IOBA members may not be aware of a bookish ‘event’ held in NYC every January… Bibliography Week. It’s a (loose) gathering of collectors, booksellers, and librarians who come to New York the last full week of January to participate in bookish-oriented activities, including the annual meetings for the Grolier Club, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the American Printing History Association. A more complete description of this year’s activities can be found here: http://www.grolierclub.org/default.aspx?p=DynamicModule&pageid=289376 [Editor’s note: the structure of the Grolier’s website makes linking to individual pages tricky. This link sometimes works and sometimes does not. Googling “Bibliography Week” should lead you to the right information as well.] As you see from perusing the link verbiage, lectures, talks, exhibits, receptions, etc all abound. And for the first time in 2012, the ABAA hosted a Bookseller Showcase for the Bib Week attendees which I expect to become an integral part of this annual event. While perhaps not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’, I bring this proceeding to your attention, especially for those in the Greater Manhattan area, for it’s a wonderful way to network & meet prominent folks in the world of Rare Books, such as Terry Belanger, RBS Founding Director & Faculty at CABS, who was to been seen at divers talks/receptions throughout the week. Feel free to send me specific questions at vjz@tavbooks.com

I’ve always been an avid reader and bibliophile.  I have been selling books since my first job in a used bookstore right after graduating from the University  Of  Washington with a degree in  Comparative Literature in 1987, which makes for twenty-four years of bookselling. My partner, Sean Carlson, who also worked in the same used bookstore and was an English major, cab driver, and student activist when I met him in college, and I opened  Pistil Books & News, a retail bookstore in 1993. Pistil Books & News was located on Pike Street on Seattle’s Capitol Hill in an area that was in transition from “auto row” (warehouses and repair shops)  to independent small businesses, bars, coffee shops, clubs, and restaurants during Seattle’s “grunge” years. Pistil Books & News was a 25,000 volume used and new neighborhood bookstore which also sold magazines and zines and was known for its support of alternative publications and culture. During our seven -and-a-half years as an open retail shop, we held regular author readings, displayed art on the walls by local artists, and published our own zine, Pistil Prose, with its popular feature “Retail Hell,” which is excerpted on our website. During this time, we also exhibited and sold books at book fairs such as Northwest Bookfest,  Seattle Poetry Festival, and the Bumbershoot literary stage. We learned-by-doing all aspects of running a retail store including purchasing, supervising employees, and the joy of bookkeeping and taxes. We began selling books online during our time as a retail store, first beginning to list on Abe in 1996. By April of 2001, internet sales were about a third of our business and when we could not renew our lease on terms we were happy with, we decided to close our retail store and become an online-only business. In just a month and a half,  Sean transformed the unfinished basement of our home – in the same neighborhood as our retail store – from a low-ceilinged space with a dirt floor into our current lovely 13,000 volume warehouse/office with parquet floors and eight-foot shelves moved from our store.  We now sell our books on a dozen different bookselling websites. We joined IOBA in 2006, and I worked on the membership committee for about a year in 2009. Although we were sad to close our retail store, and miss the daily community involvement and human interaction of a retail store, we have found  running an internet-only bookstore to have its own rewards. As a retail bookstore, we were open 80 hours/week. I worked full-time and supervised a number of employees, including one employee, Tim Ridlon, who still works for us part-time fifteen years later. Now both Sean and I work about half-time, and we also employ Sean’s brother, Troy, part-time as our packer and shipper (he takes all our packages to the local post office on foot with a handcart).  We now have more time to travel, both for business and for pleasure (usually we combine both), and to read. In addition, running an online-only store has substantially lowered our operating costs. We have found  closing our retail store to be a sound business decision; we have watched as numerous local brick-and-mortar bookstores have closed over the last ten years due to the changing nature of the book business and increasing overhead costs. As an internet bookstore, the kinds of books we stock has changed quite a bit. We have learned over the years what kinds of books hold their value in a marketplace of intense seller competition, megalisters, and robot pricing. We carry a lot of books that we have a personal interest in – Sean picks up titles on alternative building and energy (he has five acres at the edge of the Cascade Mountains he is working on putting a garden and cabin on), and alternative/radical politics. And I can’t pass up vintage children’s library bindings with their buckram covers and cool illustrations. We also like period books of pop culture. One of our favorite finds was a copy of Andy Warhol’s Index Book, discovered in a box under a table at a library sale.  