Hey, booksellers….c’mere. Yeah, you….and you….and especially you. Sit down here for a minute. I want to have a word with you all, about trade (dealer-to-dealer) discounts: why you should all be giving them, and why doing so should make you nothin’ but hap-hap-happy. There are three simple reasons for this: (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.]

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 19th 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.

Part one: Guatemala, the U.K. (London) and Kenya 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 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. 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…

When I began my bookselling career, I worked not in used bookshops but in new (ie. independent bookstores selling new books only). And in that context managers, section buyers (of which I was one), and owners were always watching the store’s “turn” or turn-rate. It is an eminently useful business concept I brought with me when I started my own used and rare book business. But despite its utility, in my experience far too few book dealers understand the idea or importance of turnover for their business. Indeed, as I hope to demonstrate, there are few numbers you can know about your business that are as immediately useful and practical as your turnover. What is turnover? Turnover is simply the *ratio* between your total inventory and your items sold. This ration can be expressed either as one between the *number* of items sold and the number of items in your inventory *OR* as the ratio between your total sales revenue and the total value of your stock. 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: If someone offered me a book that I expect to be able to sell for say $1000 and I am confident I can sell it in short order (meaning, less than a year), I might offer 40-50% or even 60%. And if I have a ready client for the book, meaning I think I can sell it more or less immediately, I’m happy with a 20% mark-up. 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. Pop-quiz! You are being offered a collection of 1000 books. Let’s say they have a retail value of $10,000 (average of $10/book). Unfortunately, like most booksellers, you are completely out of room for these books in your house/shop and your long-suffering spouse insists that if you buy them you will have to procure storage for them somewhere else. You have an average yearly turn rate of 25% (both by dollars and units sold). Should you buy the books? And at what price? 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: Your revenues are up 20% The number of books you have online is greater than the previous year And the total value of your stock is also up this year over last 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: RETAIL VALUE OF STOCK: $150,000 REVENUE: $50,000 TURN: 33.33% NUMBER OF BOOKS CATALOGUED: 10,000 THIS YEAR: RETAIL VALUE OF STOCK: $202,500 (+35%) REVENUE: $60,000 (+20%) TURN: 29.62% (-12%) NUMBER OF BOOKS CATALOGUED: 13,000 (+30%) 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. Here’s a handy formula: [(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.

The ABAA’s first official webinar took place on Tuesday, May 17, 2011. My calendar, iPhone alarm, etc. were marked for the date and time, and my own excitement built as I sat down to meet the faculty and hosts, namely: Sarah Baldwin, George Krzyminski, Brian Cassidy, Sunday Steinkirchner, Janine Moodhe and Susan Benne. There was, I will admit, a small learning curve on my part with regards to the actual program that allows for the webinar. Dashing between desktop and laptop, the correct software downloaded and in an instant I was connected with audio, visual and chat exchange. Sarah Baldwin led us through the important history of the ABAA itself, its formation in 1949 and its 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.]

My brother and I started fooling around with the idea of starting a shop in early 2002. He was finishing up at Rutgers and my days of fruitfully mucking about with the stock market (back when you could do that – and even say it out loud) had ended with a gasp and a sputter. Before that I’d been a (para)paralegal, a telephone operator, a line cook, a dish washer, and, very briefly, an 11th grade English teacher. I used to tell people that we were aiming to explore our ambivalent relationship with capitalism, but really, I just didn’t want to go back to work for someone and I was fast approaching an age where doing something as self destructive as opening a bookshop was going to be difficult (or at the very least, a difficult sell to my lovely, supportive, but ultimately sensible, wife). So for the better part of a year, with no earthly notion what we were doing, my brother and I went (separately: he in New Jersey and me in Boston) to weekly FOL sales, yard sales, barn sales, library downsizings, and the occasional dump, collecting the books to open our store with. 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? Early on we decided not to really specialize, wanting to stay relatively omnivorous, but years of buying books that interest me has led to areas of concentration in early science and medicine, literature (some 20th but generally 18th and 19th) and illustrated books. A strange sort of a hobby cooking from old cookbooks has led to a specialization in early cookery books (which I can go on and on about, be warned!). 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. A reprint of Lohrmann’s 1878 masterpiece “Mondcharte in 25 Sectionen” (he completed the chart ca. 1824 but it was not  published until Schmidt collected it in 1878) one of the loveliest 19th century moon maps. The actual map that he drew is in one piece, but it was published in 25 sections and, somehow, seems more lovely and moonlike for it. 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.

