional highlights of an English language collection should probably include: Frank Harris, Montes the Matador and Other Stories, Grant Richards, 1900; Vicente Blasco Ibanez, Blood and Sand, Simpkin Marshall, 1913; Henry de Montherlant, The Bullfighters, Jonathan Cape, 1928; Luis Spota, The Wounds of Hunger, Houghton Mifflin, 1957; and of course Ernest Hemingway, Fiesta (The Sun also Rises in the US), Jonathan Cape, 1927. A non-fiction collection should certainly contain Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon, Jonathan Cape, 1932; Vincent J.R, Kehoe, Aficionado!, Hastings House 1960; Kenneth Tynan, Bull Fever, Longmans Green, 1955; Barnaby Conrad, Death of a Matador, Michael Joseph, 1952 and my own favorite by Conrad (and his as well), How to Fight a Bull, Doubleday, 1968; Robert Daley, The Swords of Spain, Dial, 1960; and Angus McNab, The Bulls of Iberia, Heinemann, 1957.

Any area of collectible material seems to be dominated by fads and momentary hot items. In bullfighting it is usually the rapid rise of a star. El Juli is a present example. The death of a prominent figure may increase demand. John Fulton is a sad example of that. Year in and year out certain areas seem to retain popularity, usually the unusual or odd subject. Examples are U.S. or British bullfighters, women, African or Asian bullfighters. What I think of as crossover subjects also seem to hold interest, bullfighting in the Old West or anthropological studies of a taurine interest would be two examples, or the bullfight in fine art.

One of my own favorite bullfight books is the Scholastic Book Club's novelization of Herbie Goes Bananas, which, you may not recall, includes a scene of the VW Beetle fighting a bull in Mexico, complete with a photo of the action on the cover. The nicest thing about the piece is that it is only available in the Book Club paperback edition. My fondness for it undoubtedly reflects more on my whimsical approach to books than any actual merits of the book.

The Taurine Bibliophiles of America, as one of its primary tasks, has been working on a bibliography of bullfight books in English for almost 40 years now. As of the year 2000 it contained, much to the surprise of most readers I am sure, 1,770 titles. We are constantly finding new English language material with references to bullfighting. The field is growing with new publications and newly discovered material.

I can't really recommend the field for investment purposes, but then I don't believe in collectibles of any kind as investment. The prices have remained the same or, more usually, dropped over the past 15 years. As an area filled with great writing, great art and photography, and still discoverable obscure or unknown items, it has other rewards. For those fanaticos I do highly recommend the area. For those interested in mere monetary gain, I would suggest collecting certificates of deposit instead.

Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson

lynn@pacifier

For books on Latin America & the Caribbean

please visit our web page at:

http://www.bibliophilegroup.com/lynnsbookstore

Relief panels from a frieze in the Parthenon, showing the brutal methods used by ancient Greek riders (of which Xenophon disapproved).

Classical dressage is a rather arcane equestrian pursuit. But it has a wonderful literary history. The first book to seriously analyze and teach riding as an art form was Xenophon's The Art of Horsemanship published in Greece around 360 B.C. It has been republished countless times, and is still in demand today.

It was a revolutionary work in its time, and remained the only book to espouse kindness and gentle training over vicious bits and violent training methods for some 2000 years. Training methods during the Dark and Middle Ages were violent, and most trainers believed horses to be fundamentally vicious.

As warfare changed, lighter weapons such as crossbows and firearms came into use. Lighter armour was used and speed became an important factor. The large coldblooded horses of northern Europe became less useful to the cavalry and the lighter Iberian horse came to the fore. These horses are represented today in the Andalusian, Lusitano, and Lipizzaner breeds and are sometimes known as "baroque" types. These horses were (and still are) full of courage, and are very responsive and athletic. They require a rider with some skill. They are recognizable in old paintings as the horses with the exceedingly long manes and tails.

Modern interest in equitation and advanced training began in Italy during the Renaissance, and it was soon one of the skills expected of a well-rounded gentleman.

Frontispiece page of Federico Grisone’s Gli ordini di cavalcare.

Federico Grisone was the author of Gli ordini di cavalcare, (1550 Naples) (Orders of Riding). He set up an equestrian school in 1532 in Italy. While Grisone had studied Xenophon's Art of Horsemanship, he really didn't apply all of Xenophon's principles. He still believed that horses were vicious beasts, and used a variety of rather shocking methods to break the spirits of the horses he trained. Tying a cat to a long pole and placing it under the belly and hind legs to punish the horse was one of his more inventive ideas. He also advocated putting a live hedgehog under the horse's tail.

His riding style was closer to that of a Medieval knight than that of Xenophon (who advocated a relaxed lower leg and a balanced position). Grisone rode with his feet well forward and legs stiff.

Count Cesar Fiaschi wrote Trattato del imbrigliare, maneggiare, et ferrare cavalli (Bologna 1556). His methods were very similar to Grisone's. However, he did advocate the use of the voice as an aid to training. He also used music for the first time.

Illustrations from the time of Antoine de Pluvinel and his Le Mančge Royal showing the levade.

Many pupils came from throughout Europe to study with Italian teachers. The most famous of these was Antoine de Pluvinel. He studied with Pignatelli, then returned to France after his training and opened a school in Paris. Pluvinel's methods were much more humane than those of earlier trainers. He claimed that the use of the spur or the whip was a confession of failure. Pluvinel introduced a form of equestrian ballet known as "carousel" in which groups of horses and riders performed advanced drills to music. In one instance, over a thousand horses and riders performed together. Carousel is still performed today, though often called a "mounted drill" in North America.

Pluvinel's notes were not published until after his death. Initially a portion of the notes were published as Le Manège Royal in 1623 along with the illustrations of Crispin de Pas. The notes were later edited and published (including Crispin de Pas' illustrations) by Menou de Charnizay, as L'Instruction du Roy en l'exercice de monter a cheval, which is the definitive and more complete edition.

England, though often considered a country of horse lovers, actually only produced one early master of classical riding. William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, was a royalist who lived in exile until the restoration of King Charles II. During his exile he opened a riding school in Belgium. He wrote La Méthode et invention nouvelle de dresser les chevaux , which has been translated under two different titles - A New Method to Dress Horses, and A General System of Horsemanship. The illustrations are among the most beautiful to ever grace equestrian literature.

Superb engraved plate by Charles Parrocel, as contained in François Robichon de La Guériničre's l'École de Cavalerie

François Robichon de La Guériničre was the most famous and influential early teacher of classical dressage. His methods are still used in the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. He changed classical riding to a more forward and less over-collected style. Gueriniere invented the half-halt, the counter canter, the flying change, and the shoulder-in. His methods and teachings are still in use today at the famous Spanish Riding School in Vienna (home of the Lipizzaners).

Guériničre's book, l'École de Cavalerie (School of Horsemanship) was published in 1729 in Paris. It was really the first book to teach haute école in the way we understand it today, and likely the oldest title (other than Xenophon) that a modern equestrian can read without the occasional wince. It is still much in demand even today, and while it is periodically reprinted, is easy to sell in the secondhand market in any edition.

Xenophon. The Art of Horsemanship. Many editions (Greece, 360 B.C.)

Federico Grisone. Gli ordini di cavalcare (Napoli, 1550)

Cesare Fiaschi. Trattato del imbrigliare, maneggiare, et ferrare cavalli (Bologna, 1556)

Claudio Corte. Il Cavallarizzo (Venetia, 1562)

Pasqual Caracciolo. La gloria del cavallo (Vinegia, 1566)

Salomon de La Broue. Des préceptes de cavalerice françois (Paris, 1602)

Antoine de Pluvinel Le Manège Royal (Paris, 1623)

Antoine de Pluvinel L'Instruction du Roy en l'exercice de monter a cheval (Paris, 1625)

William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. La Methode Nouvelle et Invention Extraordinare de
dresser les Chevaux. (Antwerp, 1658)

François Robichon de La Guériničre. Ecole de Cavalerie. (Paris, 1729)

By: Mary Watanabe
maryw8@earthlink.net

Tom Lesser, Show Producer, with William Nolan.

While many other Book Fairs are closing or seeing less traffic, buyers, sellers, collectors and just the plain curious swarmed the 3 rooms of booths and displays at the 2003 Mission Hills Paperback Collectors Show. It was a great comeback after last year's 9/11 residual effect on people's travel and buying habits. One way I judge a book fair's success is the mood of the dealers toward the end of the day, rather than just a count of paid admissions. This year most everyone was smiling, laughing and actually counting money rather than grumbling about whether they will come back the next year.

Mission Hills is actually part of the City of Los Angeles, at the very north end of the San Fernando Valley. The show is held at the Mission Inn Conference Center, about ¼ mile from my bookstore. It is an outgrowth of a group of collectors and friends with similar reading and collecting interests meeting at the home of Tom Lesser starting in 1978 or 1979. As the group grew too large for Tom's home, he made arrangements to rent a room at the Conference Center. Tom is an attorney by profession, but has a passion for hard-boiled detective fiction. Tom's ability to sign-up well-known mystery and science fiction writers for signings, as well as popular cover artists, is largely responsible for the success of the show.

Tony Scibella of Black Ace Books.

Although Tom is what might be called the Executive Producer and general host of the show, the details and behind the scenes preparations and dealer reservations are handled by his friends, Rose Idlet and Tony Scibella of Black Ace Books, who operate an on-line business from the Los Feliz area of LA.

The camaraderie among the dealers and repeat customers is very evident and adds to the ambiance as passionate discussions on authors and genres and gleeful reports of “found treasures” since the last show are overheard as you wander the isles. This was somewhat disconcerting the first time I attended this show about 7 years ago, having only attended the International shows with museum quality offerings and hush-hush discussions between clientele and dealers. I've also had booths at the Glendale/Burbank Book Fairs for a number of years, which are a little more casual and actually had a few books I could afford. But the PB show was a matter of culture shock for me the first time. I went primarily to visit with my friends and IOBA members, Jerry and Shushona (Rose) Blaz of the Bookie Joint in Reseda and Marty and Alice Massoglia of Canoga Park (I'm trying to recruit them). All of them have been very helpful to me over the years in learning about collected books. I've gotten over my initial reaction (and prejudice) to these “weird” folks at this show. They are just counter-culture “originals” or just plain “characters” and have an abundance of knowledge. Part of the problem is that these vintage covers of almost naked women, tall and skinny on the mysteries and voluptuous on the sci-fi covers, just never appealed to some of us women.

Marty and Alice Massoglia.

Several dealers from out-of-state told me this was the “most fun show” in their travels. I was pleased to meet Lori Ubell from Portland, Oregon, a regular participant in the Bookfinder Insider list, and recognized many names from doing searches on various sites.

This year 56 dealers had booths. Over 70 % are from Southern California, but increasing numbers are coming from out-of-state. Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Pennsylvania and New York were represented. Dealers come in a few days ahead of time and scout the local stores. I have benefited greatly by being just down the block. The one year I set up a table at the show, Tom was gracious enough to refund my fee so that I made a little profit. For Tom this is a labor of love, rather than just a business venture. Since then I have developed an eye for the covers that seem to sell and have about 800 vintage books on-line, but since I don't read many of these books, I can't engage in the kinds of conversations that die-hard collectors like to have about their favorites. I do much more business with the dealers who come by in the days before or after the show seeking other kinds of inventory.