This is a piece of pop art itself, with pop-ups, a vinyl record, and other objects of the time (1967), including supposed LSD tabs. We also have a copy of  the controversial 1975 sex education book, Show Me by photographer Will McBride. We have our own website, www.pistilbooks.net, which includes virtual readings by local authors in the form of audio files, a blog on reading and bookselling, and  The Museum of Weird Books. We also have an annual outdoor book sale, which gives us a chance to get back in touch with the community and neighbors. In addition, we have recently begun co-hosting salons  with another bookseller friend in which small groups of people come together to  eat, drink, and converse on themes with a literary bent. I have also been quite interested in  printing and the book arts, and have taken classes on bookbinding and printing, including letterpress, monoprints, and screen printing. I re-bind old library books into blank journals, with the help of Troy, which I sell online and in a local shop. I was also able to take the class The History of the Book, 500-2000 at Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, thanks to an IOBA scholarship. For us, the biggest challenge in online bookselling has been the advent of the megalisters and digital versions of books, which have driven the down the value of books that we used to be able to sell for $5- $15 to nothing. It’s not easy to predict the changes that will occur in the trade in the next 5 – 10 years, but we have a hard time believing that the megalisters’ business practices are sustainable, even with a large portion of their stock being gathered for free or next-to-free. Also, if many people read digital versions of books and fewer physical books are printed,  we could see “common” books actually increasing in value down the road. Our biggest problem right now, guess what, is storage space. Maybe we’ll move to the middle of Montana and sell everything for one dollar from a huge automated warehouse.

1. Are you sure? We’re living the dream. Three-hour working days surrounded by our beloved books, more money than we can shake a stick at – I can’t help but feel sorry for all those non-booksellers out there. Oh wait, it’s not always like that though is it? The conventional wisdom is thabookselling is getting harder every year, and as with most such pearls there’s definitely an element of truth to that and it’s easy to see why. The devt elopment of new technologies – like digital books and print-on-demand books, the market dominance of one online retailer, the apparent profusion of ‘mega-sellers’ selling books for a penny, constantly rising postal costs and the relatively low barriers to entry for online selling certainly make it a challenging environment. If you do decide to take the plunge then you need to be aware that books are heavy, days will be long (all 365 of them each year) and some people are not necessarily suited to the self-discipline needed when faced with boxes and boxes of books and a cold, impersonal computer screen. If possible, it might be worth starting out small and combining online bookselling with other work to see if it is really the job for you. Having said all that, for many of us, selling and dealing in books is a vocation – and one from which we get a huge amount of satisfaction – but the important thing to remember is that this is certainly not an easy life or an easy way to make big bucks. 2. To shop or not to shop? One of the first issues any prospective bookseller has to wrestle with is whether to open a brick and mortar shop (B&M) or just sell online from the comfort of their own home/barn/shed/outhouse etc. In general, the numbers of both new and second-hand specialist bookshops are falling. Again, there are many reasons but they mainly boil down to the relatively high costs of running a shop (rents, rates and local taxes, staffing, utilities) and increased competition whether from new technologies (like e-books), the internet, large stores and even charity shops. But it’s not all doom and gloom, many B&Ms do thrive – often with a compelling mix of specialist knowledge and exemplary service – and actively use the internet to complement the physical store. Whether you decide to open a shop or not, however, you will need substantial space to store your books as it is a fact of life that books take up space – lots of it if you let them. So it will be important to identify an area that is secure, dry, with some airflow and preferably not too bright. It is also vital to make sure that your storage is well-organised so that when those books start flying out the door you can get your hands on them quickly and efficiently.  But don’t worry, whether you open a shop or not, as long as you sell online, you will still be able to join the best bookselling club there is – the IOBA! 3. Where do I get books? This is the $64,000 question, just where do all those signed first editions and leather-bound antiquarian gems hang out? Unfortunately, pretty much anywhere and everywhere … At the end of the day, where you get your books from depends on where you are but some of the most common sources include your own library, local and online auctions, other websites, library sales, garage sales, car boot sales, charity shops/thrift stores, estate sales, friends and family, private libraries and the general public. The best advice is to try all the local sources you can find and then pick the ones that provide you with the sort of books you want and prices that allow you to make a profit! But also, make sure you talk to plenty of your local bookselling colleagues that you meet while out and about. While they may be competitors in the heat of auction-bidding, you will be pleasantly surprised how helpful they will be. Booksellers all want to make money, but there is such a wide range of interests and specialities that there are plenty of books out there for us all and one dealer may well know of a source of books that might work well for you but don’t fit with their own store or speciality. 4. Should I specialize in one area? What should I buy? This is one of the most common questions asked by wannabe booksellers and the answer is probably yes – but many sellers start as generalists (and often finish as generalists but with pockets of specialism). Obviously some books sell better than others and, even if only by trial and error, you will learn amazingly quickly. One quick and dirty way of seeing if a particular book might sell is to look it up on Amazon and see where it sits in Amazon’s bookselling rankings. But obviously this can only ever be a guide and other factors such as the condition of the book and the price you want for it will have a significant impact on whether your copy will sell. As for specialism, then the best advice is simply to find an area that you have a particular interest in and day by day build up your knowledge of books in that area. It will take you a lifetime and you will still not know everything there is to know about your chosen area but your knowledge will allow you to more reliably identify the best books, spot gems that others may miss and, most importantly of all, generate ongoing relationships with customers who share your interest and will appreciate the knowledge and expertise that you bring to their passion. One free tip to finish … if you can come up with a way to make money from Reader’s Digest Condensed Books then you could well be on your way to becoming a gazillionaire. 