[Editor’s note: For more on trade discounts, see our related article Trade Discounts: Good For One and All.] 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.

What was the name, dates, and place of fair? 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.”]

Table of Contents Looking Forward, Looking Back 2008 Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS) Journal, or Teaching an Old Dog Some New Tricks “Rare Book School is like graduate school.” DeWayne and Joan White, White Unicorn Books, Dallas, TX Terry Gibbs, Gibbs Books, Williamsville, NY Meryll Williams of Rainy Day Books (Australia) Why I Belong to the IOBA BEST OF: The Boot Camp for Book Dealers BEST OF: Rare Book School, A Week Among Bright Bookish Minds BEST OF: Overlooked and Undervalued, The Bookseller’s Inventory Database BEST OF: “What’s this Book Worth?” BEST OF: Appraising for Booksellers BEST OF: How, when and why to write a press release and what to expect if you do Vic Zoschak of Tavistock Books BEST OF: Books About Bookselling: Seeing Shelley Plain

With this issue, I happily and proudly assume the editorship of the IOBA’s (long neglected) Standard. And with our first new installment in more than two years, we also begin the tenth volume of The Standard, one that unveils what I hope will be only the beginning of many improvements to our august publication. But as with many things, before we can go forward, it helps to look back. In the last two years, the IOBA has matured. Where in years past our membership directory did not always reflect current information, our rolls are now accurate. Though it appeared for a time that our numbers are shrinking, membership has stabilized and again begun to grow. Renewal efforts have been streamlined. And through the continued efforts of the Membership Committee (on which in the interest of full disclosure I serve), requirements and standards for admittance to our organization have been raised and enforced, resulting in a stronger IOBA. A mentorship program has been put in place to nurture upcoming booksellers. Committees are more established, members more involved. IOBAbooks.com has been launched. In short, I suspect that when the history of the IOBA is written, these last couple of years will be seen as a turning point where our rather ad-hoc group became a more established institution, one with its own particular culture and strengths. This progress is in no small part the results of the leadership of both our former and current president – Shawn Purcell and Karin Isgur Bergsagel – as well as countless hours of work from dozens of volunteer members. One unfortunate casualty of these more important and pressing priorities, however, has been our quarterly newletter, The IOBA Standard. For the last two plus years it has been – unofficially and for a variety of reasons (some of them admittedly my own) – on extended hiatus. This is a shame, as The Standard was in many ways the public face of the IOBA and its best source of promotion and publicity. It is therefore with great pleasure that I introduce the redesigned and revamped Standard. The first and most evident improvement is the design. The Standard has been moved to a WordPress system. This will allow for a more streamlined and simple publication process and make any future upgrades or redesigns significantly easier. Indeed, the fairly basic design and functionality you currently see here will continue to be improved as we go along. I welcome comments and suggestions for continued improvements. In addition, right now, only the past three issues (comprising most of Volume IX) are online in the new format. Other past issues will be added in reverse chronological order on an ongoing basis. And in the meantime the complete archive is available (and will continue for the foreseeable future to be available) here. The second and less obvious improvement to The Standard is a regular editorial staff and group of contributing writers. I have tried to gather a diverse group, representing both newer and more established dealers, both men and women, from a variety of locales and specializing in a variety of books. It is my hope that this group of regular participants will bring a new vitality and authority to The Standard. In order to keep this foreword as brief as possible, I will introduce the staff fuller detail with our next issue. But in the meantime, if you would like to get involved with writing and publishing The Standard, either in an on-going or short-term capacity, please get in touch. We would be happy to have you. So we look to the future – a new design, new personnel. But we also for this issue look to the past. Many new members have joined over the last two years, a good portion of which I suspect, are under-aware of our newsletter. Likewise, for much of our membership, The Standard has perhaps faded from memory. This is why for this rebirth of The Standard, we have put together a “best-of” issue, gathering some of the most interesting and useful pieces The Standard has published since it began in 1999. We also finally publish several articles and profiles that have been sitting in the pipeline during our unfortunate hiatus. I offer my apologies to these writers for the delay in their pieces appearing. They – and the other members of the IOBA – have my assurance that it will not happen again, that The Standard will assume a prominent role in our growing and increasingly vital group. With appreciation to those who have contributed in the past and looking forward to what we’ll do in our coming issues, Brian Cassidy – Editor, The IOBA Standard