Lori Ubell

This year was especially nice because I benefited from a favor I had done for someone 5 years ago. I had totally forgotten about the situation. A collector from Seattle had flown in to attend the show. He had not rented a car because he had the mistaken notion that we actually have public transportation in this part of LA and could go around to the local bookshops. Cars and LA are synonymous for a reason. You need them to get anywhere in a reasonable time. Not being a rich book dealer yet, he hadn't budgeted for a one-day car rental.

Jerry and Shushona Blaz

It was a beautiful day out, I had someone to run the store and I had been saving up my overstock to take out to Marty Massoglia's shop to trade for books I need, so I asked him if he would like to tag along. Ten minutes with Marty is like a day-long seminar in terms of information he can give you. It is only about 10 miles away. We may have stopped at another shop, but went by the Bookie Joint on the way back. I can always use a good hug from Jerry Blaz and watch the ever present Scrabble game between his wife and Bruce Coleman, who has helped in both our stores over the years. The collector was able to find some titles he had been looking for. I dropped him back at the Mission Inn, and never expected to see him again.

Mickey Spillane, author.

He came back to the show this year as a dealer, Mark Doiron of PBO Books. He stopped by the store when I wasn't there, found a stash of signed John D. MacDonald books, bought some, sent another dealer over to look at a Dashiel Hammett book and reminded my clerk that he was the fellow I took on the tour five years ago. I was pleased to meet him again at the show on Sunday and we made an appointment to meet at the shop afterwards to go through more of my MacDonald books. It was a very profitable encounter for both of us. Mark also made a coup by spotting a Robert Maguire signed limited edition poster of a Spillane cover and got Mickey to sign it. I'm sure it will stay in his personal collection a long time.

I approach any Book Fair or show as an educational adventure. One of the joys of being a book dealer is that you are always learning. To some it might seem incredible that the names Robert Maguire and Robert McGinnis meant nothing to me, so this experience I called Cover Art 101. (I do recognize Frazzeta covers)

Lynn Maguire was presenting her father's art for the first time. These were matted poster size copies of his most popular covers. There were Signed Limited editions done in the giclee process. Each one takes 12-24 hours of work to perfect the image. Of course I recognized some of the covers and even have some in the store. He does mostly gallery art now, rather than commercial illustration. The posters are really beautiful and I'm sure they will sell well at shows or on the Internet. They haven't tried that yet, though.

Art Scott, compiler of The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis.

The only book I purchased was about one of the most prolific cover artists ever: The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis, complied by Art Scott, who was at the show, and Dr. Wallace Maynard, who was a neighbor and friend of McGinnis for years and began a checklist of the artist's work in 1980. Scott began collecting McGinnis cover art in the 70s. He is a scholar and mystery critic. Together, they have produced a beautiful book that even a non-collector like myself can enjoy. Full-page color reproductions of the art without the titles or promo blurs makes a big difference. Working sketches and variations make it more than just a checklist. There are chapters on recycled art: same illustration used on different titles and international editions.

A very thoughtful forward by Richard Prather gives insight into how the writer, artist and publisher work together (or not, in some instances).

If you sell paperbacks, you have seen many McGinnis covers, but they go from the hard-boiled to romance (Bertrice Small, Johanna Lindsey, etc.) to classics like Wuthering Heights and Where the Red Fern Grows. Even And the Ladies of the Club. There are some copycats out there, so I was surprised at one John D. MacDonald cover that I was sure would be a McGinnis, but it wasn't listed.

Robert Macguire cover art posters.

The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis is not a price guide, but is helpful in identifying books by author, publisher, code number and reprint information, as well as good reading. It is in its second printing and there are volume discounts for dealers. Published by Pond Press in Boston, 2001 in both hard and soft cover. Designed by Paul Langmuir.

The Paperback Show is usually in March, so if this is your area of interest, plan a trip to Los Angeles around that time next year.

at the Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL Antiquarian Book Fair March 14, 15, & 16, 2003 for a total of 2230, 174 more than the 2002 Fair and the second highest on record, reports Larry Kellogg, fair manager.

I was at the show as a seller this year, my second time as a dealer but 4^th or 5^th time attending the show. I like the show from both perspectives: it is extremely easy to set up a booth as a dealer and the facility is a beautiful building so attendees have a lovely and comfortable setting in which to spend time shopping. The Coliseum is the place where the dance sequence for the movie Cocoon was filmed. With wood floors, a balcony and stage, and lots of twinkle lights hanging down from the domed ceiling, the setting is much less austere than the shows which are held in big warehouse-like buildings.

This was the 8^th year in this location and the 22^nd annual fair. The “St. Pete” book fair had 116 dealers from 26 states and countries (including Canada and Germany) so the international flavor has been maintained over the years. Sponsored by FABA (Florida Antiquarian Booksellers Association), the show has had a waiting list for many of those years (I don't know the early history of the show). This year there were 22 new dealers who were selected from the waiting list of 70. If there is a last minute cancellation, Larry calls numbers down the waiting list and the first person who agrees to come gets the booth – he doesn't have the time to wait for callbacks – his job is to make sure that the booths are rented and he is relentless in getting the job done! There is a formula for the total number of FL dealers, FABA Dealers and out-of-state dealers and placement on the list to keep the show interesting to a wide variety of collectors.

The most expensive book I saw FS was Hemingway's first book: Three Stories and Ten Poems offered for $65,000 by Between The Covers, ABAA, Merchantville, N.J. Tom Congalton, owner. I have a 'worst' category but I'll let it go.

I'd like to highlight a unique dealer at the show: Costin Graphics had only one book for sale. And it hasn't been finished as of yet (actually it is not bound so isn't really a book). And I purchased one page of it 2 years ago and it has already appreciated almost 50%!

Let me explain: John Costin Graphics is selling Florida Birds engravings by subscription like artists did years ago. A clamshell elephant portfolio case holds the steel engravings of Florida Birds that are, of course, hand colored and they are beautiful. There will be 250 engravings (plus 25 artist proofs). 150 books sold as a part of the subscription series and 100 of each of the 20 birds will be sold separately. I purchased the Wood Stork in 2001 and it is one of my most cherished possessions. Artist John Costin took the time to describe the process he uses in detail but I think that his web site (http:/www.costingraphics.com ) describes it much better than I can. I can just report that he and his wife, Janet, are two of the nicest artists I've ever met and I wish them much success. Many of the Florida museums and universities are purchasing this series so if you are interested in owning the entire series or individual issues, please contact them (caracara@tampabay.rr.com ) or 813-248-5088.

Another interesting dealer was Haslam Marbled Papers. Debbie Haslam was demonstrating how to make paper and selling individual sheets of the finished product. You could ask for specific colors and watch it being made or just select from various colors and sizes already to wrap. This paper can be used by book binders or crafters.

Both booths added a nice touch to the show. There was also an insurance company at a booth handing out information on the cost of insurance book collections and a table of handouts. Not present this year were Alibris and ABE, both prior exhibitors.

Attendance aside, how were sales with the war looming at any moment? Well, the best response I received when I asked a number of dealers the question was from John Berryman: “The Fair far exceeded my lowered expectations!”. Can a response be any more oblique? John (Sandy & John Berryman Fine Books, Orman Beach, FL) is a long time fair dealer and I'm guessing he has answered this question more than once! Over the years I've heard dealers complain about sales, brag about sales and hedge about reporting exact sales but this response has to be the best I've heard yet.

Personally, my sales were down 20% from the last time I did the show (March, 2001) and as I don't take much stock in the accuracy of the reports of sales via dealer questionnaire responses, I'm reporting that some dealers did well, some didn't do as well as other years and some just wouldn't say!

Isn't that always the way?

If you have an interest in visiting or showing at The Tampa/St. Pete Book Fair, contact Larry Kellogg at flapr@tampabay.rr.com for further details (or call 727-822-3278). Next year's show will be March 12-14^th starting at 5:30 PM on Friday night. Saturday hours are 10 am to 5pm and Sunday hours are 11am to 4pm. The $6.00 ticket is good for all three days but is not refundable if the weather isn't at least in the 70s! Attending the Florida fair is a very good way to get a jump-start on spring because chances are very good that the weather won't disappoint you.

Respectfully submitted,

Madlyn Blom, Punta Gorda, FL
http://www.CenterAisleBooks.com
Member IOBA, FABA

The Festival is sponsored by the Arizona Humanities Council, the Maricopa County Library District and the Arizona State Library.

It is a free event held to celebrate the book in all its forms. It features four stages on which a continuous program of panel discussions, readings, author talks, question and answer sessions, and even theatrical performances are held. Attendees can attend the presentations, buy books, have books appraised, and even attend cooking demonstrations (and sample the results). There is even a special children's area with a program of hands-on activities and storytelling. This year a featured guest for the children was the famous character Dora, from the acclaimed Nickelodeon show “Dora the Explorer.”

The Carnegie Library first opened its doors on February 14th, 1908--four years to the day before Arizona became a State. The building served as the main Phoenix Public Library until a new spacious site was constructed in a more centralized location a little to the North and East. The building underwent a $1.3 million rehabilitation in the mid-1980s and has most recently been equipped with public-access computers through which visitors will have access to a wide range of information.

Andrew Carnegie, an industrialist and philanthropist, funded the construction of more than 2500 buildings worldwide between 1898 and 1919, two-thirds of which were built in the United States.

The building now houses the Arizona Woman's Hall of Fame Museum.

A variety of food vendors were in attendance as well, providing everything from hot dogs and hamburgers to Mexican Food and Indian Fry Bread.

I have been participating as an author guest at this event since they first started and always look forward to spending a pleasant day with fellow authors and booklovers. This year some 150 published authors attended. I do not yet know the attendance figures for this year, but last years attendees numbered some 14,000.

Dozens of booths displayed books and book-related literature. Booksellers, educational institutions offering classes about literature, small press publishers, special interest groups and clubs all offered pamphlets and merchandise, answered questions and generally spent the beautiful day smiling. The temperature remained in the 70s throughout and there was a light breeze that occasionally gusted and sent things flying. It was not uncommon to see sun-reddened faces by the end of the day.

I found this year's event significantly different from previous outings because of the change in venue. For the last five years, the Festival was held at the Margaret Hance Deck Park located behind the main Phoenix Library downtown just West of Central Avenue. At the Deck Park location (actually a park located over a downtown transit tunnel) the crowds could be quite large because passers-by could see the tents and banners and curiosity would bring them to check things out. Since it was at the normally busy Main Library, people would spend time at both and the audiences for specific presentations could be rather large. Parking was on the site and very convenient.

At the Carnegie Library, the chance of attracting passers-by is significantly reduced. There is less street traffic, especially on the weekend, and parking is somewhat less convenient - though there was free parking nearby. The available space is somewhat more confined making the event appear smaller. The grounds of the Carnegie Library are fenced and gated, however, so the site is considerably more secure.

Essentially, the change in venue made the Arizona Book Festival a destination point instead of drop-in event. From what I observed, the crowd was smaller than in previous years, though no less enthusiastic.

The guest authors are sponsored by various clubs and organizations like Sisters In Crime, the Arizona Authors Association, and (in my case) by the Central Arizona Speculative Fiction Society. Modest Grants are given to these groups to aid them in attracting well-known authors who will attract fans to the event and provide a high profile.

