And I say “we” and “our” intentionally, as the Standard you read and see here was and is very much a group effort. First and foremost, this has been the result of the newly-formed Standard staff, who in addition to penning articles have provided guidance, feedback, proofreading and other much-needed support as we’ve relaunched The Standard. I thank them all for their help and energies, and take this opportunity to introduce them to the readership:

Craig Harris of Bridge of Dreams
John Howell of John Howell for Books
Chris Lowenstein of Book Hunter’s Holiday
Kara McLaughlin Mestre of Little Sages Books
Joe Perlman of Mostly Useful Fictions
Howard Prouty of Readink
William Smith of Hang Fire Books
Alice Voith of My Wings Books
Justin Woolley of Salopian Books
Vic Zoschak of Tavistock Books

My goal, as much as practical, was to gather a staff that could not only write clearly and knowledgeably, but to assemble a group that would also reflect the diversity of the IOBA. And so there are men and women, full and part timers, bookshop owners and online-only, specialists and generalists, relative newcomers and well-established colleagues. I welcome them and look forward to working with them.

But success of The Standard does not rest with the staff or myself alone. There are the members who contribute article, reports, and profiles. There are our readers. There are the many volunteers throughout our organization who in countless small ways support our efforts here. The Standard is the newsletter of the entire IOBA and my hope is that others, ideally many others, will get involved. If you would like to write an article (or even if you just have an idea for an article), if you would like to pen a member profile, or if you think you might even want to be part of the staff, please drop me a line. But getting involved need not entail so large a commitment. Leave a comment on an article. Write a letter to the editor. Link to us on your blog or website. Tell others about The Standard. Or simply keep reading.

Welcome.

(1) It’s good for your business.

(2) It’s good for our business.

(3) It’s good for the soul.

I come before you today, brethren, to testify to these, my articles of faith. So gather ‘round, and hear the story of how I came to see the light….

Internet-spawned booksellers like me, who (for any number of reasons) haven’t had the opportunity to serve a true apprenticeship in the trade, have had to find other ways of learning about its long-standing practices and traditions….traditions that IOBA, as part of its mission, has pledged to honor and perpetuate in the evolving bookselling landscape. Many (again including me) have turned to online discussion groups like the ABE Booksellers Forum, available to all registered sellers on AbeBooks, in search of education and community. There’s a lot of “noise” in such places, to be sure, but if you let the noise keep you away you’re missing out, because just beneath the distracting (sometimes even intimidating) surface layer of discussion and debate lies an incredibly rich knowledge-base about the ways and means of modern-day bookselling. Many participants are fresh to the trade and still learning, but there are also many seasoned veterans in the room, most of them remarkably generous in sharing their accumulated wisdom and expertise.

I refer to the ABE Forum because it’s an excellent place in which to observe the perpetual psychic struggle regarding the topic at hand. The questions surrounding the issue of trade discounts are particularly difficult for many “newbie” sellers to come to grips with, but it’s not just them I’m writing this for. It’s an issue that affects us all — right in the pocketbook — and I”m trying to do my bit to get everybody “on the same page” about it. So even if you’re a veteran (grizzled or otherwise), and have had your discount policy set in stone for a long time, I urge you to keep reading….and, just maybe, to take another look at the matter.

The questions about trade discounts that I most often see asked range from the fundamental (“Do you give discounts to other sellers?” “Is the whole concept obsolete?”) to the practical (“How much is ‘standard’?” “How do you decide who qualifies?”). And I’m sad to say that the ensuing discussions inevitably bring out sentiments along the lines of the following:

“I don’t like selling to other dealers, because they only want to cherry-pick my stock, and take my best books — the very ones that I’ve got the best chance of selling myself, at full price.”

“Dealers who buy from my stock are already taking advantage of me, and I resent being expected to also give them a discount!”

“I can’t afford to give discounts, because my profit margins are too low.”

“There are 20,000 ‘book dealers’ on the Internet, and why should I give a discount to a complete stranger who I’ll probably never buy a book from myself?” (The short version: “What’s in it for me?” Shorter yet: “Reciprocal, phooey!”)

All of the above, I believe, are simply wrong-headed, knee-jerk responses to the whole issue, put forth by those who either lack the perspective that comes with experience, or just haven’t given the matter the careful thought I think it deserves. Those who think about discounts in such negative, defensive and self-interested ways are missing something quite fundamental…and, I would also contend, poisoning their own wells in the process.

My frontal assault on this mindset begins with a single basic assertion: Other booksellers are not The Enemy. In a narrow-minded sense, yes, they’re your competitors, but in most important ways they are your professional colleagues, and the majority of them are facing pretty much the same challenges that you are. Therefore, I submit that our “default mode” towards one another should be empathy, not antipathy.

Consider the following scenario, which I think fairly represents the way in which too many booksellers think about discounts: Some Other Bookseller (SOB, for short) finds a book in your inventory that you’ve priced at $25. He buys it (discounted or not, it hardly matters), and turns around and lists it for $250. You conclude that you had “made a mistake” (by not pricing the book higher), and that the SOB has “taken advantage of you” (or, less charitably, “ripped you off”). But consider:

“I made a mistake.” Well, probably so. It’s certainly possible, through laziness or carelessness or ignorance (or some combination thereof), to put the “wrong” price on a book — and I’d be very surprised if we hadn’t all done this, at one time or another. (I sure have.) But here’s the good news: laziness, carelessness and (especially) ignorance can all be corrected! It’s a cliché, but that’s because it’s true: we learn from our mistakes. So the real issue here is not whether you’ve made a mistake, but rather what you’re able to learn from it.

“I’ve been taken advantage of.” Also true enough, but it’s not much more than a technicality, really — and you make a grave error if you characterize it as any sort of “bad conduct” on the part of the other dealer. It really boils down to one of two things: (1) the other dealer knows more than you do about that book, or (2) the other dealer has a business model and/or an established clientele that permits him to get (or at least ask) a higher price for that book than you can. How you react to these facts of life is up to you. You can be bitter and resentful about being “ripped off,” or you can admit that you’ve simply had an encounter with a more knowledgeable and/or experienced bookseller than yourself, someone who’s a little bit better at the game than you are…so far. Unless you truly think you’re the Smartest and Bestest Bookseller in the Whole Wide World, this shouldn’t be too bitter a pill to swallow — and it still leaves you in complete control over what you do about it.

I am not talking through my hat here, by the way. I’ve gone through this process myself, and have struggled with the same negativity I’m now trying to warn you against. Some years ago, I had a pretty nice copy of an uncommon book listed for $125, and a genuine Big Shot Book Dealer bought it (at a discount). It was his first-ever purchase from me, and I felt pretty darn good about it — until a couple of months later, when Mr. BSBD’s lovely printed catalog arrived in my mailbox, and right there on page 13 was “my” book…..now marked up to $600! (And worse yet, the book was in a subject area in which I’d imagined I had some specialist knowledge. Ouch, baby!) “Holy crap,” I thought, “what did I miss about this book?” It took a little contemplation before the little light-bulb went on, and I realized that I hadn’t “missed” anything, so much as I had just lacked the vision, if you will, to recognize the book’s full profit potential. And then I considered this: I had bought that book (yes, from another dealer, online) for $15, and thus hadn’t made out so badly by selling it for $100. (In other words, I was kinda smart, but the guy who bought it from me was a little smarter.) And ultimately, what I took away from the transaction was worth far more than even the $85 profit:

(1) Another reminder (you can’t have too many) that knowledge is a powerful thing, that can even occasionally be leveraged to make money.

(2) A cautionary note to not get complacent about what I think I know (i.e., my presumed “expertise” in this subject area).

(3) An enhancement of my knowledge in that important-to-me subject area. (We learn one book at a time, right?)

(4) The idea that an attractive presentation in a printed catalog can trump the Almighty Internet as a selling methodology. (I should mention that Mr. BSBD did in fact sell that book at his price, in less time than I’d had it listed at my price.)