Sunday August 3rd It is 6:30 AM, and I am sitting in the Jet Blue terminal, waiting for my flight to Denver, which is naturally delayed. I have been up since 4:30, as the no frills airport car service insisted on picking me up a 5 AM for an 8 AM flight. I have read every word of all of the listserv messages, the introductions and the unrequested advice. I have packed an umbrella for the frequent showers, a jacket for the air conditioning, an alarm clock and 100 business cards. I have done penance at home by spending two weekend days running from store to store assisting in the plans for a bathroom renovation project. I have endured numerous comments from friends and colleagues ranging from “Wow, I always wanted to go” to “Gee, I thought you knew everything already.” I have spent $2.50 for a plain buttered bagel, because unless things have changed radically, all Colorado bagels originate in the frozen foods section of the supermarket. I have placed all my on-line book listings on hold with the all of the listing services, balanced my accounts for July, emptied the water from the dehumidifiers, paid the bills and filed all of the receipts. After a long ride on the plane, I will definitely be ready for this seminar. Later…. I remember my first flight to Denver in 1974. TWA had printed menus (chicken or beef) and free movies. Today on Jet Blue there is a personal TV with the same 36 channels I never watch at home. The days of the printed menu are long gone and the choice is between one biscotti or a packet containing eight cashews. The plane lands on schedule and I pick up my rental a car so that I can drive into Denver to visit some bookshops en route to Colorado Springs. Two shops were kind enough to sponsor a brunch to CABS visitors. I visit them both and manage to reciprocate by buying a book or two in each, some local history and bibliophile material, nothing really for resale. I do find a terrific bookshop in Denver called Farenheit Books which offers a superb collection of literature all very reasonably priced. They offer a generous discount so I ship a large carton of books back to New York. The drive down to Colorado Springs takes about an hour, especially if you go the 75 mile and hour speed limit. The college motel is not as nearly as nice as my college dorm room, except that it does have a private bath. When I ask the front desk if there was an ice machine the clerk looked askance. It is hard to believe that in dry 100 degree heat, no one ever asked the question before. The Opening Reception I have never been in a room with so many book people at one time. There are close to 100 people from all over North America. They range in age from the early twenties to I would guess late seventies. We each have turn standing up and introducing ourselves to the group. Some of us are pretty experienced book dealers, others of us are librarians, operators of friends of the library shops, or just plain bibliophiles. A few of us and trying to decided whether or not to go into the business. I wonder what will happen by the end of the week. The keynote speaker is Hannes Blum, of ABE Books. This is only a few days after the announcement that ABE has been bought by Amazon. Since most of us sell a portion of our books through ABE and remember the disaster that occurred when Amazon bought Bibliofind, we all have a lot of questions. He begins by saying that he will go over his power point presentation on the background and history of ABE books and then take some questions. The book dealer gods must have been looking out for us, because after the third slide the projector overheats. The prepared text has to be put on hold and the Q and A begins. A reception follows, with pastries, fruit and even a respectable red wine. As I walk back to the hotel it begins to rain. Fortunately, I read the listserv and packed an umbrella. Unfortunately, I left it in the room. Seminar Day One (Monday): I am still on Eastern Time, so I wake up at 6 AM, and search for the non-existent coffee maker in the room. I am the first to arrive at breakfast at 7:00 AM. I toast a frozen bagel and have plenty of time to enjoy several cups of coffee since the seminar does not begin until 8:30. The first session is starts off with the very basics- how to pick up and handle books. I am dismayed to learn that I have been handling books incorrectly for 57 years. Fortunately, most of the books I handle are neither old, not fragile, and it will take me awhile to get into the habit of approaching the opening of a book with care. I have always regarded my books more like playground friends than fellow nursing home residents. Now that I am older, it is probably wise to get used to the change. The second session if ‘Bookselling 401” conducted by Rob Rulon-Miller, the seminar director, and Kevin Johnson, a book dealer for Baltimore. We are told by the instructors