5. Do I need a database or catalogue? For once a definite answer – absolutely yes. A database of some description is a vital tool for any online bookseller, particularly if you are selling on more than one site. It is the only way to effectively manage your stock so that you can keep your stock up to date on multiple websites. A decent database will help you to keep your book descriptions and pictures in a manageable format and also help with your internal inventory management. There are many different database programs available with different levels of functionality. Some of these are free, some require a one-off payment and others are on a subscription model – so it is vital that you do your homework to find the one that’s right for you. Many of the databases actually give you the opportunity to try before you buy. As with any software, it’s also important to check out the level of support you can expect both now and, as far as possible, in the future. 6. How do I learn to grade books? Learning how to grade your books accurately is one of the most important skills you will learn, particularly for an internet bookseller when the buyer cannot handle book they are buying. There are standard bookselling condition grades and terms which have been used by booksellers for many years, however these have been watered down to some extent by the fact that each different bookselling website tends to use different words and definitions for their book descriptions. The first thing to do is to understand the standard condition descriptions and the words and phrases used by booksellers. One of the best starting points is the IOBA website itself where you can find information on book conditions – http://www.ioba.org/desc.html  – and more information, including a useful bibliography in the IOBA’s Resources section at www.ioba.org Another skill that you will need to learn includes how to accurately identify and describe the edition, particularly in the case of first editions, of the books you are selling. Your research skills and knowledge will grow over time and it is important to listen to and learn from feedback from both fellow booksellers, collectors and also the general public to help hone your skills. 7. Where do I sell my books? The good news is that there are many different places to sell your books. Online, these include the big aggregator sites which list books from hundreds or thousands of different sellers eg Amazon Marketplace, AbeBooks, Alibris, Biblio, IOBABooks and many others. Auction sites like Ebay are also popular ways of selling books online. However, the one thing that all these have in common is that they take their cut – usually a percentage of the sale price – and it can be significant. Most websites work on some form of commission basis and some give you the option of paying a monthly fee along with a lower commission, so you need to do your maths to make sure that you are not paying more than you have to. Obviously one way to avoid some of these charges is to develop your own website (see Q8). Many online booksellers also have their own B&M shops and other physical places to sell your books include book fairs, stalls and sales and auctions. 8. Do I need my own website/credit-card facilities? Not necessarily, but – as stated above – sales through your own website are likely to be significantly more profitable than sales through the big aggregator sites thanks to the lack of commission charges. However, developing a professional-looking, user-friendly website can be a significant investment and it is unlikely to generate a lot of sales at first compared with big aggregator sites. There are pre-packaged website solutions available which help to keep costs down. Having your own website does also demonstrate a degree of commitment and professionalism which can increase your sales. The more work that you do to develop repeat customers and create a vibrant, interesting website – for instance with the help of social media – then the more sales that you can generate through your own website. Booksellers with strong specialities are also likely to benefit more from generating repeat sales through their own sites. The facility to process your own credit cards, although often costly to set up, can prove useful even for a bookseller who sells solely through third-party websites. Some people prefer to deal direct with the vendor and you might be surprised how many customers will ring direct to place orders. 9. Do I have to ship my books every day? If you want good feedback – yes. Picking, packing and posting are part of the daily routine of most online booksellers. The quicker that you can safely and securely get items to your customers then, more often than not, the more satisfied they are with your service. That has two benefits, firstly satisfied customers are more likely to become repeat customers and secondly on sites with well-developed feedback processes (like Amazon and Ebay) then there seems to be some correlation between feedback scores and sales. Given two books in similar condition at a similar price then buyers are more likely to buy the one from the seller with the better feedback rating. In addition, most sites will expect you to be posting orders at least once every other day and you will need to make sure you meet their requirements to keep selling there. At first, shipping every day will probably require a trudge to the local post office, but once you are a big enough seller then, in many countries, you will be able to get your own postage contract which will significantly reduce costs and the number of those time-consuming trips. In the meantime, it can be worth shopping around and considering other providers, particularly for international sales. 10. Do I need to be part of a bookseller organization? No, of course not, but as with a website it can improve how you are perceived by potential customers and can be a nice little boost to self-esteem as any organization worth its salt will expect you to meet certain professional standards (e.g. http://www.ioba.org/code.html). Good bookseller organizations – like the IOBA and the many other regional and national trade associations which exist – can be an invaluable source of help, support and advice and it’s amazing just how useful that is in, what can at times be, a relatively solitary profession.