(5) The start of a professional relationship with Mr. BSBD, who, when my own first printed catalog landed in his hands, made a substantial purchase therefrom, and has subsequently done more business with me, and has spoken well of me to others. (And if you don’t think that last thing ultimately turns into dollars, you are really missing something.)

Stack all that up against the $25 I supposedly “lost” by discounting the book, and I’d say I came out just dandy. But (you might think) couldn’t it also be said that I’d “lost” $500 by not figuring out, myself, that this was “really” a $600 book? Well, no. That sort of calculation is pure fantasy, to be avoided at all cost; as Johnny Mercer wrote, you’ve got to ac-cen-tu-ate the positive. Any perceived “loss” in such a situation is just an illusion — but the gains, as enumerated above, are very real.

Now let’s consider this shocking idea, afoot in the land, that dealers are constantly scanning other dealers’ stock, looking for stuff they can buy and re-sell at a profit. Well, guess what? It’s true! Such intramural commerce, often on naked display at your better book fairs, is and always has been a large part of what makes this business go — a fact of life (and commerce) that might not be so readily apparent from the somewhat isolated perspective of the online-only seller. There is a “food chain” in the used/rare book trade, and like it or not, you’re part of it. Or, if I can mix my metaphors, think of the business as a big lake: a few dealers float along on the surface (or levitate above it!), some troll in the muck at the very bottom, but most of us paddle along somewhere in the vast middle, trying to keep our heads above water (i.e., to not drown). But there’s a lot of room in the middle of that lake to position yourself, and although there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious and wanting to move up, it’s also important to understand just where you are at the moment, and how to make it work for you.

And in my opinion, one of the very best places to be is within the field of vision of the people above you in the aforementioned food chain. Don’t get hung up on whether or not they’re “better” than you; try, instead, to understand that other dealers — especially those who are more successful than you — can be among your very best customers. This is a total no-brainer: these people buy lots of books, all the time, and they’re the very ones you want to be scanning your online listings, frequenting your shop (if you have one), heading to your booth early in the book fair, and just generally paying attention to you and your stock. And when they want to buy something from you, it’s in your interest to treat them well, with a decent discount as an element of that. This is ever-so-much-more-so when it’s their first purchase from you, because it presents your best chance to make it the foundation stone for something bigger and better: a mutually respectful and mutually beneficial business relationship. The best traffic-flow in Bookselling City is on the two-way streets.

(By the way, if anyone has any lingering thoughts in the “being taken advantage of” line, consider this: when that dealer buys that book from you, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the markup/hefty profit scenario is a “sure thing” for him. In fact, in many cases his purchase is a gamble — or, if you prefer, a quantified expression of his confidence in his ability to turn that book for a profit. I’ve also made sales, for instance, where the dealer has subsequently jacked up the book’s price considerably — and has not, to date, re-sold it. So who’s ahead of the game? Me, who bought the book for $20, marked it up to $150, and sold it in a month for $120? Or Dealer Z, who bought it for $120, re-priced it at $800…and still has it, a couple of years later? I don’t mean to imply that Dealer Z was dumb, or made a bad deal — he just had more confidence in the book than I had, and possibly more cash in his pocket at the time he bought it. More power to him, I say — but from my p.o.v., it makes no sense to be anything other than 100% happy about that sale. To look at it another way: my gamble (albeit at smaller stakes) has paid off, and if Z wants to tie up his cash and double-down on the book, who am I to be upset about that, in any way?)

OK, enough with the philosophizing and hypothesizing. To bring the focus back to more practical matters, I’ll now take a crack at actually answering some of those “newbie” questions I referenced earlier:

“How much is ‘standard’?”

Opinions and practices vary, of course — U.K. dealers seem to think somewhat differently than American dealers, for instance — but as far as I’m concerned anything less than 20% is just weak sauce. I would respectfully suggest that those who say that 10% is “good enough” or is “all I can afford” just haven’t done the math. If you sell a book through a listing service like ABE or Amazon or Alibris, you are already giving them about 15%-20% percent of your take on each book, in the form of commissions and monthly fees — so how on earth can you justify doing less for a colleague? (And, sorry, I don’t give much weight to the “too-small profit margin” argument, either. If that’s your primary objection to giving a discount, it suggests to me that you’re paying too much for your stock — but that’s another article.)

“How do you decide who qualifies?”

I highly recommend against any sort of “litmus test” and, especially, that you not discriminate in any way against one “class” of bookseller. This comment is directed mostly to any open-shop owners out there who might still be harboring some ill-will towards online-only dealers. (You know who you are.) Here’s the thing, though: there is virtually no upside to making any visitor to your shop feel like a second-class citizen. Believe me: you will lose more than you gain, by a long shot. I am also not a big fan of the “reciprocal” requirement; it’s not that I think it’s unreasonable, only that I’d like to promote a world in which it’s unnecessary, in which all booksellers give unbidden and unencumbered discounts to all other booksellers. (As John Lennon had it: you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.)

“Is the whole concept obsolete?”

Absolutely not! (Well, come on, what did you expect me to say?) Selling books at a discount to your colleagues in the trade is a good thing, all around. Let’s not forget that dealer-to-dealer sales are direct sales — which, in addition to being commission-free, are the building blocks for a network of trusted colleagues and friends. And anything we can do to encourage direct commerce amongst ourselves contributes to the important goal of keeping our businesses out of the clutches of Amazon, et al. This is exactly what the “I” in IOBA is all about.

At the top of this article, I made the point that trade discounts were good for three things: your business, our business, and the soul. I’ve covered the first two points, but that third one…..well, I don’t want to get all mystical on you, but I do believe that whatever you put out into the world will eventually come back to you, in some form or another, and that it can also benefit a lot of other people while on its journey. Call it what you will — goodwill, positive energy, karma, good vibrations, even Love — but I guarantee that you’ll feel better knowing that it flows from you. And one of the very best ways to put that kind of energy out into the bookselling world is with a generous and open-handed trade discount policy. I like to think of it as The Twenty-Per-Cent Solution.

I will leave you, then, with the Secret Word, which I lobbed at you in the very first paragraph. That word is “happy.” When you make a discounted sale to another bookseller, you can be happy to sell the book, happy to make a little profit, happy for the opportunity to make a new customer (or make life a bit better for an established one), and happy to help out a colleague who’s trying to make a buck, just like you are.

Think of it….all that happiness, just flying around. And it’s so simple for you to claim your fair share of it….at a discount!

[Editor's note: For more on trade discounts, see our related article How to Get a Trade Discount, in Six Easy Lessons.]

If, like me, you haven’t been born into a family that boasts generations of booksellers, if bookselling isn’t in your blood, you can always learn from the past. Reading the memoirs of those booksellers who came before us can be as edifying as it is entertaining. There are many to booksellers from which to choose, but two in particular can inspire and educate: Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine B. Stern. Lifelong friends and business partners, the two ran their antiquarian book business, Rostenberg & Stern Rare Books, for 60 years and wrote dozens of books between them. They conducted some of the finest literary scholarship of their time and did much to promote the antiquarian book trade, participating in the ABAA (Rostenberg as President from 1972-1974) and founding the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, held annually since 1960. They may be the only two antiquarian booksellers ever to have a musical penned in their honor, Bookends, written by Katharine Houghton and performed at the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch in 2007.

Rostenberg & Stern Rare Books, specialized in finding previously undiscovered treasures. In 1942, following a great deal of literary sleuthing, Leona Rostenberg uncovered the information detailing that Louisa May Alcott (1832-88), the American author of the sweet, placid novel Little Women, had also published some risqué (by 19^th century standards) thrillers anonymously and pseudonymously as A.M. Barnard. Stern edited and oversaw the publication of these works in 1975 and 1976, making a priceless contribution to students of Alcott and American Literature and also expanding the rare book market for Louisa May Alcott.