that the bulk of their sales come from their catalogues, not the internet. I am embarrassed to admit that I have never issued a catalogue. We are told to acquire books in quantity, not one at a time. I have about 12,000 books for sale and I must sheepishly say that I hand selected each one. In fact, I can remember where most of them came from. I cheer up when Kevin shows us some photos of his original office/warehouse space. My storage locker may be crowded, but if a customer calls, I can at least pick up the phone and answer an inquiry without having to shout over industrial machinery. I feel even better after the next session, which is “Technology.” Yes, I do use one of the recommended inventory databases. I do back it up regularly. I do de-frag my hard drive on occasion. I do keep track of who bought what and when. The first session after the lunch break focuses on reference strategies. When I first joined a collector group on Long Island, I was taught that from a collector’s point of view librarians are the enemies of books. Today, I am told to become friendly with my local librarian. The very last session of the day is on protecting books. I receive both good news and bad news. The good news is that most of my dust-jacketed books are protected in mylar which they are supposed to be. The bad news is that these 10,000+ dust jackets are the wrong type of mylar protector. (I use the ones with the paper backing.) I decide to start a list of things I need to do as soon as I return home. Fortunately it is time to head over to the barbeque, which has been moved indoors since it frequently showers in the early evening. There is lots of wine and beer as well the usual grilled meats. I grab a glass of Shiraz and I sit with several lawyers who are considering a change in careers. I wonder if they know that they have rather literally decided to throw their fortunes to the wind. I go to the bar for a re-fill and to my surprise they have run out of red wine. This is definitely not a white wine or beer drinking crowd. For the first time in my life feel part of a not so silent majority. The weather clears so I end the evening on the patio drinking mineral water, watching the moonrise over the mountains and talking to some of the younger seminarians. They entered bookselling the old fashioned way- they joined their family businesses. Later, I fall asleep fantasizing about what it would be like to have grown up in the bookstore. Seminar Day Two (Tuesday): “Rare books are objects since they are copy specific. Rare book librarians are janitors. There job is to take care of the objects.” “A page is an intellectual concept. It has no basis in reality.” “Why watermarks???………Why tattoos?” The afternoon session is devoted to cataloguing. I learn that for older, rarer books completeness is more important than condition, and a lot of time is spent learning how to describe the contents of a book, how many unpaged pages, how many numbered pages, etc. In my specialty, modern firsts, completeness is assumed and what is important is CONDITION, CONDITION, CONDITION. I learn that in cataloguing a modern book one should use the title page not the just jacket or cover and that any information that does not come from the title page must be noted. Between re-covering my dust jackets and checking all my entries to see where the cataloguing information came from I will be a very busy person when I get home. I have a few glasses of red wine and quick dinner with some fellow seminarians at a local Italian restaurant before heading to the evening program which is a visit to a local second hand bookstore. It is an attractive shop, and we have some time for browsing so I select a few books I think I can resell grab some refreshments and settle down for the presentations. They demonstrate their system for packing and shipping, but for once, I honestly think that my own system for this is actually better so I urge them to consider postage software like ENDICIA. They write a personal note on each printed invoice, and I make a note to try this. The bestselling item of the evening is the store T shirt which says “I read banned books” on the back. Almost everyone buys one. Back in my monastic room, I crawl into bed and smile. The glossy mens’ magazines that were the bedtime reading of my college youth have been now replaced with the glossy book catalogues that were handed out today, and I fall asleep reading them. Seminar Day Three (Wednesday): This morning Dan Gregory demonstrates how to scan and photograph books. He has the equipment set up so that we can actually see how he does it, and view the results projected on the big screen. The session is immensely helpful, since the pictures that I have taken for E-bay have been uniformly awful. We learn about color calibration and white balance. I add ‘buy a scanner’ and ‘buy a white balance sheet’ to my do to list. The rest of the morning is devoted to selling books to libraries. I hesitate to admit this to the group, but I tend to be a bit skeptical. I am a member of at least three Friends of the Library groups as well as our local historical society. The total acquisition budget for special collections of these four auspicious institutions combined in