The aim of this article is to offer you, the buyer, some insights from a bookdealer on how to avoid these unpleasant experiences and to make buying a book online feel more like shopping in your favorite book store. The first thing to do before making a purchase is to define what kind of book you want. I’ve broken this down to two broad categories: a reading copy (meaning a recent, common book), or a first/special edition. Determining what kind of book you’re looking for will help you decide where to purchase and give you a way to sift through your choices. In this article, I’ll cover purchasing a basic reading copy since there are fewer variables (but many of the principals also apply to first editions). I’ll use Amazon for my examples since it’s the most trafficked venue. Start by using the search box to find the title you’re looking for. I default to the “advanced search” option since it provides separate fields for title, author, etc. When you reach a book’s individual title page, you’ll see a box labeled “More Buying Choices. [#] copies used & new” on the right. Click on this link and you’ll see used copies arranged in order by price from low to high, with the cheapest copies having the best screen real estate near the top of the screen (except for Amazon partners or “Fulfillment by Amazon” deals which are bumped up regardless of price). There are also tabs for new, used and collectible, but for our purposes use the “All” tab. You will find that in most cases the first page or so of listings for a common or backlist book will be priced at (or near) the hard-to-believe price of one cent. One cent certainly sounds good but look closer and you’ll notice that listings from these “penny sellers” offer very little information about the book. Their descriptions are usually based on a generic template, used for every book they list, and these descriptions often raise more questions than they answer. Here are samples of typically unhelpful template copy: May show water damage, moderate or excessive highlighting or underlining and/or excessive wear. Books may or may not include additional materials such as CD’s, cassettes, cards, dust jacket, etc. May contain highlighting/notes, may not include CDrom or access codes, customer service is our top priority! In each of these cases, the space a professional bookseller would use to give clarifying detail is entirely filled with CYA (Cover Your A**) copy that warns the buyer to expect nothing. The verbiage on potentially missing “access codes” and “CDRoms” is also wasted as these descriptions are all from paperback bestsellers which would not contain such supplementary materials to begin with. The dirty secret here is that the sellers of .01 cent books make their profit on the shipping commission; the meager difference between the cost of mailing and the slightly greater amount that Amazon reimburses the seller for the shipment (a difference of around one or two dollars). Subtract from this amount the price of a bubble mailer, the cost to acquire the book (often negligible because penny dealers get inventory for little or nothing), and Amazon’s commission and it’s easy to see that such a seller can’t afford to spend time describing a book or providing any manner of customer service. So to save a few dollars, you may wait indefinitely, receive nothing like the item you intended to buy, and have to manage a return with a potentially unhelpful seller. Isn’t your time worth more than that? My guideline for purchasing even a reading-copy is to scroll past all of the $.01 listings and template copy until I find a bookseller who is actually describing the book in hand; one whose description provides some assurance that I’ll be satisfied with my purchase. There are professional organizations for booksellers, including IOBA, ABA, ABAA, ABAC. and others. Most of these organizations hold their members to high standards. For instance, the IOBA code of ethics states [link to full code of ethics]: Members will provide a thorough and accurate description of all items offered for sale, noting appropriate bibliographic details, all significant defects, and all restorations or sophistications. When you deal with sellers who value their trade enough to acquire professional credentials, you are not only more likely to get the book you thought you were ordering, but you can be assured that if anything goes wrong, the seller should be responsive and eager to correct any problem. Once I’ve found a few potential sellers, I check their feedback (if available). Amazon’s stars and “percentage positive” ratings are broadly useful, but be sure to click through and skim the comments left by customers. See if there are negatives or complaints from previous buyers that would annoy you if you were treated the same. Also, see if any buyers went an extra