My sponsors brought Hugo Award Winning Author David Brin (author of Startide Rising and Earth) to Phoenix from San Diego, and the balance of the authors participating with us this year were already resident in Arizona, including Jennifer Roberson, Doranna Durgin, Ernest and Emily Hogan, Michael Stackpole, Dennis McKiernan and myself. And, remember, the Central Arizona Speculative Fiction Society is only one of many clubs sponsoring author appearances.

We conducted our panel discussions at one of four program areas--ours was called the Literary Stage. Following a reading by David Brin, panel topics included Writing Influences, World Building and Writing In Someone Else's Universe.

Featured authors at the event included Jack Gantos, Kent Haruf, J.A. (Judy) Jantz, Maxine Hong Kingston, William Kittredge, Annick Smith, E. Annie Proulx and Alberto Alvaro Rios.

In conjunction with the Arizona Book Festival, there is another program called OneBookAZ, a statewide effort that brings readers together through literature by asking each adult to read the same book and participate in discussions and programs throughout the month of April. This year's selection is Kent Haruf's Plainsong. There is a separate selection for children, Jack Gantos' Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key.

All in all, it was a beautiful day and a fine time was had by all.

Adam Niswander
adamn@worldnet.att.net
Phoenix, Arizona

Author of The Shaman Cycle Novels: The Charm, The Serpent Slayers, The Hound Hunters, The War of the Whisperers, The Nemesis of Night and The Primal Pipers; as well as non-Cycle novels The Repository, and The Sand Dwellers.

Some visitors to the Carriage House Book Fair.

The Carriage House Antiquarian Book Fair, New York City

By: Douglas Diesenhaus
Photography by: Lindy Settevendemie

“The shuttle bus to the Park Avenue Armory will be leaving in five minutes!”

That was one of the first things I heard when I ducked in from the rain through the 15 foot-high mahogany and glass doors of the Altman building, the site of the Carriage House Antiquarian Book Fair on Friday, April 11, 2003 in New York City. The show was held simultaneously with the ABAA show at the Armory, and the free shuttle service, rather than detracting from the Carriage House fair, provided a convenient and efficient mode of transport allowing visitors and dealers to move between the two shows.

“We arranged the shuttle and underwrote a 32 passenger motor coach,” said Gary Austin, co-organizer of the show. “We did this to simplify the logistics for patrons who wanted to visit both shows, but had concerns about getting across town and parking.”

Riverow's movie posters from 1929 and 1930, with original artwork painted on cloth. Priced at $3,500

Planning the Carriage House fair to overlap with the ABAA show is a concept the organizers call a “shadow show,” and it's a strategy that gives non-ABAA collectors and dealers a chance to participate. “It's a smaller show that tries to create a synergy with the larger, more prominent event,” said Austin, owner of Austin's Antiquarian Books in Wilmington, Vermont. “Our goal was to provide an atmosphere where the ABAA dealer gets to buy from an enlarged market. Our business is defined as selling books, but the life-blood of the business is buying books.”

Riverow's Uncle Bernac: A Memory of the Empire, Arthur Conan Doyle's own edition of his book, with nine corrections by the author. Priced at $5,000

Comparing the energy of the two shows to similar multiple-venue fairs in Boston and the UK, John D. Spencer, of Riverow Books in Oswego, New York, saw value in the idea. “I like to see something like the London Book fair week, where there's a lot of shows and activity and a lot of interest in books developed.” Spencer's display ranged from huge movie posters from the infancy of talking movies ($3,500), to Arthur Conan Doyle's own edition of his book Uncle Bernac: A Memory of the Empire, complemented with nine corrections in the author's hand ($5,000). “I felt this was a good idea, just one-day in and out of the city.”

Sue Gryzb, of On The Road Bookshop in Canton, Connecticut, another of the 37 vendors, was particular happy with the ease of the show. “The booth rent was very reasonable ($375 for two tables, among other sizes) and Bruce and Gary were very helpful and nice.” In addition, Gryzb, who featured an exhibition catalogue of original lithographs by artists connected to Ediciones Polígrafa, including Henry Moore and Joan Miró ($250), commented on the convenience of the porters, who helped with loading, and the cost efficiency of a one-day fair. A quick show reduced hotel, dining, and booth costs, an important factor for smaller dealers. In addition, Gryzb spoke about selling some books that she had listed on the Internet for quite some time, indicating that some dealers and collectors prefer to hold a book in their hands before they buy.

Some of Locus Solus's series of handmade collage books by Bertrand Dorny, the French book artist who has collaborated with many poets of the New York School. Each volume, done in a limited edition of nine, is priced at $1,800. Dorny's work will be featured in an exhibit at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris beginning in May, 2003

Other dealers were not originally as certain about the concept, as James Goldwasser, of Locus Solus Rare Books, Ltd. in New York City, spoke about bringing some of his higher-end books to the ABAA show. “It's a bit of an experiment to see whether a one-day fair simultaneous with the ABAA fair can draw enough people,” he said. He featured In the Future, a series of limited edition, handmade collage books made by the French book artist Bertrand Dorny in collaboration with the poet Ron Pageant. Each wildly illustrated book, filled with bright colors and reflective materials, is priced at $1,800.

Goldwasser remained optimistic, however. “It's too bad it's a rainy day. It certainly is a nice room to have it in, and it's fun and inexpensive to do. Let's see what happens.”

On The Road Book Shop's exhibition catalog of original lithographs from the Redfern Gallery in London. This cover is by Miro (one of 1000 copies).

Design Books of New York's La Lune, a mid-19th century satirical French newspaper with an illustration by Andre Gill. Priced at $2,000

Bruce Gventer's Book Shop's gigantic Spanish choir book, large enough so everyone in the congregation could see it. Held together by ˝" of wood covering in leather and metal. The book is priced at $12,000 and originally cost Gventer $120 to ship

Overall, response seemed positive, as many vendors, addled by coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts in the morning and pizza in the afternoon, were wowed by the venue. The Carriage House, named for its role as the carriage house for the famous B. Altman department store, made for a gracious host.

In fact, apart from the books, the 1896 building, now an official New York City landmark, was the biggest attraction. With beautiful ash wood floors, a 17 foot-high curved vaulted arch brick ceiling, and exposed wood rafters, the 10,000 square foot floor space was full of shelves, books, and patrons, but avoided the cramped feeling that can overtake some shows. Attractive dark wood and glass display cases offered for rent from a supplier showcased many dealers' best material, and served to pleasantly divide up the space and set off dealer areas in a comfortable, inviting manner.

The building has come a long way. “Prior to its renovation by Ken Ruby and Mike Mace, the building it was used as a sheet metal factory,” said Gventer. It would take a powerful imagination to envision a fully functioning factory inside the airy locale now, however, and the space proved to be a nearly perfect venue for a book show.

Among his many items, Gventer, a specialist in medieval and Renaissance manuscript pages, displayed his infamous ninety-pound, 16th C. Spanish choir book, which has become a visitor favorite. Each page of the enormous $12,000 book, decorated with liquid gold and lapis lazuli, is made of one sheep skin, a fact that leads Gventer to point out that the book contains a herd of 331 sheep.

According to the organizers, the fair was a critical and financial success. “We make it a point to check with our dealers to see how they've done and get their input,” said Austin. “All had nothing but praise for the venue and the ease of loading, and were pleased with their sales and the turnout.”

For those unable to make the show, next year's is already planned for Friday, April 16, in conjunction with the ABAA show.

For dealers and visitors alike, the Carriage House Antiquarian Fair, a scrappy younger brother to the ABAA show, allowed them to participate in what Austin called “a major 'book-ing' weekend in New York City,” or, in other words, as good a weekend as many book lovers could imagine.

Douglas Diesenhaus is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. He can be reached at:
douglasdiesenhaus@hotmail.com.

The verdict was unanimous. A jury of some 600 mystery aficionados, including 300 authors, voted in favor of the Left Coast Crime 2003 convention in Pasadena, CA from Feb. 27 to Mar. 3. “Anyone who thought otherwise could have copped an insanity plea!” quipped one of the attendees as LCC2003 drew to a close Sunday afternoon.

And in truth it was among the best all-volunteer-organized affairs this writer has attended over the years. Organizers kept the many events moving along on schedule. The program was studded with interesting activities, aside from the many panels that were frequent and fascinating. Two offbeat presentations opened festivities on Thursday evening.

J. Shannon

One featured an old-time radio presentation of “Sorry, Wrong Number” performed by a popular group, 30 Minutes to Curtain, devoted to the preservation of radio drama. The other (“When the Fuzz Really Are Fuzzy”) was a demonstration of how the Pasadena PD uses trained police dogs as fuzzy crime-fighters.

Robert Crais

Four 50-minute panels per hour crammed the Friday and Saturday schedules, each with a moderator and panelists selected for their knowledge of and involvement in the subject at hand. Subjects ranged from “Off the Beaten Path: Exotic Locales,” “Fangs a Lot: All Creatures Bite & Maul,” and the very popular “L.A. Beyond the Sunshine & Oranges: A Paradise of Darkness” (with panelists including Jan Burke, Robert Crais, T. Jefferson Parker & April Smith) to “Black and White and Dead All Over: Reporter Sleuths,” “Cops vs. Coppers: Yanks & Brits Duke It Out” and “Small Presses: Does Size Really Matter?”

That just scratched the surface, of course.

D. Hamilton R. Mofina

“The worst feature of LCC2003 was having to make a choice between the four hourly panels,” bemoaned one fan, who had two favorite authors on competing panels several times during the convention. “I've been reduced to flipping a coin to decide which panel I'll attend.”

Toastmaster Jerrilyn Farmer presided over festivities, including awards presentation at the Friday dinner.

The Lefty Award is a tradition at Left Coast Crime. At LCC 2003, the Lefty was awarded to the most humorous mystery novel published in the U.S. during the previous year. Hardbacks, paperbacks, and trade paperbacks were all eligible. Nominees for 2002 were:

Buck Fever - Ben Rehder; Hard Eight- Janet Evanovich; The Hearse Case Scenario - Tim Cockey; This Pen for Hire - Laura Levine; Pipsqueak - Brian Wiprud; The Rival Queens - Fidelis Morgan.

Co-winners were Brian Wiprud and Tim Cockey.

The Arty (for best cover art) went to Ben Rehder's book Buck Fever.

Maryelizabeth Hart, director of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA) presented the IMBA's 2003 Dily award to Julia Spencer-Fleming for her book In the Bleak Midwinter. Ms. Spencer-Fleming received a specially made glass art sculpture in recognition of this achievement.

Robert Crais

Bob Crais, LCC2003 Guest of Honor, enlivened the Saturday evening dinner (Mexican food, buffet style) with a virtual time and crime tour of the Los Angeles area, ranging from the Black Dahlia murder in 1958 to the homes of Harry Bosch (“16 miles dead west of us...”) and Elvis Cole (“…on the south side of that same mountain…”) You can read the full text at http://leftcoastcrime2003.com/craisinfo.htm#Crais%20remarks

Sisters in Crime sponsored a Movie Lounge in a separate suite on Friday and Saturday, with an impressive array of movies screened each day. Titles included L.A. Confidential, Sunset Boulevard and Chinatown, The Thin Man, Hitchcock's Notorious and The Big Fix, treats for any cinema fan. Videotaped interviews with authors Earlene Fowler, Rhys Bowen and Cynthia Harrod-Eagles were interspersed among the movies.