less than the cost of one discounted New York Times bestseller. All graciously accept donations of collections, but would prefer they are accompanied endowed funds to catalogue and maintain the collections in perpetuity. I do sell a fair number of books to University Libraries, so I decide to do some research when I get home to see what the more affluent regional institutions collect. Dan DeSimone, the presenter, also emphasizes the importance of making lists. That is one thing I can do, so I add this to my growing ‘to do’ list. The first half of the afternoon session concerns pricing. Ed Glaser succinctly tells us” If you buy aggressively you will make mistakes… If you don’t buy aggressively you will amount to zilch.” I agree completely. What I most regret is not the books I bought, but ones that I did not buy. We divide up into small groups read the catalogue description of a book we worked on yesterday and ask the others to try to price the book. I go first, and fool everyone with an ex-library copy of Toni Morrison’s first book. The book itself is worthless, but under the mylar protector is a valuable dust jacket in excellent condition. Others in the group have much older books, and my guesses on the values of ‘moldy oldiers’ is way off. The books that seem to me would be scarce and valuable are just old books, while ones that seem like they would be of little interest to anyone are actually quite rare and costly. I decide that when I am out scouting I will stick to what I know. The final session today is on internet bookselling, led by IOBA’s own Chris Volk. This is more my home turf, so I take fewer notes. She tells us that whenever she considers buying a book from a seller she has not done business with before, the first thing she does is check their website. When I get back to the hotel I boot up my computer and check out my website and my sales list. Yes, the site is in desperate need of a makeover: and no, I have not sold any books to Chris. The novelty of college cafeteria food is wearing off. Since this is our only free night, a group of us go to a local Southwestern restaurant which has been highly recommended to us. It is in an odd, hard to find location just outside of downtown. This restaurant consists of a maze of small rooms. The food is good, and we later learn that at one time building housed the local brothel. Back at the motel I have a new money making idea. I should buy this joint and re-market it as a place for tired middle-aged couples to re-live their college trysts. All it needs is some loud music, black lights, day-glo posters and Indian bedspreads. I’ll re-name it College Love-Inn and double the rack rate. Seminar Day Four (Thursday): This morning begins with a fascinating presentation by David Margolis and Jean Moss on ephemera. I am sure that the collector gene is part of my DNA mapping, so I appreciate the idea of putting together a group of essentially worthless or low cost objects and see them transform into a valuable and important collection where the whole is much more than the sum of the parts. After the talk, I write out a check so I can become a member of the Ephemera Society and decide I want to put together a collection of “commonbooks”, which are not ‘common’ books, but personal collections of poems ands passages assembled by serious readers. ‘Common’ books I have too many of, but no ‘commonbooks’ except my own. The rest of the morning consists of the charity auction to raise money for the seminar and the sponsoring institutions. I am outbid on one of the books I am interested in, ‘Scouts in Bondage’, a book of photos of books with unintentional double entendre titles. Since it is fairly recent book, add ordering a copy to my ‘to do’ list. I succesfully overbid on a set of books about bookbinding, because I am interested in the topic and they will be nice memory of the week. .Even though I have been to many auctions before this I did manage to learn something. As I watched two of the instructors start a bidding war for another instructor’s book, I learned first hand why they call bookselling a ‘gentleman’s profession.’ Much of the afternoon is devoted to the creation of catalogues. Dan Gregory provides a hand-on demonstration on how to take transform a database listing into a small catalogue. He makes it look really easy, so I promise myself that I will make a simple catalogue to distribute at book fairs this fall, even though I know that what took him an hour or two will take me at least a month, or two. Tonight the evening activity is bookstore hopping. One of the campus buses made a loop that stopped at four of the used bookshops in the area. We have no time for dinner, but each shop has a table with lots of red wine and snack foods. We can get on and off the bus as often as we wish to and stay at a shop as long as necessary. The first shop an is a more of a neighborhood bookshop with trade-ins and lots of popular fiction. I manage to find a copy of a long lost college poetry text I have wanted to replace for quite some time. The second shop is a wonderful old bookshop with a very select stock. I find an interesting early edition of Ulysses and several old WPA guides which I have shipped back home. I spend so long