mile and left a glowing positive review. There are a few caveats however. Since leaving feedback is optional, most buyers won’t bother unless they have a grievance (justified or not) or had a stellar experience. Also, because of the way seller rating is calculated, a single recent negative comment can have more weight than hundreds of older positives. Think of customer feedback the way you would a restaurant review on Yelp, useful information but to be taken with a grain of salt. Once you’ve chosen a seller and checked feedback, determine if you have any outstanding questions. Is this the correct edition of a book required for a class? Do you need the book for a vacation next weekend? Do you have special sensitivities to pet or smoking odors? Send the seller a message and see if you can get a response. Most good booksellers will appreciate a question (even if it doesn’t lead to a sale) because you are giving them a chance to personalize their service. You may even be bringing an unknown selling point to their attention. Unfortunately, figuring out how to contact a bookseller is often harder than it should be. Many of the larger aggregate sites (venues that display wares from many sellers, like Amazon) hide or anonymize seller contact information and monitor customer/seller communications, filtering out email addresses and weblinks. The stated aim of this barrier between buyer and seller is to prevent information abuse, but a side effect is that a seller often can’t send you an additional image, refer you to another item in his or her stock or give you direct contact information to speed service. Here is Amazon’s description on how to contact a seller with pre-order questions: From the product listing, click the seller’s name. You’ll be taken to their storefront page where you’ll find information about the seller and a “Contact this seller” link. The seller will respond to you via e-mail. Once you’ve chosen a bookseller you have confidence in and received answers to any questions, add the book to your shopping cart. During the checkout process, select a shipping option that will get you the book when you need it. Use expedited shipping if you’re in a hurry (with confirmation from the bookseller if you have a hard deadline). Also, check that your address is up-to-date. Many buyers forget to update their shipping information after a move which leads to misdirected packages. Finally, click the checkout button and know that you’ve done everything you can. Now a week or two later and it’s the moment of truth. Was the shipment on time? Was it well-packaged enough to survive the USPS? Is the book everything you expected? If so, congratulations! Your extra effort paid off. Leave feedback for the professional bookseller who served you. We often lead solitary existences—with little to no contact with the outside world–so kind words are appreciated. You’re feedback also makes the shopping process that much easier for the next buyer. And make it all fives. Don’t try to be nuanced. You’re making up for the guy who left one star because he didn’t think the book was a good read and blamed the seller. If the book isn’t what you wanted, stay calm. Most buyers don’t realize that a book order is the responsibility of the seller until it arrives safely, in the condition described. First, save the packaging in case the book needs to be returned (or you need proof of damage for insurance purposes). If the book didn’t arrive on time, check the postmark and the shipping method to determine if the seller or the postman is to blame. Once you’ve collected these facts, contact the seller. Explain your grievance and offer a possible remedy. Would a partial refund satisfy you? An exchange? If the item needs to be returned, ask the bookseller what shipment method to use and send it out promptly. Media mail will often suffice. You aren’t doing the bookseller a favor by returning a $20 book via priority or express mail for which the seller then needs to reimburse you. If you came to an agreement and received satisfaction, consider leaving positive feedback. After all, handling a complaint with care and courtesy is the definition of customer service. If, however you’ve stated your case and the bookseller is unresponsive, explain that if you’re not satisfied by a given date, you plan to leave negative feedback and seek a chargeback on your card. Then do it. Many sub-par sellers count on buyer inertia to accept a lesser product and not seek a refund. This may seem like a lot to go through to make a book purchase but more effort up front leads to a better book buying experience and more time to read. In the next installment, I plan to cover the purchasing of first and special editions with information on how to choose the right venue, and using the search tools of each to find the best books.