Rostenberg and Stern often used a phrase that sums up exactly what makes an antiquarian bookseller different from her other bookselling peers: In their memoir, Old Books, Rare Friends, they write:

“As far as we know, the word Finger-Spitzengefuhl never made it to a dictionary. It was originally Herbert Reichner [another bookseller to whom Rostenberg was an apprentice] who passed it on to us. A tingling of the fingertips becomes an electrical current of suspense, excitement, recognition. In an artificially controlled voice, one of us calls to the other, ‘Look! This may be something.’ And two heads look down upon the title page of a discovery. Sometimes the Finger-Spitzengefuhl occurs on the spot as we scan the shelves of a foreign dealer. Sometimes it takes place only after the purchase has been made and we study our finds. Whenever or wherever it occurs, it is an experience that makes the rare book business a hymn to joy.”

It was a combination of the Finger-Spitzengefuhl-like hunch and following small clues that led to big information for Rostenberg and Stern in many cases. Researching until they information not widely known to scholars and other booksellers allowed the two to increase (and perhaps create) value for those books that might have been previously overlooked by collectors and booksellers alike.

Rostenberg wrote, “If everyman is a potential discoverer, then everyman is also a potential detective. Sleuthing ranks high in the Rostenberg Antiquarian Credo and rightly so, for, at its most challenging, all research involves detection. Detection applied not to crime but to books has a special lure. It demands, at least, two indispensable abilities: the ability to ferret out those ‘small facts upon which,’ according to the master detective Sherlock Holmes, ‘large inferences may depend;’ the ability to recognize those large inferences for what they are whenever and wherever they are found.”

While all of their books have useful information and entertaining anecdotes, one in particular, Between Boards: New Thoughts on Old Books, ought to be required reading for antiquarian booksellers new and old. The two final chapters, Catalogues & Collections and An Antiquarian Bookseller’s Credo are as good as any instruction you might gain by apprenticing to a veteran bookseller. Here’s what they have to say about bookseller catalogues:

“There is never anything elusive about a dealer’s catalogue. If it is a good one, it will be its maker’s earthly representative and hopefully remembered. A catalogue is a dealer’s showcase. In it he displays his wares; parades his knowledge; offers his expertise. His first catalogue is extremely significant. He has made his public debut before a critical group of connoisseurs. This, his first catalogue, occasionally becomes his hallmark, stamping him as a specialist in Western Americana, medieval arts and letters, or modern firsts.”

And here’s what they have to say about building a meaningful collection of books:

“A collection equals more than the sum of its parts. This defiance of the laws of mathematics naturally exhilarates the collector and exalts the collection . . . Be that as it may, a collection of books is not simply a combination of any heterogeneous books but of books that in some one way are connected with each other.”

The Antiquarian Bookseller’s Credo covers everything from a bookseller’s education, motivation, and research skills to valuation and finding joy on the job. There are many more nuggets of information to be gleaned from the pages of Rostenberg and Stern’s books for those of us striving to know more about antiquarian bookselling. Once you’ve finished Between Boards, I’d recommend Old and Rare: Thirty Years in the Book Business and Bookends: Two Women, One Enduring Friendship next as you work your way through the list of their many published books below.

Books by Leona Rostenberg

• English Publishers in the Graphic Arts, 1599-1700: A Study of the Print-Sellers and Publishers of Engravings, Art and Architectural Manuals, Maps, and Copy-Books, 1963.
• Literary, Political, Scientific, Religious, and Legal Publishing, Printing, and Bookselling in England, 1551-1700: Twelve Studies (two volume set), 1965.
• The Minority Press and the English Crown: A Study in Repression, 1558–1625, 1971.
• An Antiquarian’s Credo, 1976.
• Bibliately, 1978.
• The Library of Robert Hooke: The Scientific Book Trade of Restoration England, 1989.

Books by Madeleine B. Stern

• The Life of Margaret Fuller, 1942.
• Louisa May Alcott, 1950, (revised editions published in 1971, 1996)
• Purple Passage: The Life of Mrs. Frank Leslie, 1955, revised edition 1970.
• Imprints on History: Book Publishers and American Frontiers, 1956.
• We the Women: Career Firsts of Nineteenth-Century America, 1963.
• So Much in a Lifetime: The Story of Dr. Isabel Barrows, 1964.
• Queen of Publishers’ Row: Mrs. Frank Leslie, 1965.
• The Pantarch: A Biography of Stephen Pearl Andrews, 1968.
• Heads and Headlines: The Phrenological Fowlers, 1971.
• Books and Book People in Nineteenth-Century America, 1978.
• Sherlock Holmes: Rare-Book Collector, 1981.
• A Phrenological Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Americans, 1982.
• The Game’s a Head: A Phrenological Case-Study of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle, 1983.
• Antiquarian Bookselling in the United States: A History from the Origins to the 1940s, 1985.
• Nicholas Gouin Dufief of Philadelphia, Franco-American Bookseller, 1776–1834, 1988.
• Studies in the Franco-American Booktrade during the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries, 1994.
• The Feminist Alcott: Stories of a Woman’s Power, 1996

Books co-authored by Rostenberg and Madeleine B. Stern

• Old and Rare: Thirty Years in the Book Business, 1974
• Between Boards: New Thoughts on Old Books, 1978.
• Bookman’s Quintet: Five Catalogues about Books: Bibliography, Printing History, Booksellers, Libraries, Presses, Collectors, 1979.
• Quest Book—Guest Book: A Biblio-Folly, 1993.
• Connections: Ourselves—Our Books, 1994.
• Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book-buying Abroad, 1996.
• Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion, 1997.
• New Worlds in Old Books, 1999.
• Books Have Their Fates, 2001.
• Bookends: Two Women, One Enduring Friendship, 2001.
• From Revolution to Revolution: Perspectives on Publishing and Bookselling 1501-2001, 2002.

Bookstores and travel are two of the great passions of my life. There are several reasons why I visit bookstores in other countries. In English speaking countries, I like to look for true first editions of English language books. I would much rather buy/sell the first Canadian edition of an Alice Munro, or a first British edition of Martin Amis. I am not a patriotic enough to adhere to the ‘follow the flag’ principle, rather, I am a more of a purist, who thinks that if there is something special about a ‘first’ edition, it should be the true first.

Even in non-English speaking countries there are numerous reasons why I like to visit bookshops. I am always interested in and am often surprised by what English language books actually get translated into foreign languages. If there is an English language section, I like to see what the shop thinks will appeal to English speaking visitors. If I am lucky, I can pick up an English translation of a foreign author or local folk tales that is not easily obtainable in the U.S. As a collector of James Joyce, I am in competition with the Joyce Museum in Dublin to see who can obtain the most foreign translations of Ulysses. (The museum had a head start and still maintains a substantial lead.)

Finally, I also like to ‘collect’ bookstore experiences, in much the way that my son and I used to ‘collect’ the experience of trying different brands of chocolate ice cream. Like ice cream, each bookshop has a texture and a flavor all its own.

1. Guatemala

In December 2010, at the spur of the moment, my wife and I decided to spend Christmas vacation touring the Mayan ruins in Central America. In 1975, we spent our honeymoon in the Yucatan, and after years of unrest it finally seemed safe enough to venture to Tikal and Copan. The tour started in Guatemala City where we were advised not to leave the confines of the hotel on our own. Fortunately, the hotel was connected to a modern multi-level shopping mall, replete with carolers dressed up like Santa’s elves. While strolling around the mall, I realized why we were told not to wander too far off on our own. All of the banks, financial offices and jewelry stores had a least one, often two, security guards armed with large machine guns at the entrance. There were several shops where one could buy not only a gun, but a ‘hide-a-weapon’ device that looked like a large fanny pack.

In the basement level I found a small bookstore called De Museo, about the size of a Walden Books in an American Mall. The owner did not feel the need for a guard out front. About half of the stock was of the non-book variety: posters, sculpture, souvenirs and games. The aisles were narrow, with metal shelving, and it took some searching to find an English language section which was at floor level. I already have two different Spanish translations of Ulysses, so I was hoping for some English translations of obscure Asturias, or maybe a paperback copy of Tikal, a large pulp novel published in the 1980s that I have been unable to find in an easily portable soft cover edition in the U.S. What I found instead were mostly business self-help books of the Stephen Covey variety with a few James Patterson and Danielle Steel thrown in for the literati.