at this shop, that I am running out of time, so I only go to one more shop. It just opened this week and you can smell the varnish on the wooden bookcases. The owner tells me he had owned a bookstore in town for quite awhile but was forced to close two years ago. He tried becoming a caseworker and quickly discovered he preferred the book business. Although the shelves are only half-full, I find some very good books. Back in my room I try to figure out how I am going to manage to safely transport all of the reference information and books I have acquired this week. It becomes a game of how many catalogues can I fit into two flat rate priority mail boxes. I still need the extra folding suitcase that I had packed just in case. Seminar Day Five (Friday- the Last Day): I eat my last frozen bagel, and head to the seminar room. The first topic of the morning is “Book Scouting.” When I scout, I try to make a circle, though sometimes it can be more of a very oblong ellipse. Mike Ginsberg, the instructor, recommends that you always start at the farthest store and work homeward. Chris Volk offers some succinct advice: “If the author’s name is larger than the title, don’t buy it.” Someone else optimistically says that even if you overpay for a good book, you still have a good book, and it will probably appreciate overtime. The critical question for me is what is meant by a ‘good’ book. Not all good books turn into good investments. The next topic of the morning is book fairs. Tom Congalton tells us there are three ways to have a successful fair- Sell your way out, buy your way out, or drink your way out. Since I don’t have the funds to buy my way out, the next time I can’t sell my way out, I guess I will try drinking my way out. Consignment is the last topic of the morning. I have occasionally sold a book for a collector friend, usually as a favor. I never realized that a large percentage of the stock of some of the high-end dealers is comprised of items on consignment. I always wondered how they could afford the inventory. For some unknown reason, the topic for the last formal session is accounting. I guess they do not espouse the philosophy of saving the best for last, but Chris Volk manages to make the presentation both lively and interesting. I am a bit dismayed that she tells us that if we are ‘sole proprietors’ we cannot take a tax deduction for books we donate to charity, but at least I now have an argument against buying books in bulk. The remainder of the afternoon consists of a lively round table discussion on many issues: Question: “When I get a call from someone who has some books to sell, how do I know if it is worth a 50 mile round trip drive?” Answer: “Pay attention to the diction of the speaker.” Question: “If I give up my day job for the book business, will my children ever forgive me?” Answer: (from a second generation dealer) “Maybe in 20 or 30 years.” As soon as the session ends we head over to the closing reception and dinner. It is a classy affair and I feel underdressed in cargo pants and a T shirt, so I head over to the bar and grab two glasses of red wine, pretending the one is for someone at the other end of the room. I sit at a table with some other IOBA members, and we share experiences of the week. Midway through dinner we are called up individually to receive our certificates of attendance. We then get to shake hands with member of the faculty. It feels like we are now part of the fraternity of booksellers. We have just spent a week immersed in a community that my wife refers to as “bookland.” It is now time to bid our sad goodbyes and go back out into the real world. Back in graduate school in the last century, I worked briefly for the Institute for Research and Development in Occupational Education. We spent a lot of time analyzing the attributes and skills necessary to pursue careers in different fields. On the way to the airport, I decide that based upon what I have seen over the week, there are three main requirements for becoming a successful book seller: 1. Must love books. 2. Must love or at least get along with book people. 3. Must love red wine. I think I have what it needed to be successful. Three weeks later: It has been three weeks since I returned from Colorado. The mail arrives and I open a package to find the copy of ‘Scouts in Bondage’ that I ordered during the seminar after I was outbid at the auction. I check my e-mail and receive a request for a photo of a book from a customer in New Zealand. I retrieve the book, place it on my brand new flat bed scanner, and send her a perfect image of the dust jacket. An hour later I receive her order for the book. I open the next e-mail and it is a thank you from another customer. He wants to let me know that he appreciates that my description was actually accurate, and that I took the time to write a short thank you note on the order form. A friend who had been cleaning out his deceased aunt’s apartment calls to thank me for advising him not throw out the scrapbooks of her husband’s success in real development but to donate them to the local historical society. I smile. I still have many items left on my ‘Colorado To Do List’ but I realize that you can teach an old dog some new tricks.