Central/Eastern Europe Last Spring, my wife and I spent two weeks in Central/Eastern Europe. We started in Krakow, which we used as our home base in Southern Poland. My father’s family is from a small town called Gorlice, about 100 kilometres from Krakow, so we spent a day with a Polish driver/translator seeing the town and the house where my father lived until he came to America at the age of 15. I didn’t find any bookstores in the town, but there was a small museum where I purchased my first book of the trip. It was a paperback, published by the museum called Zydzi Gorliccy, a history of the Jews of the town written in 1998. I don’t speak any Polish, but I was able to find my father in the book, in a listing of survivors of the war. The book stated that he served in the Polish Army, then settled in Connecticut. This supports the adage not to believe everything you read in print, as he left Poland at 15 and served in the U.S. army. Back in Krakow, there are two excellent bookshops in the Kazimierz district, the site of the former Jewish Quarter, that specialize in books on the Holocaust in many languages. The Jarden Bookshop is part bookshop and part Jewish Heritage travel agency, while the Yidishland shop is part of the High Synagogue Museum that contains photo exhibitions of Poland before and during World War II. Both shops specialize in new holocaust books and offer numerous holocaust memoirs from survivors from all over the world, many that I have never seen or even read about. In both shops the most of the books were not shelved, but piled high on tables by language, then title. I am in the process of putting together a collection of material about Anne Frank, but these shops focus on Poland and Auschwitz, while Anne died in Bergen Belsen. I did find some nice books on Krakow before the War. The new Oskar Schindler Museum, built on the site of his factory in the Krakow Ghetto, also has an excellent bookstore specializing in material on Poland during World War II. The museum, itself, is first-rate and a must-see for any fans of the book or the movie. The next day we took the bus to Auschwitz. As you approach the entrance there are several small kiosk type bookshops, with a large selection of Holocaust books in several languages, but I did not buy anything, as this excursion was neither a shopping trip nor a photo-op. We left Krakow that night for Budapest, where I visited several bookshops, looking for a copy of Ulysses in Hungarian. It turned out to be impossible to find. There are some beautiful Rizzoli-looking shops on the Pest side near St. Stephen’s Cathedral, like the Ceu Bookshop, but they specialize in foreign language books for visitors, and few if any of them decide they want to read James Joyce on a European vacation. On the outskirts of the Jewish Quarter, there is a large academic bookstore called the Alexandra, but they did not have any Joyce translations. I ended up buying a very nice hardcover copy of Kerouac’s On the Road in Hungarian instead, because I thought the cover was interesting. The title in Hungarian is Uton which mydaughter’s boyfriend Aron told me is a direct translation: ut is the word for road, and the on suffix meaning “on the.” On Sundays there is a small open-air market on Gouba Street with several vendors selling books. We met up with a British bibliophile friend in Budapest, and we had a great time looking at the titles by English language authors and trying to guess the original English title. It was interesting that most of the translations here were in hardcover, not in paperback, which they are in much of Western Europe. From Budapest we traveled to Vienna, where I actually purchased two Joyce translations in one day. One morning we took a side trip from Vienna to Brataslava the present capital of Slovakia and formerly along with Vienna, a second capital of the Austria-Hungarian empire during the Hapsburg era. It is a much smaller city than I had expected, but a major University seat in the region. While we were there for only a few hours, I found a bookstore, Knihy, right off the main square. The shop contained mostly used academic books. There was a table in the center of the store with some books each individually placed with the front cover face up, and lo and behold I saw a hardcover copy of Ulysses translated into the Sklovak language. We returned to Vienna in the early afternoon, and I figured I was on a roll, so I went into another academic bookshop, Frick, in the center of town, a stone’s throw from the apartment where Mozart composed the Marriage of Figaro. The shop specialized in books in many languages, and the clerks were very helpful. I told them that I collected Ulysses translations, and was looking for a German one, they quickly turned up with a brand new copy, then spent 15 minutes unsuccessfully scouring the store for copies in other European languages. We stopped in the small picture-postcard town of Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic en route to Prague. There were two small bookshops in the town, one catering to English speaking tourists selling used books, the other selling European books and prints. I walked into the later one, figuring this would be a better bet for Ulysses in Czech. When I asked the clerk, he smiled and said “No, sorry, your friends were already here asking. I don’t have a copy.” We were traveling with friends and had split up so they could go antiquing while we climbed up to the castle. I am sure it was the first time he ever got two requests for Ulysses in one day. It is the spirit of Kafka, not Joyce, than infuses the city of Prague. Every few blocks there is a Kafka-something – the Kafka Bookstore, the Kafka café, etc. When you stand on the bridge looking at the old section of Prague, on the wall along the waterfront is a large sign for the Kafka museum. The Kafka bookshop is a clean well-lit shop with lots of Kafka in many languages, but the prices seemed a bit inflated. I bought one book, Franz Kafka and Prague: A Literary Guide, which I later saw back home at the Strand in NYC for a third the price. After