The Spanish language section was much more interesting. There were lots of Asturias and other Spanish writers, but no first editions, as well as Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly and David Balducci in Spanish translation. The biggest surprise was a Judaica section which had a larger offering of Talmudic studies and Jewish Mysticism than my local independent bookstore on Long Island. This was one of the few times in my life that I walked out of bookshop empty-handed.

Once we left the big city, the only bookshop I saw was in Panajachel a small village in the Lake Atitlán district, popular with American counterculture folks who left the U.S. in the Viet Nam era never to return to their native land. Most of the English language books here were my other least favorite category – New Age. When you go to Central America, leave your T-shirts home, and pack some extra reading. It is much easier to buy interesting T-shirts than worthwhile reading material.

2. Kenya via London:

In mid-February my twenty-something daughter and I left for a long awaited Safari in Kenya. We had an unexpected 12 hour layover in London. Although the tour company provided us with a hotel room near the airport, we decided to eschew sleep and stretch our legs by walking around Central London after a brief catnap and a shower.

It was a Sunday afternoon so our options were limited. We took the underground to Trafalgar Square and started meandering around downtown London. I spent a semester in London during my college years back in the early 1970s, and went back once en famille in the mid 1990s, so I made sure that our route encompassed Charing Cross Road.

I was a bit surprised that the first ‘book’ shop I encountered on Charing Cross Road was of the adult variety (back in the day these were strictly relegated to back streets in Soho).  But, a block or two down we found Foyles, which was open on Sundays, but very different from the Foyles I remembered from 40 years ago. At that time, it was an unusually large (for a bookstore) shop, with tons of books, some new, some used, some piled on tables, some neatly shelved. I still treasure an inexpensive hard cover collection of George Orwell’s essays that I bought there for a course on Modern British Lit. Now, it looks more like a Barnes and Noble superstore than the Strand and there is even a coffee bar on one of the upper floors.

In addition to lattes, what Foyles does have now, are lots of new signed Modern Firsts by top-notch British writers at discounted prices. One can purchase signed, true firsts by writers like Julian Barnes and Will Self for less than you would pay for an unsigned first American at home. I quickly over-filled a shopping basket, then went down into the bowels of the basement to find the shipping department, where I was pleased to find out it was less than $30.00 to ship a large carton to the U.S. Those would be the last books I bought for awhile.

From London, we flew to Nairobi, where we spent so much time sitting in traffic, that there was no time to investigate any bookshops downtown. We did manage to eke out some time to visit Karen Blixen’s estate, which is even more beautiful than she described it. There was a small book/gift shop in one of the outbuildings, that sold reprints of Dinesen’s books at very inflated prices. There were even a few used copies, but no first editions. For the price of a small souvenir booklet you could buy a nice hard cover reading copy of Out of Africa back home.

On long drives traveling from one game park to another, we passed many small towns and saw many signs that read Book Store. I peeked into a couple, when we had a rest stop, or someone in the group needed an ATM. They really were more bodega-type stationery and copy-shop stores than bookstores. There were a few books, mostly religious in nature, some children’s paperbacks, a few magazines, school supplies, playing cards, etc. But, the market for books is fairly limited. When we toured some traditional native villages, the only books we ever saw were stacked up on teachers’ desks in elementary school classrooms, and they were few and obviously very well read. Since I always travel with a carry-on full of ‘reading’ copies of books, I began giving the books away to locals, as soon as I finished them.

As we were leaving a Masai village, one of the elders was desperately trying to sell me his cattle prod. He refused to believe that I had absolutely no need for one. Exasperated, he asked me what I did need. I said “A copy of Ulysses in Swahili.” We settled on his hand-carved walking stick.

The shopping in Kenya is incredibly time consuming. In the villages, nothing has a set price, and if you are a visitor they open the negotiation at a ridiculously high price. You are quoted a starting price of $80.00 for a $5.00 item. After 20 minutes of dickering, before the $5.00 is accepted, the clerk goes in the back and brings the manager out to approve such a ridiculously low price. You feel guilty until you arrive at your hotel and see the same item in the hotel gift shop for $4.50. The fact that there were no books to bargain over was probably a blessing in disguise. If they ever decide to sell books, the first thing they would do is remove the dust jackets to eliminate the list prices.

I did experience book buying withdrawal, so I took advantage of the 2 hour stop over at Heathrow, and picked up some more British firsts to throw into my almost empty carry on.

By the way, the animals and the game parks are awesome.

To be continued next issue with Part two: Central/Eastern Europe…

What is turnover?

So, if you have on average 1000 books catalogued in your inventory during the course of a year and in that year you sell 350 of them, you have a turn rate of .35. Likewise, if your stock has a retail value of $100,000 and in a given year you sell $35,000 worth of material, your turn rate is also .35.

Put perhaps more simply, your turn rate is the percentage of your stock you sell over a given period, expressed either as a percentage of your stock’s value or volume. So in the two cases above, you are selling 35% of your stock in a given year.

Which ratio should I use?

Both have their uses. The former (ratio by number in stock) lets you know how quickly you sell your inventory. The latter (ratio of value) tells you what kind of return to expect on your investment (ie. your stock). In my experience, these numbers should be roughly in the same ballpark (though they will rarely be precisely the same). If they are not, you may have a problem. For example, if your turn by number of items is 40% and by dollars is 20%, this tells you that are selling more inexpensive books from your inventory, and that your higher-priced material may be languishing.

What is knowing my turnover good for?

After one’s profit-and-loss statement, in my opinion there is simply no more useful number to be looking at than one’s turnover. I’ll elaborate shortly. But briefly, knowing your turnover allows you to:

• Know what you can/should be paying for books
• Understand how long on average it takes you to sell a book
• Examine the overall health of your business
• Figure out how to make more money.

Knowing what to pay for books.

Most discussions of what one should pay for the books in one’s inventory almost always seem to to focus on what the ultimate selling price is going to be. And while it is true that what you pay should bear some relation to what the ultimate selling price is going to be, this MUST be tempered by what your expected TURNOVER rate is going to be. VERY roughly speaking, you can pay what your turn rate is, ON AVERAGE. Turning 1/3 of your stock a year? Then that should roughly be your COGS (“cost of goods sold”). Turning less? Then you should be paying less. Turning 50%? Great, then you should be paying more for books (or at least you can…which in theory if you want the better books you should be).

This formula breaks down somewhat at the extremes of the price spectrum: very cheap books and more expensive ones. For cheap books you want your COGS to be as near to zero as possible because your profit gets eaten up mostly by labor and overhead (see my storage example below). And at the higher realms of the business, you can still make a tidy profit on lower margins. But roughly speaking, it’s a useful way to BEGIN thinking about what you should pay.

So, to take two examples:

But if someone offered me another book that I expect to sell for $1000, but I think it’s likely to sit for 2-3 years, then my offer is more in the 1/3rd area. And longer? 10-25%.

Now, these examples have you considering the potential turnover of an individual book, but the theory is the same. And likewise with collections. How long do you expect to take to sell the collection (include your cataloguing time!)? Your average yearly turnover should give you a good idea of how long, and therefore of how much to pay.

Why does this formula work? Well if you think about it, it makes sense. If you sell 20% of your stock in a year, then in order to keep generating the same returns to need to replace that value and you should pay about 20% of what you expect to make. Otherwise your profits shrink. And if you pay too much more, eventually you will encounter serious cash flow problems.

A word of caution: remember that paying more for inventory will not in and of itself increase one’s business. If you’re buying largely the same quantity and quality of books and all you are doing is paying more, you are simply decreasing your profit. But if you are spending more so as to grow the overall value of your stock, then ultimately you should see an increase in revenue (and profit). So for me, my book buying budget is typically COGS plus 10%. This should, if I’m buying well, replenish the value of what sold AND grow the value of my stock, which will increase revenues and hopefully profit without needing to increase turnover. In other words, one can certainly SPEND more to grow your business, but what those books COST you should remain largely constant and should bear some relationship to both what it will sell for and what your turnover is.