In the world of antiquarian books, there’s no substitute for experience. Handling thousands of books over a long period of time helps one to develop a “sixth sense” about which books are worthwhile and why. When I started my business, I was just beginning to develop this “sixth sense”. I wasn’t fortunate enough to get my start in the trade working for a veteran bookseller. I get my experience on the job, as I create and gradually grow my business. I’ve done many things to make up for my relative inexperience. I found a knowledgeable bookseller willing to mentor me. I shop for books in all kinds of venues (from library sales to book shops to house calls to dealer catalogues to book auctions) so I have a chance to see the range of conditions and the frequency with which certain books turn up on the market. I build relationships with other booksellers who don’t mind being asked for advice from time to time. I research and write about books. Three years ago, I attended the annual Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar. Last summer, I began taking classes at Rare Book School. When I attended the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar during the summer of 2007, a man named Terry Belanger came to speak to our class. Terry Belanger founded Rare Book School in 1983 and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (also known as a “genius grant”) in 2005. He spoke to our class a bit about printing and papermaking processes and had us enthralled from the beginning to the end of his lecture. He encouraged us to think about attending Rare Book School at University of Virginia. “The Colorado Seminar, which gives a great overview of the trade, is like undergraduate school,” said another bookseller who was in Colorado with me. “Rare Book School is like graduate school.” I remembered that description and I wondered how I would know I was ready to attend “graduate school” for antiquarian booksellers. With intensive, weeklong courses on such topics as Descriptive Bibliography, Introduction to the History of Typography, and History of the Book in America, Rare Book School allows students to delve deeply into very focused topics. Taught by some of the best in the field, the courses offer book collectors, librarians, booksellers, and anyone else interested in the field the chance to learn about many of the minute aspects of rare books. Rather than an overview of the trade, it presents an in-depth history of books and print and print culture. As I began to acquire more and better books for sale, I realized that it was important to be able to properly identify books I considered buying and even more important to describe them accurately when I sold them. I wanted to know the difference between an etching and an engraving, between and aquatint and a mezzotint, between a photogravure and a photograph. It would be difficult to learn these things without seeing examples of each and without the explanation of an authority on the subject. And that’s how, in 2009, I knew I was ready for some “graduate school” level experience and I applied to take Terry Belanger’s Course, Book Illustration Processes to 1900: I had reached the stage of enough experience in bookselling to know that there was still a lot I didn’t know. It was my first visit to University of Virginia and to Rare Book School, and I was in for a treat. The beautiful campus, founded by Thomas Jefferson, is a true temple of learning. And the Rare Book School classrooms, at the back of a warren of hallways in the basement of the Alderman Library, seem to have come to life from the set of a movie about rare books. Our classroom was a bit removed from the rest of the library, a bit small and a bit cramped, but every inch is filled floor to ceiling with books and prints, printing presses and type specimens. It was the perfect setting to immerse oneself in learning about the processes of book illustration. Each day, our class began with a discussion of the different printing processes used prior to 1900, largely following Bamber Gascoigne’s book, How to Identify Prints. (If you don’t have this book, I highly recommend it. Terry Belanger calls it “indispensable; both comprehensive and excellent.” It was one of the main textbooks for the course.) It was good to receive instruction as to the chronology of illustration processes and the way each process worked, but what really made the class stand out was the instructor’s experience and use of dozens and dozens of real-life examples of each of the different types of printing processes. During the course of the week, I personally handled hundreds of prints, cards, leaves of books, books, and printing plates from all eras. Rare Book School, no doubt thanks to Terry Belanger’s efforts, has amassed an astounding collection that is used to teach. Any good bookseller will tell you that there is no substitute for the experience of seeing and handling as many books of all kinds as you can. My visit to Rare Book School increased that experience for me exponentially. It can do the same for you, too.