visiting the Kafka museum, which is a must for any literary person, I had a hankering to read his Letter to my Father. Near the museum is an English language bookshop called Shakespeare Astnove (or Shakespeare and Sons) so I popped in for a look. There was a large selection of used and new books, mostly paperbacks, but the prices were pretty expensive. The last morning, before heading to the airport, I went into the bookshop in the large modern shopping mall across from our hotel. If I took my glasses off, so I couldn’t read the titles (which were all in Czech), it looked just like any mall bookshop in America. There were very few English language books, so I headed over to the literature section to look for Ulysses. There was no Joyce to be found, but I did see two different hardcover editions of On The Road. At first I could not figure out why there were two recent, but different, translations. Closer examination revealed that one was a translation of the 1957 edition, the other was a translation of the original scroll, first published on 2007. I was so impressed that someone would make the effort to translate the scroll, that I was ready to spend the $30.00 on it, until I looked at each copy of this heavy but not well-made book and noticed that both had tears in the front boards. In the airport, I spent my last Czech crowns on a souvenir copy of Kafka’s Letter to my Father which I read on the plane home. Overall, I guess you can say that experiencing bookstores is a lot like trying different brands of ice cream. Mall Bookstores everywhere are like Baskin Robbins, the ubiquitous mall ice cream stands, lots of flavors to appeal to everyone, but none of them very good. Many big city bookshops are a lot like Hagen Daz, readily available, yet expensive, with an aftertaste that is a little too sweet while the big chain stores are like frozen yogurt, not quite the real thing. Stumbling upon a shop with interesting items with reasonable prices, is a special treat even rarer than really great ice cream. My own town has a sweet shop that makes the world’s best coconut ice cream, but not one bookstore. Postscript Since returning, I have managed to find and purchase three interesting translations of Ulysses on-line. Europa has published both Polish and Hungarian editions in hardcover. I also found the second German translation, from 1930, which was done at Joyce’s request, since he disapproved of the original German translation. If anyone knows of a copy of Ulysses in Swahili or Czech that is for sale, please let me know.

I thought I knew what to expect from my ‘first’ fair. From a visitor’s perspective, I had a visual and sensory expectation set, which went something like: heavy lifting, eight-hours standing, casual browsers, heavy hitters, high rollers, soft selling, gentle banter, brain teasing questions, booth memory game, occasional water breaks, invoice writing, rinse, repeat. All true. But I missed an important piece to the puzzle: it’s a love story. Some time ago, some century or decade past, our story begins with a font’s impression, a pen’s flourish. The object of affection: bound, free or gathered, emerges and makes its way through the hands of time and man, until we are here at this moment. Now the dispensary of art, beauty, and the word awaits discovery. Thus the courtship begins. Time to decorate for company. Counting down to their arrival, books are gently upwrapped, paired with easels and shelves as they find their way into context and storyline. How does this guest become drawn in? The lures: visual, sensory and tactile – the cadence and tone of the siren’s song. The bacchanalian stage is readied, the curtains rise: seekers descend and set forth, clutching maps, on a quest for their object of longing. Hopes high for literary intervention and sated appetites. Some liltingly run their eyes across the general culture of the booth and move quickly on. Some are captured by a shelf, a book propped open to an illustration that tempts. Some resist, but some fall madly. I sent a personal friend (a first time fair visitor) to wander about, and my counsel was this: Allow yourself to take in the macro, then slowly attune to the micro. A cacophony of spines and text slowly filters into meaning and recognition, look close and see.. a shelf, book. Then really look. Start a conversation and listen – what is the book whispering to you? Asking of you? Stirring in you? A young, dynamic, lovestruck couple strolled in on Sunday, and some of Vic’s ‘Books on Books’ reference titles got piled up for purchase. Their heads were clear and they were making sober choices. But then: the siren called. A lush, richly and naturally buffed leather Bible, in Gaelic, spoke to them, haunted them with font and form – love at first sight. Two visitations and a couple of gold coins later, and they rode off into the sunset together. One morning, a seasoned, perhaps jaded, lover of the book strode in, and again, and again. He visited perhaps three times – caressing and courting one particular San Francisco journal that he coveted. He was a collector of loves, had 60 of the same title in different manifestations, but was missing this particular binding color. Butterflies will be caught and pinned – the suitor would have his way, and he did. A green eyed, mature beauty who had suffered love and loss in the flesh spent time with us one day. She had become a lover of Fine Press titles, a new fascination and friend to her, something to adore and cherish, somewhere to pour the love that once poured out. She sought much from the book but as well in the company kept. Here, the custodians and fellow lovers are all in communion – she found solace in this love story. Thus, with naive eyes I witnessed, in the course two rich, influential days, the stories not of the written page -but of those inked upon the human heart. As we rolled up our tents and caravan, I slept dreaming of the tales yet to be spoken and discovered. Such to be spun not by tradesmen, but by talismen, as we administer the rites for lovers and seekers. Dreamers, hope! The muse awaits.