And finally before moving one, these are rules of thumb and there are all kinds of legit reasons to deviate from them. I often pay more than I might care to for prime material or for something unique or if I think the seller might have other things I could want…Or if I think something is wicked cool…Or if its from an established customer who has done a lot of business with me.

And I can pay less too: for books I know are salable but which I don’t personally care for…Books that I hate cataloguing…Books that require extra labor…Books I had to travel for…Collections with large amounts of filler I will need to dispose of…

Understanding how long it takes for books to sell.

Well, if your turn is 25%, given the previous rule, you should offer $2500, right? But wait, I hear some protesting, if these are largely $10 books, they are rather ordinary most likely and perhaps a lower offer is in order. After all, these are books that we’d expect to find in multiple copies already available online. Good thought. In fact, the seller is anxious to sell and offers you the lot for $500 or $.50 a book! A steal right?

But wait: how much is storage going to cost you? Let’s say you only need a small space, something you can find for $150/month or $1800/year. Again, should you buy the books?

Well, with a 25% turnover, it’s going to take you 3-4 years to sell most of the books (though not all). So after three years your P/L on the lot would look something like this:

[$7500 gross revenue, approx.] – [$5400 storage rent] – [$400 COGS, approx.] – [$1500 commissions and expenses, approx.] = $200 profit.

Not so good after three years and having to ship 750 books. Even if you can catalogue, process, and ship 20 books an hour (and I can’t), that’s less than minimum wage.

So again, at what price should you buy the books? Well, in this example, you shouldn’t even accept the books as a donation. Not unless you can either: a) increase your turnover and/or b) eliminate the expense to store them. But these are judgements one can’t intelligently make without knowing one’s turnover.

Understanding the health of your business.

Let’s say last year you grossed $50,000 and this year you are on target to gross $60,000. Your business is growing and healthy, right? Well, maybe. It depends. Your business has grown by 20%. But looking at your numbers you realize that you have catalogued 30% more books last year than the year before. And by focusing on cataloguing better books, the value of your inventory has grown by 35%. So to recap:

Great right?

Well, yes and no. Notice that your turn rate and your revenue growth are out of synch by a factor of almost 50%. So though both the size and value of your inventory have grown, your turn rate has fallen. Let’s make these numbers more concrete:

LAST YEAR:

THIS YEAR:

Had your turnover not fallen, your revenue would have been $68,000. In other words, you are not earning a return commensurate with the improvements you’ve implemented. So if cataloguing all of those extra book meant work more hours, you may have actually earned less per hour one year to the next. Or put yet another way, your falling turnover has cost you several thousand dollars.

Your turn rate is therefore potentially a symptom of a problem worth investigating further. Perhaps in focusing on cataloguing more titles, your descriptions suffered. And with lower quality descriptions, buyers are choosing your wares less often. Notice as well that should this trend of lower turnover continue, you eventually will need to keep adding more and more titles simply to maintain revenues. You can see from this example that even in the face of growing revenues and profits, without knowing one’s turnover a symptom of a larger problem can go unrecognized.

Make More Money.

[(total retail value in dollars of your inventory) * (average yearly turnover)] – (average yearly expenses) = Income

If you want to give yourself a raise, if you want to make more money this year than last, how do you do it? Well, many people might think: sell more. But that’s not exactly true (indeed, notice that there is no “sales” or “revenue” variable in the above formula). To make more money, you really have only three options. They are: increase the value of your stock, lower your expenses, or increase your turnover. And of the three, the latter is probably the most immediately implementable.

For example, suppose you have a book for which you paid ten dollars. You can price it very competitively at $60.00, or at a more average asking-price of $85.00. Assume that at $60.00 the book should sell within six months and within a year at $85.00. Which should you do? Assuming you have reasonable access to similar books, you should probably do the former. Why? Because you can take that $10 cogs and use it to buy another book to – hopefully – sell in six months for $60. In a year, the two situations look like this:

$60 x 2 – $20 (cogs) = $100 profit
$85 x 1 – $10 (cogs) = $75 profit

In other words, you’ve made 33% MORE in the same amount of time and with the same amount of capital by pricing with an eye towards fast turnover. The numbers and assumptions change, and the theory can be taken to idiotic and self-defeating extremes (read: penny-sellers and auto-repricers) but the principle remains the same: turnover, turnover, turnover.

Sarah Baldwin led us through the important history of the ABAA itself, it’s formation in 1949 and it’s journey to the 21st century bookselling world. She highlighted the remarkably different landscape which booksellers work within, from changes in storefront prominence to technological advances, with understanding that the trade is certainly and profoundly evolving.

The make-up of the ABAA itself was reviewed, from officers to the Boards of Governors, regional chapters, and content/focus of meetings. From chapter to chapter, participation and intensity of focus varies, with website development, lectures, hosting of literary events and involvement in local libraries all hinging on the ABAA members themselves. It strikes me as important to remember as we discuss the trade that in fact we are the trade.

George Krzyminski, a 12 year ABAA member from Westhampton, NY spoke to the variety of membership. Is there a typical ABAA member? What do they sell? What do they look like? What they do share … a love of books. In fact he asserts that the diversity of backgrounds as a whole make up a more relevant ABAA body.

Some have come up from within the trade itself, whether from long-standing bookselling families, from apprenticeship with exceptional mentors or simply growing within their own specialties. A sophisticated collector may enter the trade, having become highly knowledgeable and specialized by virtue of their passion. George emphasizes that however the road brought them to the ABAA, the overwhelming majority of them stay in the organization, thus speaking to the benefits and satisfaction that membership brings.

Next Brian Cassidy, a relatively new member with three years in the ABAA addressed the many benefits of membership. The heavy measure of credibility that the ABAA logo and association brings to an individual is invaluable a tangible (read profit) addition to one’s business. He tallies a condensed list of immediate positives: average sale = jumped; selling higher end material online = easier; quoting to institutions and libraries = facilitated; catalogs = well received. In short, buyers look for this ABAA stamp and your bookselling bottom line reflects this. In practical terms Brian shares that he is often asked the question of how? One large answer: ABAA book fairs.

The ABAA hosts three major (and major is not an overstatement) annual fairs: California (alternatively Los Angeles and San Francisco), New York and Boston. Brian has participated in several and puts the results of said fairs quite simply as this: his worst ABAA fair was far better than his best others. Again, the stamp of ABAA attracts a tier of customers that is exceptional. Many dealers question the cost, expense of exhibiting and travel, but again assures that fairs are, quite frankly, the key that many booksellers are looking for. He highlights, as an example, the Rare Book and Manuscript Conference which hosts a mini bookfair, attracting primarily special collections libraries, essentially a room full of these sought after professionals. With ABAA membership comes automatic ILAB entrance as well, with an exposure and marketability overseas that is unparalleled.

A thriving business reflects more than a well balanced ledger, and here the ABAA holds a special role as well. Brian elaborated on the sense of community that comes with membership. Some 400 colleagues, mostly experts in their field, with whom to exchange many facets of the trade, from reference material to the subtleties of customer relations, the ins and outs of the general trade and industry specific business advice.

Next Sarah Baldwin addressed the application process itself, cue dramatic music. Prospective members should begin to establish references, letters of sponsorship, etc. as they consider their own timeline for formal application. In other words, begin laying down the foundations, the five part application process will require solid, established connections in the trade. Briefly 1. The written application 2. The Biographical Essay 3. The Evaluation Essay 4. Credit and 5. Letters of recommendation.

Sarah addressed with detail the credit component, emphasizing the obvious but perhaps most important virtue of honesty, in this but of course all facets of application, membership and business itself. We are reminded that everything is confidential and that subtleties of one’s financial situation are to be shared with transparency, safe in the knowledge that the board is taking one’s privacy quite seriously.

Now to the dotted i’s of the application, we are able to see the actual form on Susan Benne’s desktop and are taken through this line by line, a most helpful process. First things first, a bookseller needs a minimum of four years in the trade, established by the date of one’s tax ID.