Thomas Perry

Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFBD), Los Angeles Unit, benefited from proceeds of silent auctions held Friday and Saturday evenings. These events and others raised nearly $14,000 for RFBD.

JA Jance

There was more but this reporter staggered home Sunday afternoon, loaded with notebook, camera gear and newly signed books, too pooped to pound the keyboard at any greater length. Suffice it to say that I will attend Left Coast Crime 2004 – and recommend that you do likewise!

By: Ken Fermoyle

Crowd shots w/Royce Hall in background. The event spreads over all of the campus but this are is pretty much the center of the Festival.

Just when one questions how many people read anything but TV listings for so-called “reality shows” or local “newscasts” (30% commercials, 65% trivia, gore, sports or weather reports, only about 5% hard news), along comes something to remind you that there are still pockets of human intelligence out there.

For me, that is the annual Los Angeles Festival of Books, held every spring on the beautiful University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Some 150,000 book lovers swarmed over the sprawling UCLA campus on the last weekend of April this year in a powerful testimonial to the power of the printed page.

They ranged in age from toddlers and tots in prams and strollers to teens, twenty-somethings, plus middle-age boomers and gray-haired seniors, some obviously in their 70s or even 80s. There were scholarly types, but many more who didn't fit the stereotype of “book people.” Some wore heavy metal T-shirts, others clung to styles reminiscent of the '60s and 70s. Footwear ranged from cowboy boots and Doc Martens to sandals, sneakers and suede Hush Puppies.

In short, it was a diverse crowd, but with one over-riding thing in common: a genuine love of books and reading.

Saturday's featured authors included Daniel Ellsberg, Mark Bowden, Po Bronson, Pete Hamill, Richard Rodriguez, Joyce Appleby, Philip Dray, Mary Norton, Samantha Power, Timothy Ferris, and others.

Many other distinguished names dotted the lists of panelists and authors who signed books for long lines of faithful readers. Among them were:

Elmore Leonard: Mystery writer, signing books.

Mitch Albom, Dave Barry, Peter Bart, A. Scott Berg, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Ray Bradbury, Sandra Cisneros, Mary Higgins Clark, Frank Deford, Michael Eric Dyson, Stuart Eizenstat, Lillian Faderman, David Halberstam, Christopher Hitchens, Arianna Huffington, James Ivory, Brian Jacques, Maxine Hong Kingston, Elmore Leonard, Alice McDermott, Terry McMillan, Greg Palast, T. Jefferson Parker, George Plimpton, Carl Reiner, Jane Smiley, Aaron Sorkin, Scott Turow and Stuart Woods.

In short, there was something, or somebody, for every reader present. And that's without even considering the winners and finalists for the L.A. Times Book Prizes, which are a centerpiece of the Festival of Books every year.

MRA: Elmore Leonard (sunglasses), one of the deans of contemporary mystery writers, signs in the Mystery Writers of America/Mystery Bookstore (L.A.) Booth.

The Los Angeles Times honors the printed word in books with an extensive set of formal awards. Presented annually since 1980, the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes now have nine subject categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award), history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science and technology, and young adult fiction. In addition to these nine prizes for single titles, the Robert Kirsch Award recognizes the body of work by a meritorious writer living in and/or writing on the American West.

Several giant crossword puzzles scattered around the Festival grounds attracted crowds of word puzzle fans.

The 23rd Book Prize Awards Ceremony featured A. Scott Berg as Master of Ceremonies and a distinguished list of Book Prize Presenters: Gayle Anderson (Young Adult Fiction), Jonathan Kirsch (Robert Kirsch Award), Eric Lax (Biography), T. Jefferson Parker (Mystery/Thriller), George Plimpton (Current Interest), John Rechy (Fiction), Dava Sobel (Science and Technology), Ronald Steel (History), Susan Straight (Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction), and Quincy Troupe (Poetry).

BIOGRAPHY

Winner:
Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 3 (Alfred A. Knopf)

Finalists:
Gioconda Belli, The Country under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War (Alfred A. Knopf)

Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (Viking)

T.J. Stiles, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War (Alfred A. Knopf)

Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (Alfred A. Knopf)

CURRENT INTEREST

Winner:
Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (University of Minnesota Press)

Finalists:
Timothy Ferris, Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril (Simon & Schuster)

Nicolaus Mills and Kira Brunner (editors), The New Killing Fields: Massacre and the Politics of Intervention (Basic Books)

Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich (Broadway Books)

Samantha Power, “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide (Basic Books)

FICTION

Winner;
Ian McEwan, Atonement: A Novel (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)

Finalists:
Peter Cameron, The City of Your Final Destination (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Aleksandar Hemon, Nowhere Man (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)

Kate Jennings, Moral Hazard: A Novel (Fourth Estate/HarperCollins)

Joanna Scott, Tourmaline: A Novel (Little, Brown and Company)

HISTORY

Winner:
Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Oxford University Press)

Finalists:
Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (Random House)

Robert Harms, The Diligent: A Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave Trade (Basic Books)

Gregg Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller (A John Macrae Book/Henry Holt)

Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (Alfred A. Knopf)

MYSTERY/THRILLER

Winner:
George P. Pelecanos, Hell to Pay: A Novel (Little, Brown and Company)

Finalists:
Stephen L. Carter, The Emperor of Ocean Park (Alfred A. Knopf)

Tod Goldberg, Living Dead Girl: A Novel (Soho Press)

Henning Mankell, One Step Behind [translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg] (The New Press)

Scott Turow, Reversible Errors (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

POETRY

Winner:
Cynthia Zarin, The Watercourse: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf)

Finalists:
Terrance Hayes, Hip Logic (Penguin Books)

John Koethe, North Point North: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins Publishers)

J.D. McClatchy, Hazmat: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf)

Harryette Mullen, Sleeping with the Dictionary (University of California Press)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Winner:
Brenda Maddox, Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA (HarperCollins Publishers)

Finalists:
Deborah Blum, Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection (Perseus Publishing)

Judith Hooper, Of Moths and Men: An Evolutionary Tale, the Untold Story of Science and the Peppered Moth (W.W. Norton)

Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History (Walker and Company)

Richard Preston, The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story (Random House)

YOUNG ADULT FICTION

Winner:
M.T. Anderson, Feed (Candlewick Press)

Finalists:
Kate Banks, Dillon Dillon (Frances Foster Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby: A Novel (Viking/Penguin Young Readers Group)

E.R. Frank, America: A Novel (A Richard Jackson Book/Atheneum Books for Young Readers)

Joyce Carol Oates, Big Mouth & Ugly Girl (HarperTempest/HarperCollins)

THE ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION

Winner:
Arthur Phillips, Prague: A Novel (Random House)

Finalists:

Jay Basu, The Stars Can Wait: A Novel (Henry Holt and Company)

Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel (Houghton Mifflin Company)

Nicole Krauss, Man Walks into a Room (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)

Hari Kunzru, The Impressionist (Dutton/Penguin Group (USA))

Left Coast Crime 2004
Offers a Secret Weapon:
Location, Location!

By: Ken Fermoyle

Organizers of Left Coast Crime 2004 know they have a tough act to follow after the very successful LCC 2003 in Pasadena, CA. Undaunted, however, they face the task confidently, armed with weapons of mass appeal: a picturesque location and its storied literary past.

The 14^th event in the LCC series will be held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Montery, CA, setting of some of John Steinbeck's most famous novels and just a stone's throw from the John Steinbeck Library (http://www.ci.salinas.ca.us//LI/LIstein.html ) in Salinas. Monterey itself, of course, offers Fisherman's Wharf, a greatly sanitized and commercial Cannery Row with its colorful John Steinbeck Plaza, the famous Aquarium and capping it all, the gorgeous Monterey Bay.

Additional weapons in the LCC 2004 arsenal include an impressive lineup of authors, headed by Guests of Honor Walter Mosley and Sharan Newman. At this writing (late April, 2003) some 75 authors were already registered, starting with two Donnas, Anders and Andrews, going through Rhys Bowen, Sue Henry and Barbara Seranella to Simon Wood and Sue Owens Wright. (For up-to-date list, visit http://www.interbridge.com/lcc2004/authors.html )

Scheduled events include a “Night of Noir,” devoted to the darker mysteries set on the Mean Streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco and points east. “We have more 'secret weapons' in the works for LCC 2004,” promises Janet Rudolph, publicity chair, “and will unveil them as we firm up our schedule of events.”

Meanwhile, Ms Rudolph did confirm the list of honorees other than Walter Mosley and Sharan Newman. They are: Toastmistress: Gillian Roberts (Judy Greber); Life Time Achievement award: Richard A. Lupoff; and Fan Guests of Honor: Bryan Barrett and Thom Walls.

I chatted with Toby and Bill Gottfried, co-chairs, and others on the Organizing Committee for LCC 2004 at the 2003 convention in Pasadena and left with the distinct impression that these people have the situation well in hand. They had already done a great deal of work to make the 2004 event a success.

I also learned that dealer exhibit spaces already were pretty well filled up by repeat exhibitors, who get preference for booths, according to Diane Kudisch and Bryan Barrett, Dealer Room Coordinators. Dealers who want to sign up on a stand-by basis in case of cancellations can contact Diane at Sfmysterybooks@aol.com or Bryan at mysbkguy@yahoo.com.

Organizing Committee co-chairs, the Gottfrieds, cautioned that it's never too soon to make hotel reservations.

“The DoubleTree Hotel in Monterey began accepting reservations in mid-February. The LCC 2004 rate is $135 per night plus tax. Call the Monterey DoubleTree direct (best way) at 1-831-649-4511, or call toll-free at 1-800-222-TREE (8733). If you call the 800 number, ask for Group Reservations, identify yourself as being with Left Coast Crime 14, and give the convention dates (Feb. 19-22, 2004), even if you wish to stay longer.”

Price of the admission to all convention events is $150. (A subscribing fee of $30 brings LCC 2004 publications to those who can't attend in person.) Go to http://www.interbridge.com/lcc2004/reg.html to register for event online. Send e-mail to lcc2004@gottfried.org for more information.

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Out-of-Print & Antiquarian Book Market Seminar

Dear Fellow Booksellers,

The Out-of-Print & Antiquarian Book Market Seminar---the intensive one-week program for booksellers and collectors at all levels of experience---is accepting registrants for this year's session, which will be held August 3 through 8 at Colorado College in beautiful Colorado Springs.  Now in its 25th year, the seminar has graduated more than 2,000 participants, many of whom have become prominent figures in the antiquarian book world.

Graduates have described the seminar experience as one of the most important professional career steps they could have taken.  The curriculum has been constantly updated to reflect the important changes that have taken place in the antiquarian and out-of-print world in the past decade.

An all-star faculty with a combined experience of many years in all phases of book selling will preside over sessions covering such topics as pricing and description of antiquarian books and manuscripts, the auction process, Internet book selling, book scouting, ethics of the book trade, book repairs and restoration, operating a used book store, book fairs, the economics of the book trade, and more.  This year's keynote speaker will be Daniel De Simone, Curator for the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection of the Library of Congress.  With over 25 years in the book trade he has significant experience in building rare book collections for private collectors and libraries.

For more information, please contact Kathy Lindeman, Coordinator, at (719) 473-6634, or visit the seminar's web site at http://www.bookseminars.com where on-line applications can be quickly completed.  Don't be shut out----enrollment is limited to ensure a strong faculty to student ratio.