by Lynn Wienck, The Chisholm Trail Bookstore After several very warm days, I thought summer had arrived, but no, lower temperatures have returned. The rain has returned as well. It’s pleasant and surprising. All vegetation has gone various shades of green and wild. The days have been slightly hazy and humid. Small frogs, tiny frogs hop everywhere. They are a pleasure to watch. Do they play leapfrog? Coming soon, but not yet in hand is the Devil’s Dictionary written by Ambrose Bierce in the last century and illustrated by Ralph Steadman in this century. Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) remains known for his scathing, pointed, blazing, and satirical commentary. This tome – originally titled Cynic’s Word Book (1906), later published as Devil’s Dictionary (1911), Ralph Steadman illustrated edition (2003) – is Ambrose Bierce’s own abrasive attitude lexicon-dictionary. Ralph Steadman with his equally pointed illustrations should provide fine, merry, fitting tunes to the words. I’m looking forward to a rather perfect symphony. If words make music, then so do pictures. Enough of the musing. It’s into the rain, and perhaps, more rain for several days. It’s not too cold, not too hot, but just right, and the rain is gentle. Watch the clouds roll in; watch the clouds roll out; watch the wee frogs hop, hop, hop. It’s a pleasant respite from the soon-to-come summer heat.

by Lynn Wienck, The Chisholm Trail Bookstore After several very warm days, I thought summer had arrived, but no, lower temperatures have returned. The rain has returned as well. It’s pleasant and surprising. All vegetation has gone various shades of green and wild. The days have been slightly hazy and humid. Small frogs, tiny frogs hop everywhere. They are a pleasure to watch. Do they play leapfrog? Coming soon, but not yet in hand is the Devil’s Dictionary written by Ambrose Bierce in the last century and illustrated by Ralph Steadman in this century. Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) remains known for his scathing, pointed, blazing, and satirical commentary. This tome – originally titled Cynic’s Word Book (1906), later published as Devil’s Dictionary (1911), Ralph Steadman illustrated edition (2003) – is Ambrose Bierce’s own abrasive attitude lexicon-dictionary. Ralph Steadman with his equally pointed illustrations should provide fine, merry, fitting tunes to the words. I’m looking forward to a rather perfect symphony. If words make music, then so do pictures. Enough of the musing. It’s into the rain, and perhaps, more rain for several days. It’s not too cold, not too hot, but just right, and the rain is gentle. Watch the clouds roll in; watch the clouds roll out; watch the wee frogs hop, hop, hop. It’s a pleasant respite from the soon-to-come summer heat.

Table of Contents Trade Discounts: Good for One and All The IOBA Standard 2.0 Rostenberg & Stern: An Appreciation Three Continents, Eight Countries: A Travel Journal Turnover: An Introduction for Booksellers ABAA Holds First Official Webinar for Antiquarian Booksellers Pazzo Books of West Roxbury, MA John Howell for Books, Los Angeles, CA How to Get a Trade Discount, in Six Easy Lessons Other People’s Books: Association Copies and the Stories They Tell The 2011 Baltimore Summer Antiques Show

Welcome to the first all-new issue of The Standard in nearly three years. As I mentioned in our previous issue, The Standard, for a variety of reasons, was on an unfortunate and extended hiatus. But no more. For this Fall issue we present articles we hope will be useful and interesting to the membership, as well as to other booksellers and bibliophiles. From dealer discounts to African bookstores, book reviews to member profiles, business concept to business titans, our hope is that this issue is indicative of the scope and quality of the coverage The Standard will carry going forward. 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.