Following that, the nature of stock, sponsors, letters and additional references. This is the heart of who we are as a bookseller and a business person. Questions were asked regarding site visits, most prospective members would establish a relationship with a local ABAA member (in good standing of course) for a literal walk through of one’s stock, as well as sponsorship from other ABAA members that we have a long distance or virtual relationship with.

The biographical essay, essentially a one page “who am I”, should address how we found bookselling (or how it found us!), essentially what led us to the trade and what our former professional life experience brings to bookselling.

The hypothetical evaluation is an important essay, and it this point we are introduced to Sunday Steinkirchner to speak to this. She shares that she prepared to apply for about three months, and shares her specifics for the biographical and evaluation essays. For the bio, they are looking for our professional or academic background and/or our transition into the bookselling world. How did we acquire our knowledge? Who did we work with or for? What is our specialty and what are our qualifications? Much like a college entrance essay, we are explaining both who we are and how we got there.

She addressed the appraisal essay, or the hypothetical evaluation and explains that here, as we write an evaluation of a virtual collection, we have room to share our knowledge and approach with regards to our speciality or author focus. We would share what references, price guides and bibliographic materials that we would incorporate in the assessment, and offer the type of questions that we would ask a collector, thereby summarizing how we handle the evaluation of a collection.

Brian Cassidy touched on one important piece of the application puzzle, that of finding the necessary sponsors and references within the day to day of our business. He spoke personally of his sponsors to better give us an idea of the many ways relationships like this can burgeon. His first sponsor came from interaction and eventual collaboration (working at a fair) with an open store ABAA dealer. His second sponsor was born via CABS, and his third contacted him after receipt of one of his catalogs. It’s intriguing to hear of the many roads that lead to sponsorship and relationships as well as friendships within the trade. And so with that we are advised to look: 1. locally 2. through sales to dealers, which we may want to actively pursue 3. via fairs, notably ABAA but all, both in exhibition and attendance 4. CABS enrolment and 5. through catalogs, even in their simplest forms.

With this large plate of food for thought, the presentation segment of the webinar wound down, with chat and emailed questions trickling in. Two closing thoughts that were shared by the faculty were the importance of interesting as opposed to merely valuable stock, and a noting of the very valuable resources that are available for applications and potential members to educate themselves further: the ABAA newsletter, the listserve and CABS.

It was a pleasurable, fascinating hour and fifteen minutes, with exceptionally detailed answers to many burning questions. There are few aspects that would make the experience better, just my observations and thoughts from the hip.

1. I would have, as the email urged, spent a bit more time getting to know the webinar platform, such as muting/unmuting the voice, experimenting with the layout of the participants, and manoeuvering within the virtual desktop of Susan Benne. I played around with phone vs. computer audio to find which was clearest, etc.

2. Some of the faculty’s audio was quite poor, which I realize cannot be helped midstream, but this is as requested, the good, bad etc. I would love to see as many full video streams as possible, as this brings a true virtual seminar feel that can’t be paralleled.

3. Perhaps I missed it, but I didn’t feel much interaction with other participants, and I did not see most of their video, perhaps most had this disabled or perhaps I did not have the settings correctly adjusted. I would have like to say hello to my fellow inaugural alumni.

Let’s end with the great, which was basically 99.9% of the 75 minutes, I’ll leave the math to someone else.

The faculty was superb and a big thank you to each for volunteering their time and energy (let’s face it, if they were talking to us, they weren’t cataloguing anything!)

I feel much more comfortable with the process, and honestly feel that I could write or call any of the faculty and speak at ease with them about bookselling in general. This is special, important, and as many spoke to, the beginning of a blossoming network in the trade.

With regards to the importance and vitality of the ABAA itself, the pulse of our noble industry: this was duly noted and left me with total certainty that if bookselling is part of my long term plan, the ABAA must be as well. It was an honor and a pleasure to participate in this, which was well planned and offered as a courtesy and received as such.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared here: http://www.ilab.org/eng/documentation/546-abaas_first_official_webinar_for_antiquarian_booksellers.html. The next ABAA webinar is scheduled for Sept. 21st, 2011 at 2pm ET. Anyone interested should contact Janine Moodhe or Susan Benne at hq@abaa.org.]

Did I mention that we didn’t know what we were doing? The problem was, that we both had studied English Literature (I’d even bombed around graduate school in Albuquerque to the tune of 38 credits), so far from recognizing how little we knew about the book business, we thought we might be experts. We also knew next to nothing about selling books online. I had been selling some “first editions” on Ebay, my sole reference being the little McBride’s pocket guide, but we didn’t really game plan for the internet (insofar as we game planned for anything). This was going to be, we supposed, a bookstore where humans walked in and bought books. Ah, youth.

Where were/are you located?

At the time we were living in Jamaica Plain, a Boston neighborhood that at the time was teetering on the line between colorful and gentrified, but rents had skyrocketed there. We looked around and settled one neighborhood further out from downtown in Roslindale, a subwayless urban neighborhood of triple deckers and single family homes. It was a quirky space and over the years we experimented with art openings, coffee shops, and even a skee-ball machine, but what it really had going for it was a 2000 sq. ft. dry basement. As you might imagine, we quickly realized that if we were interested in paying our bills, we were going to have to either open a speakeasy down there, or embrace selling online. So the basement was piled high with boxes of books from clearing out houses as people cashed in on their rapidly appreciating properties (this was 2003) and moved out of the city. We were indiscriminate and vigorous in those days, and our education in the book business was grimy but effective. When we first went online, we sold general stock like crazy on half.com, but as our stock diversified (and Ebay killed half.com only to replace it with zombie half.com) we added ABE and eventually Amazon, Alibris (since abandoned), Biblio and others.

In the middle of 2008, we moved the store one more neighborhood out (running away from rent increases) to the West Roxbury neighborhood. By 2025 I should be in Rhode Island. And in 2010, my brother moved on to work with the social enterprise bookshop More than Words, so now Pazzo is me and the occasional local urchin tricked into shelving some books.

When did you join IOBA?

I joined IOBA in the Summer of 2011.

Describe your business. For example, do you have any specialties?

Size of stock?

I’ve had right around 8,000 books online for years – culling, space issues, and acquisition speed seem to conspire to keep it right around there. After 8+ years of running the walk in shop and the internet as increasingly parallel businesses, they each definitely have their ups and downs. Without the internet the shop would have long ago ceased to exist (putting aside the notion that without the existence of the internet, the shop would be fine), and the internet does allow a 24 hour business that is very appealing (especially for pathological order checkers like myself who get a charge out of every $25 order). No matter how often I try, adding better books to the shelves rarely draws more customers in, but if you add more online stock, it certainly works which is appealingly simple. If it wasn’t for the store, the anonymity of selling online would get to me, I’m sure – once in a while it’s nice to put a face to an order – but consistently, my least favorite aspect of selling online is finding a place for all the books. Real Estate in Boston being what it is, it’s a constant shuffle to find somewhere to put all of this stock, and since the move to smaller, more affordable quarters, it’s been a squeeze getting all of the books situated on site.

Biggest challenge currently facing the trade?

Though used bookstores seem to have weathered the storm of closings better than new shops, rents, disinterest and the internet have thinned our ranks considerably. With libraries increasingly leaning towards the multi-media, I sometimes wonder where new readers and collectors will come from. It’s possible that new technologies  will allow the sort of discovery online that you can now only find in libraries and shops – that moment of serendipity when your eye passes over a neighboring shelf and finds something that you never imagined existed, but I’m not holding my breath. Maybe a new generation of book fairs and festivals will pick up the real world slack? But I remain incautiously optimistic.

Tell us about an interesting item you currently have in stock.

What was your best or favorite find as a book dealer? How and where did you come across it?