Regards,
The Faculty of Book Seminars

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How, when and why to write a press release and what to expect if you do

By: Sally Spooner
SallySpoon@aol.com

How

A press release has a standard format and should be as brief and to the point as possible. Think of how long it takes you to decide whether to read an e-mail or not. That's about how long an editor will give your press release before deciding what to do with it.

Your press release should be written on your company letterhead if it is typed and should be double-spaced. The sentences should be short, and the word count should be no more than 300-500.

At the top of the page center the words "News Release." Under that center the words: "For Immediate Release," unless there is a restriction on when you want the information to be made public, in which case you may say "Release After_______." Most press releases are for immediate release.

Following the release information is the most important line: your headline. Use this to grab the attention of an editor in a short, factual and interesting way.

The first paragraph should answer these basic questions of any news story:

Who
What
Where
When
How

Expand on this information in the following two or three paragraphs. It is helpful and it adds interest if you can build a quotation into your story.

Conclude with your own contact information.

Accurate contact information is very important. In the words of an experienced journalist, "I can't tell you how many times I've called the number provided to get a voice mail that says the person is on vacation. A little planning would prevent that.".

The article should be able to stand alone where ever it happens to be cut, after the first, second, third or fourth paragraphs. So say whatever you think is the most important early in the article. Embellish later.

At the end, type ###, centered after the final paragraph.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? The only way to get good at it is to practice, practice and then practice more. It's surprisingly difficult to write in a simple style and to say what's most important first. Practicing will automatically improve your skills in writing attention grabbing book descriptions though.

Whatever you write, have someone read it before you submit it. If that person thinks it's blah, it probably is. Go back and rewrite, eliminating as many words as you can. Be sure you haven't hidden your most important points somewhere deep within the article.

However, since editors don't necessarily expect every press release to be professionally written, don't hesitate to send some of your practice efforts off to the media if they are accurate, in the correct format and about something you want to publicize. You may be pleased with the results. Media need content more than they need perfectly written material. They can handle rewrites. That's part of the job.

I edit and write a quarterly newsletter, The Downtown Beat, for Downtown New Bedford, Inc., a non-profit organization, and most of the articles we receive are not professionally written. That's OK with us. We want the downtown news in whatever shape we can get it. We know that it takes many people three paragraphs to work up to making their most important points. We can live with that and edit accordingly.

The Boston Globe has a list of dos and don'ts for their calendar items and a format that they request that people use to submit them electronically. Using their format would give you practice at the essentials. You can find it at: http://www.boston.com/cgi-bin/globe_events.cgi .

Who & Where

Before you write the press release, you need to develop a media list, which means calling or e-mailing the outlets where you intend to send the release to find out whom to send it to, what format they require and how far ahead of your intended publication date they need to have the release. You can usually find the right contact person by locating the publication on-line and consulting the 'about us' section. Even if you call the general information number, they will be helpful about directing you to the right department.

Press releases are usually delivered by first class mail, by fax, or electronically, although many places will not accept press releases by fax.

A journalist writing for an on-line publication says, "I prefer to get press releases via e-mail. I tell people never to fax me. I don't get faxes quickly enough."

If you submit your releases on-line, it is considered bad manners to include attachments. Say everything you need to say in the release itself. Although follow-up is the norm in almost every other business activity, it is not necessarily the case when it comes to press releases. If you call to find out if your release has been received and/or read, you may be considered a pest.

You can, of course, pay to have press releases written and released for you, but it seems worthwhile to spend some time trying to see what you can do on your own first.

If you expect to be issuing a number of press releases, it might be a good idea to invest in The Associated Press Stylebook or a similar publication.

If you are an on-line business only, you may wonder what good press releases can do you and where you can submit them. You can submit them to any trade publication. You can also post them to your own web site, although you might rewrite them a bit to make them more personal and informal. Don't overlook your local community newspapers, even the weeklies. If you have a specialty business, they may eventually want to write a feature story about you, and the link to that story can be posted on your own web site.

When

Write a press release for any kind of announcement you want to make. You are sponsoring an event. You have changed a business affiliation. You have moved. You have added a new line of books. You have made an important discovery. You have earned a new designation. You have been nationally published or recognized in some way. You can cure a common problem.

What & What you can expect

Write press releases as a part of your overall marketing program, which may also include your own web site, print and on-line newsletters, discounts for repeat customers, workshops, etc.

News releases are effective but not terribly efficient. You may send out many with only a few published in entirety. The few that are published may reach thousands of recipients, but few will respond. It is a sort of dandelion seed effect. Many seeds are released, but most do not result in plants, and yet the dandelion is a very successful plant. The effort of writing and issuing press releases is never wasted according to Laura LaTour, publicity director for Baker Books, an independent community book store in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

Baker Books hosts two monthly writing groups and sponsors at least three other monthly events, sometimes more. Each event requires a press release. That's a lot of press releases in the course of a year. As a book lover, I read or scan most of them. And yet I have responded directly to only one, attending a book signing for Jon Vaughan's self published book of photographs, Coastal Effects. I bought two books at the signing and later visited Jon's shop in Chatham, Mass.

Laura says this low rate of direct response to a press release is fairly typical. The average event draws an attendance of 15 to 20 people, although a few draw many more. Only one or two may attend because they read about it in the newspaper. More are attending because of the store's web-site calendar, the calendar posted in the entryway, or the weekly e-mail newsletter. (For ideas on how to write your newsletter see the last issue of The Standard http://www.ioba.org/newsletter/V10/ownnewsletter.php .

The indirect response to press releases is probably larger but more difficult to measure. Weeks after an author signing, for example, a customer may buy a signed book and saying, "I read about this in the newspaper."

The cumulative response is larger still. Our community newspaper, the Standard-Times, publishes many book related human interest stories and a number of them originate with press releases from Baker Books.

What to do if a writer/editor calls

Your reason for writing press releases is to get publicity. If a writer calls, it's a stop everything moment. Talk to the caller on the spot, or return the call quickly. When I write The Downtown Beat, I am always surprised at my success in getting people to talk to me or return my calls or make time in a busy schedule for me to interview them. After all, the Downtown Beat is a pretty tiny publication, with a very small circulation, and it's only quarterly.

If you hear the keys clicking as you speak, it's a sign that your press release and comments are on target and that your publicity efforts are becoming successful.

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Rest Breaks, Exercises
Prevent Computer Ailments

By Ken Fermoyle

Online booksellers make great candidates for eyestrain, backaches, carpal tunnel syndrome and all manner of computer-related repetitive stress injuries (RSI). We spend hours hunched over keyboards, eyes glued to monitors, turning those stacks of unentered books into cashable assets in our online inventories.

Between us, my wife and I offer a catalog of physical ills caused by years of working on computers: various RSI problems, neck pain, sore backs and vision problems. Liz underwent surgery twice for carpal tunnel syndrome and still has frequent wrist and hand pain. (Admittedly, not all of these aches and pains came from our book-related efforts; some came from earlier days when we actually made real money using computers. But latter years spent doing book entries, processing orders, working on book websites and the like haven't helped.)

I have suffered from aggravated neck and back injuries. My vision has deteriorated, partially from 20 years of staring at a monitor, although admittedly age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and cataracts have been more damaging.

The sad truth is that if we knew 15 or 20 years ago what we know now, these problems need not have occurred. Or if they had, they would have been less severe. Even sadder is that prevention of many computer-related ailments is neither difficult nor especially time-consuming.

Frequent rest breaks are vital, says my chiropractor, Kurt W. Rice, who is also my son-in-law, God bless him. (He has helped me more times in recent years with neck and back problems than I care to remember!)

The breaks needn't be lengthy. Dr. Kurt recommends that we get up from our chairs every half-hour or so, stretch our backs and walk for a minute or two, maybe jog in place. Other experts offer different opinions about frequency and duration of breaks but all agree that they are vital.

Sitting and working at a computer creates more tension and stress on muscles, nerves, tendons and joints than most of us realize. Our bodies fight gravity every minute that we're seated. Breaks alleviate this tension and stress.

To prevent the dread carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), during your break let your hands go limp at the wrist and wiggle them vigorously in what some call "the clerk & typist exercise." I've found that switching hands to use the mouse or trackball is a good way to prevent the onset of CTS. I'm right-handed so it seemed strange to move the mouse to the left side of my keyboard and use my left hand to manipulate it. It quickly became habitual, however, and now I'm ambidextrous on the computer – but nowhere else. I switch back and forth regularly.

Other critical points concerning CTS are wrist support and correct desk height for your keyboard. I suspect that more wrist damage has been and is done by ignoring these two areas. Wrist pads are a must! If your keyboard is at the very edge of your desk or keyboard drawer surface, leaving your wrists dangling in the air, you're asking – no, begging! – for carpal tunnel problems.

The same is true if your monitor and keyboard are mounted on a standard-height desk (about 30 inches). Best height for a keyboard work surface is 25 to 26 inches, give or take a bit.

Some people use voice recognition programs to cut down on their need to use a keyboard and mouse. I find that difficult; after more than 50 years of banging away at typewriter and computer keys, dictation comes hard to me. Now that voice recognition software is improving and more reliable and faster computers make it more practical, however, I've resolved to use it more often for many tasks. A major benefit is that you can use a microphone or headset while standing or even lying down. I plan to try dictating drafts, then to rewrite and edit as necessary from the keyboard.

I suspect using voice recognition for entering books into a database might be a problem. If anyone out there has tried it, please let me know about your experiences at kfermoyle@earthlink.net.

Vision experts warn that we should take "eye breaks" even more frequently. Every 10 or 12 minutes, look away from the monitor at objects 10 to 12 feet away. When I'm working with a word processor or any other program that allows me to increase type size easily and temporarily, I do it. Working with 14- instead of 10-point type prevents squinting and straining to see my work. It also allows me to sit up straight, not bent over the keyboard, and you can always reduce point size before printing or sending e-mail.

I mentioned my neck and back injuries earlier. The neck problems began about 19 years ago. I was riding my bicycle when a large tree limb broke off and fell on me. (Fortunately I was wearing a good helmet or the freak accident might have killed me.) That caused some damage, which increased with age and was aggravated by working on computers and long-distance cycling. The pain got so bad I could not turn my head to either side more than 12 or 15 degrees. Dr. Kurt came to the rescue, with manipulation, ultra-sound and heat packs. He recommended several simple exercises, which I try to do regularly.

My back injuries were computer-related. The first came when I installed a second drive in one of our machines. I crawled under a desk to get at the computer case. After removing all the cables, I tried to lift the box and slide it out to where I could work on it. Trouble was, I was lying with my body twisted awkwardly and didn't bother to shift to a position that would give me more leverage.

Bad move! I felt something pop and was in instant agony. It took several weeks of Dr. Kurt's ministrations to recover from that one. I injured the back again in October 1999 after one of the desktop publishing/word processing classes I taught then. I took a computer and 17-inch monitor out of a car trunk with a high lip that made it impossible to lift them properly. I had to bend and lift with my back—and pop, there it went again! This time, recovery took even longer.

I mention these details to make a point. The first instance was pure accident. No way could I foresee that a brittle, rotted pepper tree branch would break off and fall just as I pedaled under it. The second injury occurred because I didn't take time to position myself properly. The third case was avoidable too; I should never have tried to lift heavy objects out of that particular car truck. Trouble is, I forget my hard-used back is more vulnerable now than it was even 20 ago, and I think many of us who have reached senior citizen status do the same.