Certainly not my most profitable, but I dug a pamphlet out of a table lot at a “pick” auction years ago that still warms my heart to think of. The great utopian socialist Robert Owen, famous for his rejection of religion and superstition as elements of control and repression, wrote this crazy spiritualist piece late in his life called “The Coming Millennium” (1855). It was as if all his striving and hard work at creating a world where workers weren’t exploited left him with this grand, nebulous hope that was expressed in this pamphlet that was everything he had spent his life railing against. Splendid and confounding.

John Howell for Books started on January 1, 2005.

Where are you located?

Los Angeles, California. We live in a National Historical Landmark Property called the Village Green. If one were traveling West on the 10 Freeway from downtown, one would take the La Brea South Exit. East of Culver City and North of Baldwin Hills. People living Downtown, Hollywood, or points north and east think of the area as “On the way to LAX.”

Size of stock?

Generally speaking, my on-line listings hover in the 950 to 1,100 range. Currently I do not have my own web-site, so 900 are probably tired listings languishing on Amazon, ABE, Alibris, and the like. This of course does not take into account the thousands of books languishing in storage, which anyone in the So Cal area who would like to pick up some raw inventory on the cheap are welcome to inquire about.

When did you join IOBA?

Early 2010. I had known about it for about a year or two before I applied. It has been a very positive experience because for the previous few years I had been pretty much focusing on getting my on-line operations going and running smoothly, but having wider contacts in the trade is very important and productive.

What is your professional background? How did you come to the book business?

I have degrees in History from California State University, Fullerton and UCLA. European Church History and US Colonial History, respectively. When it became apparent in the early 1990s that I would be an ABD (all but the dissertation), I started casting about for work. My first job was with Barnes and Noble. My second job was for an ABAA rare book dealer, writing catalogs. That evolved into an 8-year gig, and when it was over I began buying and selling books on my own account.

Describe your business. For example, do you have any specialties? Employees/partners? Open shop? By appt.?

Basically, I work out of my home, which is a small (under 1,000 square foot apartment converted into a condominium complex in the 1970s) so currently no partners or employees. I have been working with California fine press materials, and miniature books; my first printed catalog, May 2011, included 113 items issued by the Book Club of California. Because this type of material is not a particularly hot seller on the third party venues I have been selling through, I have been doing more book fairs. I will be exhibiting at the LA Printer’s Fair on October 1^st and then one week later at the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair on October 8^th and 9^th.

Tell us about an interesting item you currently have in stock.

Currently I have a presentation copy of Victorien Sardou and Emile de Najac’s Divorcons! Comedie en Trois Actes, Paris, 1883. Sardou was an important writer for the French stage in the late nineteenth century. This play was a send-up of French divorce laws which were then under revision. The copy I have was one of 30 copies printed on Holland paper, but is unique since it is illustrated by hand with watercolors throughout the text. Even the parchment-covered boards are illustrated by hand.

What was your best find as a book dealer? How and where did you come across it?

Perhaps my best find as a book dealer was an edition of William Blake’s Poetical Sketches published in London by the Vale Press in 1899 on vellum. Of a total edition of 210 copies, there were only 8 printed on vellum; the copy I had was bound by the Dove’s Bindery. This was one of a lot of books I purchased from an estate sale in Los Angeles. Also among the books was a first edition of Robert Browning’s The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, London, 1877, with a manuscript letter signed by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I’m still weeding through this collection, but perhaps I have already found the highlights.

What are the best and worst aspects of selling online?

I used to think that the worst aspect of selling online were the commissions paid to online venues like Amazon and ABE, and a concurrent loss of autonomy to the same players. But, it takes time to build up a clientele that one can call one’s own. As I branch out and make more contacts within the trade, I am finding that the 15% to the online venues feels comfortable compared to the 20% expected by colleagues. But one has to keep these things in perspective; since it has long been the case that most book sellers make most of their sales to other book sellers, and one needs to keep churning one’s inventory, the challenge for me right now is merely maintaining the cash flow to sustain myself in the trade.

Biggest challenge currently facing the trade?

I’m not sure I am able to speak for “the trade” as a whole, but I suspect that a challenge all used book sellers are facing has to do with new media, online and electronic texts of varying stripes, and the transition we are in with the world wide web becoming an ever growing part of peoples lives and more and more of the cultural heritage being available electronically. I’m just an observer. I have no idea how and if the ball will ever come to rest. But it’s fun to watch!

NOTE: These are pitched to the “first-time askers” — those of you who would like to request a dealer discount from a fellow bookseller who you’ve never bought from before, and who is a complete stranger to you.

Lesson 1. Ask directly. Take the time to seek out the seller’s email address, and send a direct message. (It’s acceptable, for the sake of convenience, to make such inquiries through certain websites — e.g. AbeBooks, with its very handy “Ask Bookseller a Question” link — but it’s slightly classier, at least in my opinion, to take such incipient transactions completely “outside the room” of the third-party aggregate-listing sites.)

Lesson 2. Ask politely. One thing to always keep in mind is that a trade discount is a courtesy and a privilege, not a “right.” You should be upfront about being a bookseller, but strive to avoid any sense of entitlement: you are asking for a discount, not expecting or demanding one. It can also help to state what your own policy is, as some dealers put a lot of weight on the “reciprocal” aspects of discounting.

Lesson 3. Be clear. Know what you want going in, and make your needs and desires crystal-clear to the seller. If your purchase is contingent upon a discount, say so; otherwise, state that you will buy the book (i.e. at the listed price) even if there is no discount forthcoming. (The term “firm order” is useful, but alas not always understood.)

Lesson 4. Offer payment in as many forms as you’re able. PayPal is quickest and easiest these days, but if you’re willing to send a check or use a credit card, mention those as other options — you can state your own preference if you have one, but always make it clear that it’s the seller’s prerogative to choose whatever payment method he finds most amenable. The sticky point comes with credit card use. It’s considered “bad form” by some dealers to offer to pay for a discounted purchase with a credit card — which then costs the seller a little bit more, in terms of fees — but on the other hand, many sellers don’t mind. (Interestingly, the same objection is rarely voiced with regard to PayPal, although their transaction fees are roughly comparable.) My suggestion is to only offer credit card payment as a secondary option, perhaps even with an apologetic caveat attached (i.e. “if it’s acceptable,” or something like that).

Lesson 5. Be grateful (if the answer is “yes”). See “privilege,” in Lesson 2, above. And remember what your mother told you: say “thank you.”

Lesson 6. Be graceful (no matter what the answer is). Here’s the tricky one, because sometimes the answer is either “no” or a “yes” that you might find wanting (i.e., only 10%). You should always proceed with the transaction (or not), based on your earlier statements to the seller, but resist the temptation to challenge or question his policy. Remember that when all is said and done, we each have the right to determine our own business practices — and with regard to “courtesy” (Lesson 2, above) …. well, haven’t you noticed by now that not everybody in the world is courteous? Ultimately, I believe that a bookseller does himself a lot more harm than good by adopting a restrictive or distinctly ungenerous trade discount policy: nobody ever gained a customer (or a friend within the trade) by refusing a discount. But the cost to you is minimal: a dollop of disappointment on a single deal, but a piece of knowledge for the future. It’ll save you the trouble of asking again, for one thing, and you’ll also have the potential satisfaction of “taking your business elsewhere.” So who’s the loser, in that scenario?

As a couple of real-world examples of how to put Lessons 1 through 4 into practice, here are sample “inquiry letters” as used by fellow IOBAn Brian Cassidy and myself:

Brian’s letter

Version 1; when he intends to make the purchase, discount or no:

Hello. My name is Brian Cassidy and I am a book dealer in the Washington DC area. I am interested in [book title/description]. Could you please confirm availability and forward a total price for a direct sale, including shipping and discount, if offered (I offer terms up to 20%, reciprocal)? I am happy to pay via your preferred method. Thank you in advance.

Version 2; when purchase is dependent upon availability of discount:

Hello. My name is Brian Cassidy and I am a book dealer in the Washington DC area. I am interested in [book title/description], but before deciding would like to know if you offer a dealer discount on direct sales. I offer terms up to 20%, reciprocal. And I am happy to pay via your preferred method. Thank you in advance.