I just caught myself in a no-no a few minutes ago. I wanted a book from a built-in shelf high and to the right of my home office workstation. I started to reach up, twisting my back at an awkward angle. Various muscles prepared to scream in protest, so I did what I should have done in the first place. I moved my chair out of the way, got a step stool I keep folded behind the door, set it firmly in place and climbed up to find the desired book. It took a few extra minutes, but it kept me from aggravating my previously- injured back.

The book, by the way was Zap! How your computer can hurt you—and what you can do about it. Written by Don Sellers (edited by Stephen E. Roth), it was published by Peachpit Press in 1994. It's now out of print but you can find copies online. And Peachpit has a condensed version, 25 Steps to Safe Computing, also by Sellers, that may still be available for $5.95. Either would be a good addition to your library. Check them out.

Meanwhile give yourself, and your body, a break…at least once every half-hour!

Copyright 2003 by Ken Fermoyle, kfermoyle@earthlink.net .

# # # # #

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Questions & Answers

Q. For books that you have already bought and looked up on the internet, what is your specific criteria (prices too low, too many copies already online) for not putting them online? Or do you put everything online?

Jonathan Grobe Books

A. Why add to the glut and waste keystrokes? If it appears that I can't get at least $10.00 for a book, then it goes out to http://www.bothing.org .

Ilene Kayne
B is for Book

And....

I use condition and number of copies online as my criteria. I try not to list anything with more than 10-15 copies already available (becoming more difficult as time goes by), anything with underlining or musty odor (unless exceptionally scarce) and then it is fully described in the listing. Some of the ones that are prolific on the net will go well on e-Bay (particularly non-fiction).

Donald & Cynthia Putt
Parnassus on Wheels

Also....

If there are more than 50 copies online, I don't bother, unless most of them are ex-library, book club, damaged, etc. If I have to ask less than $8.00 for a book, it goes on Half.com, unless it is too old to have an ISBN.

Stan Modjesky.

Q. Is there anyway to find out if a book is from a book club, such as: Mystery Guild, or Book of the Month Club?

Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson - submitted on behalf of members of Bibliophile, a great online subscription list for book lovers.

A. There is no one way to identify book club editions, and for every "rule" there are exceptions. Here are the main rules for books published in the U.S.:

1. NO PRICE on dust jacket when the book is published by a major U.S. trade publisher, i.e., Random House, Houghton Mifflin, Dutton, etc.

Exceptions: Some Book-of-the-Month-Club (BOMC) editions DO have a price on the dj. Family Bookshelf book club editions almost always have a price. (usually stated as such on the rear flap). Conversely, some small publishers and university presses sometimes do not have prices on the dj. It's uncommon, but some trade publishers such as St. Martins, who also publish academic/scholarly books, might not have a price on the dj on these academic books.

2. Cheaper, lighter weight and/or smaller format. This is generally true of books published by the Doubleday book clubs, including science fiction and mystery, the Literary Guild, The Family Bookshelf editions, etc.

Exceptions (many): Book-of-the-Month-Club Editions are often identical or almost identical to the trade editions, including stating 1st edition, etc. Older Literary Guild editions are well produced. The Junior Literary Guild (children's books) are identical except for the price on the dj, and the 'guild' on the spine of the book instead of publisher's name. Many newer book club editions are much closer to the original format, often the same size, and not obviously cheaper.

3. Lacks the publisher's usual method of identifying first editions, whether it is stating first edition, or a number line, etc.

Exceptions: Frequently BOMC states 1st edition, but has blind embossed dot on the back cover. Family Bookshelf sometimes state 'first printing' but these editions are cheaper and lighter in weight so you can tell even if you don't have a dj. Usually "Family Bookshelf" is stated on rear flap of dj. Many newer mystery and other generic book club editions will have a statement or a number line, but usually no price on dj. These are the books most commonly misidentified as firsts.

4. Blind embossed dot on the lower edge of back cover near spine.

NO exceptions. If a book has this dot, even if dj has price, and the books says first edition, and is in every other way identical to a first edition, it is a BOMC EDITION. This would be an infallible way of identifying book club editions, except that only one book club in the U.S. used this dot, the BOMC, and then only for part of its existence. Even the BOMC did not use this on all of its books, so the vast majority of BCE (book club editions) do not have this dot.

Note: The Borzoi Hound used by Simon & Schuster, and the big colored dots on some of James Michener's books, etc., are not the BOMC blind embossed dot.

5. No bar code for a book that would normally have one - or a generic book club bar code. The opposite is not true; many book club djs have the identical bar code, with ISBN, as the trade editions.

6. Laid-in material indicating that it is a book club selection; for some small non-fiction book clubs, which basically distribute trade editions, this is the only way to tell.

7. For large trade paperbacks published by the Quality paperback Book Club, a division of BOMC, that might appear like ARCs, i.e., no price, 1st edition stated, there will usually be a code hidden in the rear gutter.

Note: Some book club editions are the "original," produced only by the book club, especially Guild editions, Nelson Doubleday for science fiction, etc. For some science fiction and mysteries, the book club edition might be the first hardcover edition. (Sometimes there are multiple book club editions of the same title. The Doubleday clubs used a code in the gutter towards the back of the book that can establish priority.)

A common scenario might be to describe a mystery published by Simon & Schuster as a "First Edition " even though there is no price on the dj. The bookseller will say "it has a number line with a "1" and states first printing. "it is not a cheaply made book" "it isn't a small size" "it has a headband" or "there is no blind dot". None of this matters. In this case, the book met Rule #1 (no price on the dj, major US publisher), and it only needs to meet ONE rule.

A couple of last points: It is not accurate to describe all book club copies as BOMC editions. There is often a difference between BOMC books and those by other clubs. The generic terms are 'book club' 'bc', or 'bce.'

If the only way to tell if a book is a bce is by the price or lack thereof on the dj, and you do not have a dj, then you cannot call the book a 'first edition' (unless you personally threw away the priced dj). Book club editions are almost always much more common than trade editions; so in the absence of evidence that the book is a trade edition, you cannot just call it a first (if, for example, you know that it was also a BOMC edition) The same applies if the corner has been clipped. Unless you personally clipped the price off, you cannot assume that a price had been there.

Special thanks to Chris Volk of Bookfever.com for this in-depth information. I might also add that it would be helpful to have reference material, such as Zempel/Verkler. FIRST EDITIONS: A GUIDE TO IDENTIFICATION, to help in determining editions.

Q. Why do some eBayers have a little box around their seller rating with a feedback rating given in a percentage of positive feedbacks? I have just noticed this in the past month or so.

Submitted by David Peterson. Misty Mountain Books.

A. eBay rolled out a feedback enhancement, which it is slowly phasing in, which gives buyers the ability to see right there on the listing page, a seller's percentage of positives vs. negatives.

Keith Sparrow
Sparrow's Nest Books

Q. After spending two days making three very quick websites, I feel it's time to ask what other people do. I know there is a fondness out there for FrontPage, but does anyone use anything less complicated & proprietary? I would rather just be able to open a html file and fiddle with it than what I am doing now.

J. Godsey.

A. I have great confidence in recommending NetObjects Fusion 7. It is by far the simplest and yet most thorough pieces of web software that I have come across after a long search, including Frontpage, which I also have.

Luis Porretta.

And from Jim Hart:

I have used "Programmer's File Editor" for coding for many years. It is my first choice for HTML, C, C++, Java, Basic, Visual Basic, and the various scripting languages used on the net. PFE will load files limited only by the amount of memory available. You can save text files in either Windows or Unix format. I have loaded and worked on log files exceeding 600 meg with no problem. PFE is a free program. The developer no longer supports it, and there will be no future changes, but I have had no problems with the software after many thousand hours of use on platforms from Windows 3 through Win 95 & NT. I have not used it on Win 98 nor on XP. I don't think there should be a problem with either, but cannot swear to this. You can download the latest version of PFE from Simtel's site:
http://www.simtel.net/pub/dl/11983.shtml .

Joyce also tells us these were other highly recommended programs:
Arachnophilia: http://www.arachnoid.com
CoffeeCup HTML: http://www.tucows.com/preview/194456.html
1st Page 2000: http://www.evrsoft.com/
NoteTab: http://www.notetab.com/
WebPlus 8: http://www.serif.com/webplus/webplus8/
AceHTML 5 Key Features: http://freeware.acehtml.com/
Dreamweaver: http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/
Homesite: http://www.macromedia.com/software/homesite/

Our thanks to all contributors, especially Bibliophile from whence most of the information was culled.

Jean S. McKenna – Editor, Q&A
Chairman, Education Committee

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The Neutrino Effect
By: Michael E. Kirshteyn
Paperback , 6" x 9", 364 pages,
13 figures, ISBN 0-595-23607-3,
$17.06

E-book, 552 pages
13 figures
$6.95

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Neutrino Effect is set in a future some seventy years from now, after a long-running series of “Terrorist Wars” have nearly been won by the powerful New American governments. The earth stands poised on the brink of a new peace, and the heroic “Space Ranger” division of NASA are bringing back information from the farthest reaches of space regarding new worlds and moons filled with valuable resources. Bold policies of environmental and political reform have been adopted by the governments of our planet, and the New United States has emerged as a forceful leader in world affairs, having subsidized many of the nearly-bankrupt foreign powers. Against this futuristic backdrop, the adventures of Vladimir Ustinov and his New World Science Industries team begin.

Told from Vlad's perspective, the story unfolds as a first-person account of the great events shaping man's first encounter with extraterrestrials. This exciting narrative brings us right into the character of Ustinov, as we learn of his childhood and his fascination with NEUTRINOS, the sub-atomic particles that give shape to the universe. His theory is that the constant flow of neutrinos in the universe can be tapped to create a transmission frequency capable of reaching billions of miles into outer space. His theory gains him early admission to a prestigious science institution in Russia, and he graduates with honors, going to work on a top-secret weapons project for the New Soviet Union. After a terrible accident that costs the lives of many friends and co-workers, Vlad defects to the States, where he takes a teaching position and begins New World Science Industries with a small group of like-minded colleagues.

Fifteen years later, Vlad is older and somewhat wiser, a rich and respected research specialist whose company has contributed to the betterment of all mankind through advances in power generation and quantum light physics. His core team of eccentric scientists and philosophers include the brilliant Xan Huxley, a half-Asian physicist with a mind towards understanding “the beauty of the equation.” Herbert Eastman, Xan's partner from a long-abandoned Neutrino research effort in the Antarcticas, is a nerdy young man whose passion in life is for speculative science and digital perfection. David and Lindsay Romano are the lovers of the group—David, a raging ego and outrageous joker with a lust for life, Lindsay the mother hen of New World. They are each brilliant mathematicians and hard workers, while they keep everyone grounded in a family atmosphere. Rounding out the core group is Harry Northrop, an aged former engineer, now head business administrator for the company. An ex-alcoholic and chronic womanizer, Harry is about to go through an ugly divorce and is battling the temptation to give in to his old youthful ways. This is Vlad's family.

On Christmas Eve 2076, a practical joke gone awry at an office party ironically leads to the discovery that allows Vlad Ustinov's team to build the first-ever Neutrino-based transmitter. Shortly thereafter, they beam their first message into space, under the watchful eye of General Jake Vicobs, a robust middle-aged go-getter in the new American government who has championed the various reforms that have helped humanity pull back from the brink of self-destruction. The transmission is a success . . .but our transmissions quickly attract another watchful eye.

The eye of the Ign'takk.

In their own language, they refer to themselves as The World Builders—a highly-telepathic race of aliens whose technology and wisdom is millions of years in advance of ours.

In an attempt to prevent us from utilizing the limited Neutrino bandwidth as a transmission frequency, thereby exposing ourselves to potentially hostile invasions by other civilizations, The World Builders quickly journey to our planet and initiate an explosive confrontation. In the fiery aftermath, thousands of their crewmembers end up scattered across the continental united states—a photosynthetic race of subservient creatures called the Truh'll'zst, which in the language of The World Builders means 'from the light.'

A conference with the president is quickly organized to discuss the crisis. Vlad Ustinov and his team are invited by the aliens to attend and are given carte' blanche at the White House as negotiations for peace and plans for the capture and removal of the Truh'll'szt from earth are discussed.

After an exciting series of encounters and confrontations, including the invasion of our world by a war-loving race of feudal barbarians known as the Shkk Renn, a deal is struck with the World Builders in which they are allowed room on our world to conduct research and create outposts. In exchange, they will protect the Earth from further invasions and allow us to become students of their science.

Speaking for the World Builders is a headstrong female ambassador, whose name—Or'hikk—literally means Wise Light. It is her fascination with the enigmatic Xan Huxley that brings her to the decision to unite her people with those of earth. Though her feelings of love are cloaked in denial, she cannot slight her bond with Xan, and the two become close friends and liaisons. Various intriguing subplots regarding the supporting characters develop as the story progresses, each building to a climax.

Amidst all this intrigue and action, Vlad Ustinov becomes ambassador to the World Builders, and he shares many adventures with them as they fight to protect our planet and battle the invaders who set upon us. As these adventures mount, an intriguing dynamic develops between humans and aliens, one in which the World Builders must learn to overcome their self-righteous position as a superior race, and accept humankind as the unique and fascinating species we truly are. Along the way, Huxley and Vicobs conspire against the powers of our government to execute a radical new experiment in organic matter transportation that will lead to an unprecedented leap forward for our people—and the universe. This bold action on our part also helps to decide our nobility in the eyes of The World Builders. In this way, the title of the book now refers to both humans and aliens, as we each struggle in our own way to build the future.

In the end, Vlad must deal with the tragic death of his comrade Harry Northrop at the moment of humanity's most selfless collective act—when we, as a species, decide to give up our newly-claimed relocation planet to a race of nomad aliens who are left without a home when their star system goes supernova.

Filled with nonstop action and intrigue, and written in a quick and friendly prose style sure to attract readership of all ages, THE NEUTRINO EFFECT is thoughtful, character-driven science fiction recalling elements of Heinlein and Asimov, while possessing a powerful voice all its own. The story threads weave together to create an allegorical fable tinged with reality, and finally topped by a super surprise ending.

In a literary universe of stock pulp serial characters, Vlad Ustinov is an offbeat and refreshing change of pace. A chronicler of history to come, and a hero for the future.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Kirshteyn was born in the Soviet Union in 1963. At the age of seven, he encountered the love of his young life when he discovered his first science fiction book. By the time he was sixteen, he began to write stories. When his parents emigrated to the United States, Kirshteyn continued his relationship with writing and enrolled in high school, from which he graduated in 1981. He has been an American citizen since the age of twenty-one.

Raised in Cincinnati and educated in public schools, he eventually found his way to the University of Cincinnati and, over the protests of the school administration, managed to annex a series of degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science and Computer Engineering, up to and including a Ph.D. He infiltrated a series of companies and climbed the corporate ladder, ignoring all cries of outrage, until he found himself hitting the glass ceiling. He is married to Vlada Berman, a business analyst with whom he shares two children. The Kirshteyns live in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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Jack Jacobs and the Doomsday Time Machine
(…and the Fun and Games of Self-Publishing)

By: Albert S. Abraham

I started writing this book in the early part of January 2002 and finished it about 10 weeks later. I wanted to make it an educational book that everyone could enjoy, having no violence or swearing, yet intense enough to intrigue one's mind. In addition to it being educational, I also wanted the story to have a lot of science in it, something I feel that I did accomplish while also having a lot of fun in the process. During the completion phase of the book, I found that the hardest part of all was keeping my elapsed times correct in relation to midnight, as time kept getting reset for Jack Jacobs while inside his time tunnel, essentially keeping him in the year 2199. Since the cosmological time in the universe was going backwards 100 years every 24 hours, I actually had to create a table to keep track of the time and year of the universe in relation to different events that were happening for Jack throughout the book. Figuring up the actual times for traveling from galaxy to galaxy, for instance, was easy.

As far as picking the title, well, the words “Doomsday Time Machine” came to mind. After having picked this to be in the title, I then brainstormed for the perfect male character's name to go along with it. I thought of the children's story Jack and Jill, a book everyone should know about, and the name Jack jumped out. Jack is also a name that both children and grownups alike can relate to. As far as a female organic supercomputer name, no, “Jill” was never considered. You'd have to admit, it would have been a little corny with Jack and his computer Jill. I always knew I wanted a female's name that started with a J, and Jennifer was the name that came to mind. Jack's last name, Jacobs, was used because it had a ring to it when used with the first name. Jack Jacobs is also a science fiction character's name that has never been used before, as well as the words “Doomsday Time Machine” in any published literary work. At least I didn't find any during my research prior to writing my book.

As far as other research, I didn't have to do too much other than making sure I used the correct name of the Air Force base in the Colorado Mountains, and that I also used the proper longitudes and latitudes for certain locations on Earth. I did do some mathematical research and in the back of my book, I also added a glossary to supplement the story. For the unknown definitions section, well, you can read it for yourself and make your own assumptions about them. Let's just say that I took my engineering knowledge and mixed it with a little space astronomy and quantum physics, two fields that are of great interest to me.

I do have to mention Larry Fredrick who played a part of my book. I met him for the first time in Charlottesville, Virginia at Virginia University two summers ago. I actually traveled to Charlottesville while doing historical research on my large novel. He was extremely nice and showed me around the McCormick Observatory near the Virginia University campus. He took me down to the basement and showed me all the old equipment, while also giving me a little history about the observatory. He even showed me the optical telescope and the hand-built wooden platform used for looking through the telescope. I had an enjoyable time then and also just last summer, when I met him again. He read the galley proofs of my book late in 2002, and gave me some great comments, not to mention some editing. His review and what he said about my book, is of course, shown on the back cover.

Anyway, I submitted my manuscript to Rutledge in March of 2002 and it was accepted a few weeks later. About ten days later I received a contract in the mail and was surprised that it was about $5000 higher than what I was verbally told over the phone to have it published. Well, knowing what I've written and “revealed” in my book, I decided to go ahead and have it self-published. This was also due in part to many literary agents and a small number of publishers not showing any interest in my large novel, a book that is currently finished, I might add. So, I paid the money and had a signed contract in my hands in the later part of May 2002. My Jack Jacobs novel was finally on its way to becoming a reality.

That summer that I had much anticipation waiting for the first editing of my manuscript from Rutledge and to seeing the first galley proof. I was surprised that it took Rutledge almost four months just to get me the first edited draft of my novel, a novel that was only about 25,000 words in length, and given to them in Word document format on a floppy disk. I did finally receive the first draft and upon reading their edited version, realized they didn't understand Jennifer's character much at all, as I had a high amount of re-editing on the first go-around. It appeared that no one with any technical background actually had a go at any editing. I actually had to go back and add words back into the galley proof to retain meaning in the book. When I sent the galleys back to the publisher by overnight UPS, it took them over three weeks to get my changes back to me for the second draft. Not only that but they started sending them back to me by UPS ground track, taking five to seven working days. The galleys went back and forth a few more times with additional changes each time. By this time I was sending all my changes to them by UPS next day air and enclosing a pre-paid pre-addressed UPS second day air envelope inside the next day air UPS package, to save time. Had I not done this, I'm sure my hardback books would not have been printed. I figured it up and found that I saved almost three to four weeks off the flow time for my hardback book, hardback copies that I also finally received from the publisher on January 23rd of 2003.

I could tell Rutledge Books was dragging their feet from about November 2002 on, but didn't know the reason. Well, that reason was answered in February 2003 when they closed their doors and went out of business. They also closed their doors before accomplishing any news releases on my book, something that is now my responsibility.

Now that I've seen the full process of having a book printed from beginning to end, I've learned a lot. I have to take everything that has happened with a grain of salt and keep a positive attitude, as I know the book is a fun book to read if you like science. There is one positive thing I can say about Rutledge, and that is the excellent job they did with the cover on my book. Thomas Morlock, the cover illustrator, was very professional and was prompt in all my contacts with him. He also did an excellent job on the changes to the front cover, just as I had requested, changes such as the elliptical shape of the ship, for one.

Something that isn't common knowledge to most people is that I mailed almost 200 signed copies of my first edition hardback book to university astronomy departments all over the United States and to the world on February 01, 2003. The reasons for me doing this everyone will, in time, find out. Out of all of the universities that were sent a copy, I received only one acknowledgement and a thank you for the book, an acknowledgement that was sent back through the defunct publisher, Rutledge, who forwarded it to me. I have the utmost respect for Cornell University for taking the time to send that “thank you.”

I did have a lot of fun taking pictures with my digital camera at the Post Office that Saturday when I mailed off the almost 200 copies. Guess the name of the lady at the Post Office counter who accepted all of my priority and airmail packages? It was Jennifer, coincidentally, the same as my organic supercomputer character. I got a kick out of that. The day of February 01, 2003 will always be a day to be remembered for me and turned out truly to be a day to be remembered by everyone, as this was also the same day that the space shuttle Columbia and her crew were lost. As a result, I signed a book to NASA in memory of the seven astronauts who lost their lives. It was inscribed: “February 01, 2003, A Memory and Reflection”, followed by many words of encouragement and wisdom to the families and friends of the astronauts who lost their lives. This copy is safely put away until it is finally presented to NASA.

Anyway, as far as finding one of the 1000 first edition hardback copies that were printed, they may eventually be hard to find, because in addition to all the extra copies I purchased at a discount, I liquidated the entire inventory as soon as I found out Rutledge was closing their doors. Very few copies made it to the open retail market. Nowadays I occasionally sign one of my first editions of my book over to someone I meet on the street, someone of my choosing, and I'm having much fun in the process. At some point that will stop though, as the number of copies I have dwindle down.

Science is a fascinating world and there is much to be discovered, but we must all start with our young kids and their imaginations. Just as Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Well, how very true and correct he was…but to understand your imagination, well, that is another story yet to be revealed.

Albert S. Abraham, Author

Editor's Note: I was one of the people Albert very kindly sent a couple of signed 1^st editions to. Thank you, Albert—I enjoyed the book! :>)

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Was Sirhan Sirhan a Programmed Assassin?

(James Musgrave, Author of Sins of Darkness)

Programmed assassins attacked America on 9/11/01. Sins of Darkness shows how programmed terrorists were being created in the United States. Long before the training camps of Osama bin Laden, there was the programming of Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a Palestinian refugee, who was ripe for the powers of the Sins of Darkness.