My letter (purchase not dependent on discount):

Dear [bookseller’s name]:

I would like to buy your book [title/author + seller’s inventory number, if known], listed at $__ on [whatever site]. This is a firm order; any available trade discount will be greatly appreciated, but I’ll buy the book either way. Please confirm availability and advise the total amount due, inclusive of shipping (Media Mail is fine), and I’ll forward payment promptly. I am happy to pay with whatever method you prefer: PayPal, check or credit card. Many thanks for your attention to this order.

Howard Prouty
ReadInk
2261 W. 21st St.
Los Angeles, CA 90018
www.readinkbooks.com
ABAA | ILAB | IOBA

Please note the importance, in my opinion, of a fully-featured signature: personal name, business name, mailing address, website, and professional affiliations. One thing this inquiry should do beyond question — especially if you are approaching a seller to whom you are likely a complete stranger — is to establish your bona fides right at the outset. If I were inquiring of another dealer here in California, I would also add my resale permit number.

Like a junkie seeking a secret fix, I furtively ordered a copy of Other People’s Books Association Copies and the Stories They Tell. I must confess to a penchant for books signed by their authors and inscribed to professional colleagues, family members or friends. I treasure the gems in my own collection and strive to locate and place other such ‘wants’ in the hands of my customers. For those of us who seek to broaden our knowledge of this branch of scholarly inquiry or sate a curiosity about the passions that drive other bibliophiles, Other People’s Books will engage and enthrall.

Kim Coventry’s preface provides a background to the Caxton Club’s publication of this volume which was published along with a symposium of the same name held in March 2011 at the Newberry Library. Thomas Tanselle’s thoughtful introduction explores the history of association copies which contextualizes the contributions to this volume.

According to Tanselle, the significance of association copies and the more formal recognition of the importance of a book’s provenance within the book world did not occur until after the late 1890s. The publication of Winterich’s A Primer of Book Collecting (1927) in the United States and Williams’ The Elements of Book Collecting (1927) in England and, slightly later, Jackson’s The Anatomy of Bibliomania (1931), marked the growing acceptance of association copies as a bona fide category for book collectors and sellers. Ongoing discussions about association copies revolve, in part, around the definition of what an association copy is, and this book is no exception. The definitions of association copies are rarely clear-cut and may include an author’s own copy, a copy presented by the author to a dedicatee, a presentation copy from an author to a mentor and a book with the bookplate and/or signature or a well-known individual. Tanselle cogently discusses the various definitions of association copies and the congruency that exists between them. While he is in sympathy with Carter’s (1948) definition from The ABC for Book Collectors which states that this term applies to:

a copy which once belonged to, or was annotated by, the author; which once belonged to someone connected with the author or someone of interest in his own right; or again, and perhaps most interestingly, belonged to someone peculiarly associated with its contents. (Quoted in Tanselle, p. 13)

However, Tanselle further argues (2011, p. 14), “ It is important to allow extreme breadth to take in every kind of documented association and substituting a straightforward descriptive phrase (or more than one) as occasion demands”.

This book is comprised of fifty-two short essays of which twenty-four deal with volumes in institutional collections and twenty-eight deal with those in private hands. The books date from 1470 to 1986 and are set in England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States. The fields covered are wide-ranging and include astronomy, ornithology, political science, history, art, film and psychology. The greatest emphasis is placed on literary works. The essay, “Her favourite moral writer”: Jane Austen’s Cowper is contributed by Garth Reese, Assistant Curator of Printed Books and Bindings at The Morgan Library and Museum, New York. Reese introduces the extensive Cowper collection at The Morgan Library but focuses on Jane Austen’s personal copy of Cowper’s poems that she inscribed and gave to her closest niece Fanny Austen Knight in 1808. As highlighted by the title of the essay, the English poet William Cowper (1731-1800) was one of Austen’s favorite writers and she makes frequent references to and incorporates a number of Cowper’s poems in her novels. For example, as related by Reese, Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, describes Cowper’s poetry as “beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild” and Fanny Price in Mansfield Park quotes from Cowper’s The Task. Fanny Knight kept her aunt’s copy of Cowper for the rest of her life. After her death, Fanny Knight’s son Baron Brabourne was the first editor of Austen’s letters. He also annotated Austen’s personal copy of Cowper’s poems and outlined the relationship between Jane Austen and Fanny Austen Knight.

While“Her favourite moral writer” by Reese probes the provenance of a presentation copy with a unique literary history, Book-running in the Civil War by private collector John P. Chalmers explores the early life of a book that remains an historical document in its own right. Chalmers opens a window on a fascinating aspect of American Civil War history. In the spring of 1861, Lincoln had ordered a blockade against southern ports including Wilmington, Charleston and Savannah. Propelled by profit, patriotism or derring-do, many ‘blockade-runners’ took their lives into their own hands to deliver goods to these ostensibly closed ports. The subject of this essay is a unique copy of The Book of Common Prayer… of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America published abroad for the Confederate publisher J.W. Randolph in Richmond, Virginia in 1862 and designed specifically for Confederate use. Actually published in England, this copy and other Bibles and prayer books were shipped to Havana where they were transferred to the blockade runner Minna. The Minna was captured off Cape Romain, South Carolina by the Union ship the Circassian. While most of its book cargo was thrown overboard, only a few books, including this copy, survived to bear testament to this historic event.

Lavishly illustrated with full-colour photographs that complement the text, Other People’s Books is a splendid addition to any bookseller’s personal or reference library.

Other People’s Books: Association Copies and the Stories They Tell is available from Oak Knoll Books.

Antiquarian Book Fair within the Baltimore Summer Antiques Show, August 25-28, 2011 (Thursday – Sunday) at the Baltimore Convention Center – Inner Harbor.

Did you attend as a buyer or as an exhibitor?

Buyer

What seemed to be the mood among buyers?

I was there on Thursday and Friday, under somewhat difficult circumstances; the week had begun with an earthquake, and was ending with Hurricane Irene headed for the area. Sandbags were being filled outside the venue as I left on Friday. This uncertainty affected buyers. On the positive side, those who were there seemed to be pretty motivated.

Among dealers?

The same uncertainty infected the dealers, complicated by the need, after the show closed on Thursday night, for half of the dealers to relocate their booths, due to a risk of leaks in the original location. After that, it was still an open question as to whether the show would be able to stay open until Sunday, and if it did, would anyone attend?

How was attendance?

Seemed low, and also seemed a pretty homogeneous crowd – the ‘average attendee’ seemed to be male, white, and at least 50+ This is in contrast to my recent observations in Boston and New York, where there were a number of young and less traditional attendees. This may have been skewed by my attendance on weekdays.

Most interesting item(s) you saw?

I was cheered to see a number of contemporary fine press and artist’s books exhibited by Kelmscott and Lux Mentis. There is some very exciting work happening now.

Most interesting item(s) you purchased?

I made two purchases – an absolutely gorgeous set of art nouveau bookends, and an Enigma. The Enigma is an early 19th century British album, which I expect will give me hours of researching pleasure as I try to answer the many questions that it poses.

Any other details you’d like to include?

This show is unlike most others – it is part of an art and antiques fair. There is a lot of competition for the eye, as indicated by my purchase of bookends. I think that booksellers need to adapt to the aesthetic of a show dedicated to the decorative arts, and that booths need to be ‘curated’ as exhibits. It is always a bit of a mystery to me that so many book dealers see it as almost a moral failing, an ethical lapse, to show anything but the unadorned ‘Book’. This show is an especially good opportunity to move beyond that attitude, that the book must sell as Book alone. Don’t neglect the narrative – and tell the story in presentation as well. The best example that I saw of this approach was at the Lux Mentis booth, where display was carefully considered to enhance carefully collected stock. The towering glass case of miniature books worked especially well in this context, and echoed the many jewel cases elsewhere on the floor.

[Editor's note: For another excellent account of the Baltimore Fair, see fellow IOBA-n Greg Gibson's account "No Fighting, No Biting."]