In 1968, the murder of Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy by Palestinian-American Sirhan B. Sirhan shocked the world. A swift trial led to Sirhan's conviction for murder, and was hailed as a triumph for American justice. But was everything really as straightforward as it seemed?

Dr. Abigail Soloman, a Jewish prison psychiatrist, is plunged into a murderous conspiracy when she begins to examine Sirhan and discovers to her horror that he is the victim of a brainwashing group called the Lord's Avengers. But, as she unravels the mystery surrounding Kennedy's murder, she begins to question whether she has also fallen victim to mind control. Who is behind this sinister group, and why are they determined to wreak havoc around the world?

What impresses me most about SINS OF DARKNESS is its remarkably seamless blend of fact and fiction. Via Dr. Solomon, I learned a great deal about Sirhan Sirhan's side of things, and there's enough research layered on top of the crackshot suspense thriller plot to keep conspiracy experts pleased indeed. This one should find a large and enthusiastic audience. ---Editor, Writer's Digest Books

Sins of Darkness
(ISBN 1-931297-44-4)
224 pp.
Dimensions (in inches): 8.50 x 0.51 x 5.50
$3.50 (eBook)
$8.00 (CD-ROM)
$21.95 (Hardback)
$9.99 (Paperback)

James Musgrave is a published author and educator in San Diego, California. His recent non-fiction title, The Digital Scribe: A Writer's Guide to Electronic Media (AP Professional, ISBN 0-12-512255-1) has been internationally published. He has a M.A. degree in Creative Writing from San Diego State University. He was awarded the “Ebook of the Year Award, 2001-2002” from Bookbooters.com for his thriller, Russian Wolves. He has also been published at Bookbooters.com with three novels: Sins of Darkness, Russian Wolves, and Lucifer's Wedding. The first two novels were nominated for the $160,000 Frankfurt E-book Awards for the years 2000 and 2001. Mr. Musgrave has appeared on national radio and television promoting his work and the publication of e-books in general.

Russian Wolves:

This riveting story traces the creation of a serial killer and how one man's desire to get his family to America causes him to use this killer as a paid assassin for the Russian Mafia. Can CIA agent Dr. Abigail Soloman convince her country of her discovery? A CIA serial killer thriller based on real-life mass murderer, Andrei Chikatilo.

Russian Wolves
(ISBN 1-93129-763-0)
256 pp.
Dimensions (in inches): 0.57 x 9.00 x 6.00
$2.95 (eBook)
$7.45 (CD-ROM)
$20.95 (Hardback)
$13.95 (Paperback)

Lucifer's Wedding:

Miriam Weinstein and James Duvalier are cops with a difference. As psychic investigators for the San Diego Police Department's Paranormal Psychology Unit, they are acutely familiar with the underworld of the occult. But nothing can prepare them for the unimaginable forces about to confront them. Satan's time is at hand, and Miriam Weinstein bears the pentangle mark of his chosen bride. As the dead begin to rise, and the forces of good and evil rise up in anticipation of the final battle, the union known as the Black Wedding must be stopped at all costs.

Lucifer's Wedding
(ISBN 1-931297-65-7)
170 pp.
Dimensions (in inches): 0.65 x 8.50 x 5.50
$4.75 (eBook)
$9.25 (CD-ROM)
$13.50 (Paperback)

The Digital Scribe: A Writer's Guide to Electronic Media:
(ISBN 0-12-512255-1)
Paperback:
313 pages;
Dimensions (in inches): 0.75 x 9.50 x 7.50

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ABOOKSEARCH.COM NOW OFFERS THREE FREE MONTHS

By: J. R. McWilliams
http://www.abooksearch.com/

Abooksearch.com, an on-line community of old, rare and out-of-print booksellers, announces three free months for new sign-ups. There is no obligation. You do not pay a cent if you do not wish to continue beyond the first three months.

When we made this offer of three free months to new members, we gave three free months to those booksellers who were already members. We felt it only fitting and proper, and part of our commitment to our dealers. We certainly have a great deal of gratitude for those who took a chance with us in our first formative months, and especially to those who have been with us through our first year.

ABooksearch.com's order inquiries have increased dramatically in the last three months. The traffic to the site has gone from 663,818 hits in February to 1,604,499 in March to 1,820,904 hits in April. ABooksearch.com's promotional budget increases proportionally as its membership grows.

ABooksearch.com was founded in response to the expressed desire of many booksellers for an alternative to corporate, impersonal listing services. We have intentionally kept our site lean and clean. No banner ads; no bells and whistles. Just a direct search engine that takes the customer straight to the bookseller's information. All sales transactions are handled directly between customer and seller; ABooksearch.com does not take a percentage of the sale nor even engage in card processing. And we feel our monthly and yearly rates are among the lowest and best of the on-line search services.

ABooksearch.com LLC was re-launched as an on-line old, rare and out-of-print book listing service with a searchable database of its members' inventories on the Fourth of July 2002. The ensuing months have seen increasing improvement in the site's search capabilities as well as its customer outreach. At the beginning of this year, a new Xeon multi-threading server was installed, greatly improving functionality. Moreover, ABooksearch.com has a longer history. The name ABooksearch.com has been on-line since 1995, ancient times in terms of the Internet. We have a long history in bookselling, teaching and museum curating. Our plan is to bring customers to the dealer and for the dealer to make the sale. We feel that this is what booksellers want, and we supply it in the most direct and straightforward way we can. I encourage all to take advantage of our three free months and try us out.

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Book dealer software - a progress report from ammonet.

By: Jack Benson
URL: http://www.ammonet-services.com

First, many thanks to IOBA and IOBA Standard editor Shirley Bryant for the opportunity to describe some of our current book-related development projects here at ammonet in Zurich.

The new http://www.bibliophile.net web site and database is currently in beta test phase. The features likely to interest dealers most are the custom search page facility, and the improved search and display.

We have always offered a custom search script to bibliophile.net dealers, and this will now be much easier to configure to match our dealers' own sites, and for those dealers with no web site of their own, it will be possible to host a customised page on our servers. All the search options of the main site will be available in the custom search but without bibliophile.net logos or links. This is thus a genuinely individualised search page, backed by a powerful database, that returns the buyer to the dealer's own site at the completion of a purchase.

In addition to custom searches for individual dealers, groups of dealers such as cooperatives and societies can have a multi-dealer search page that sends orders to their individual dealers. You can view a version of this under development for the International Antiquarian Mapsellers Association (IAMA) by following the links on their site at www.antiquemapdealers.com. Don't place any "test" orders - the site is live! There you can see a completely customised search and ordering system that integrates nicely into the IAMA web site. Administration of the membership and database can be carried out independently of bibliophile.net administration. We see this as an inexpensive alternative to independent development and maintenance of a web site/database system that might be beyond the means of groups who would nonetheless like to have their own collective bookselling site.

The search facility of the new site is much improved. An "any word" search plus sorting by price, author and title have been added, and in addition we have developed a sophisticated "sort by relevance" feature designed to yield search results sorted to reflect the buyers' search criteria very closely. The "date loaded" search option will take account of purge files that reload books displayed previously. In addition to our shopping basket, there will be a direct inquiry short-cut for use by shopping basket-shy book buyers.

Many other improvements have been made, especially with regard to image display and image management. For those dealers who have to enter the URLs of their images by hand, a purge file will preserve the URLs of images linked to book records that were previously listed, obviating the need to re-enter image URL data. We will offer the option to house images on our server, using our server-side image manager. Dealers who chose to do this will be pleased to know that our new system will generate thumbnails from their images on the fly. Of course, image URLs can be uploaded in data formats that contain the appropriate field, including the non-canonical IM field in UIEE.

Our popular "ammonet Secure" credit card data transmission system has just been updated (http://www.ammonet-services.com/ammonet-com/ammonet-card-system-eng.htm). This is a secure system designed to pick up credit card data for processing (or not processing) later by dealers who already process cards and see no need to subscribe to real-time processing systems. It can be linked to the bibliophile.net shopping cart and any other system that accepts a simple link. A link can be sent by e-mail so that a customer is directed to the dealer's secure card data upload page. It is browser-based, easy to use and heavily encrypted. This system sidesteps problems that plague automatic-charge e-commerce - book already sold, chargebacks, dubious cards, known miscreants etc. We have added an option for receiving cheque data for those who process cheques electronically.

Last but not least, I'm pleased to announce that ammonet has been selected to develop a web site/database for the UK-based Provincial Book Fairs Association (PBFA). In keeping with the long-established function of this Association, their site will present members' stock organised around real and virtual book fairs, as well as a comprehensive search and order system. There will be strong emphasis on image display since there's no doubt that pictures sell books. Completion of this project will bring onto the internet market a significant number of dealers who currently have no internet presence.

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The BookCellar.com Announcement
http://www.thebookcellar.com
The BookCellar.com is pleased to announce the launch of our new dealer site http://www.TBCdealers.com a database for used, rare, and out-of-print books. We are dedicated to bringing booksellers and book-buyers around the globe together under one high-powered search engine.

We offer FREE listings with no setup cost and no obligations. You only pay when you sell. We list your books on our site and buy them from you at a 20% discount. We've been listing dealer's books for a few years now but have just recently gone live with our Agent Intranet Site and are a privately owned company. As book sales are slowing at the larger sites we offer an additional means of sales with no monthly fee.

1. Create an account to list your books.
   
2. No monthly listing fee or set up costs.
   
3. Instructions are covered throughout the site regarding upload and order processing.
   
4. Your books will appear on our front-end site within 4-24 hours (following your initial upload).
   

We've taken the best functionalities and features of the larger sites and brought them all together. We offer simple navigation and a high-powered engine-delivering search results in roughly 1 second, the fastest book engine online.

If you are looking for another online medium to sell books and are interested in listing your books on our site please contact us at cs@thebookcellar.com

We now invite you to join as a BookCellar Agent and increase your online sales.

We look forward to continuing to serve the online bookselling community and welcome the opportunity to work with you.

Brian Serpone
President and CEO
The BookCellar.com LLC/ http://www.thebookcellar.com

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Extra services propel ChooseBooks.com

By: Kate Lindemann

ChooseBooks.com focuses on creating “added value”. The company provides extra services while their listing book sellers offer inventory at the same competitive prices as on other sites. The site's added value focus is attracting both buyers and sellers. Hundreds of booksellers have registered and uploaded inventory. Orders are increasing and more buyers are registering accounts.

In December, ChooseBooks.com announced preferred customer status and a frequent buyer program for any buyer who registers “so we have a place to put their book buying points.” Last month we began giving away free bookmarks through our Resources page.

Now Choosebooks.com announces a joint venture with IOBA. A search engine on IOBA's web site will search the inventory of all IOBA members who list with ChooseBooks.com. Deanna Ramsay is integrating the ChooseBooks.com search engine form with the IOBA site.

Ramsay said, “ChooseBooks has been, as usual, a pleasure to work with. They've provided every option we've asked for, suggested a few extras, and have really bent over backwards to set up this search option for IOBA members.” Ramsay hopes to have the search working in a few weeks but said that unforeseen technical problems could make it as much as eight weeks before everything is running smoothly.

ChooseBooks.com has created an “added value” niche. Their theme of “many extra services for the same competitive book prices as other sites” offers a real choice in the on-line book market.

To check out ChooseBooks.com, go to: http://www.choosebooks.com . Buyers who register will automatically be enrolled in the site's frequent buyer program and will earn points for every dollar spent on books.

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