SPRING 2003 (VOL. IV, NO. 1)

The Quiet Revolution: The Expansion of the Used Book Market ©

Susan Siegel
Mar 13, 2003
6 min read

An analysis and overview of the used book market in the United States from 1993-2002

Book Hunter Press, publishers of The Used Book Lover’s Guides, is pleased to share with you this report on the expansion of the used book market.

For more information contact:

Susan Siegel Book Hunter Press PO Box 193. Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 (914) 245-6608. Fax: (914)-245-2630 bookhunterpress@earthlink.net

2003 Update

In 1999, in The Quiet Revolution: The Expansion of the Used Book Market 1992-1999 , we took the first comprehensive statistical look at the used book market.

In 2001, we added revised Tables and new Charts reflecting the statistical changes that had taken since the publication of the original report.

Now, in 2003, we’re pleased to share the findings of our continuing tracking of the ever-changing used book market. What follows is a statistical update, augmented with some general observations about the used book market as of the end of 2002.

General Overview

Since our initial report in 1999, the used book market has continued to grow, both in terms of the number of dealers and the number and dollar volume of sales.

The industry has continued to change and evolve in response to the growing role of the Internet as a vehicle for selling used books.

As shown in Table I (Revised 2002), the total number of used book dealers continued to grow during 2002, reaching a total of 7,198 dealers. Over the past decade, there has been a 20% increase in the number of dealers.

(Please see the Methodology section below for an explanation of how these numbers are arrived at, and equally important, which dealers are and are not included in the figures.)

Given the diversity of what constitutes the used book market, in terms of buyers, sellers and books, we repeat the caution included in the 1999 Report against making generalizations about the used book market.

Chart I Revised 2002

Changes In Number Of Used Book Dealers 1993-2002

Table II Revised 2002

Make-up of Used Book Market

Chart II Revised 2002

Make-up of Used Book Market As of 2002

Changes in Open Shops

For the ten year period 1993-2002, the number of open shops increased by 7%. However, after 2000, the number of shops began to slowly decline, and between 2000-2002, there was a 4.8% decrease in the number of open shops.

As a percentage of all used book dealers, open shops now account for 57% of all dealers, compared to 61% in 2000.

The growth and subsequent decrease in the number of open shops over the past decade has been uneven across the country with the Central/Western and Pacific Coast States the only regions experiencing a net decrease.

While the “net” number of open shops has declined, new used bookstores continue to open throughout the United States, with the greatest number of new stores opening in New England.

The new owners represent a cross section of ages, from couples in their 30’s to retirees. Many of the new owners are book collectors turned dealers who are living out their dream career.

The decline in the number of open shops can be attributed to a variety of reasons, including — death and retirement of the dealer — desire for a lifestyle change on the part of the dealer (health, family issues, burn-out from previous careers etc.) — lease problems and/or rent increases — decline in in-store traffic due to the Internet — overall decline in sales and profitability of store

Table III Revised 2002

Changes In Number of Open ShopsRegion1993-961997-002002% Change

Chart III Revised 2002

Changes In Number of Open Shops

A word about used book sales.

Although all informal and anecdotal indications are that used book sales are increasing, there are no reliable figures on the actual dollar volume of used book sales.

The reliability of estimated annual sales figures is limited by what the estimate counts and does not count, the source of the estimate, the methodology used to make the estimate and the motivation of the person or entity making the estimate.

The major reason for the lack of hard, verifiable sales information is the fact that most of the 7,200 used book sellers are small sole proprietors and as such, they are not required to publicly report their sales figures.

While large public companies such as amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com have reported that their used book sales have increased as a percentage of their total sales, they have not specified the dollar volume of their USED book sales.

Similarly, other large used book companies such as Alibris have reported increased sales volume, but not the dollar volume of the sales.

It is impossible to quantity the total number of sales, or the dollar volume of sales, made as a result of visits to multi dealer sites such as abebooks because only a portion of these sales are processed by the site owners.

For more information, tables and charts and prior years’ information, please go to: http://www.bookhunterpress.com/index.cgi/survey.html?id=IXwQh2uB

Report Methodology (Revised, 2002)

Who’s Included

– – Booksellers who identify themselves as selling used, rare, secondhand, recycled, pre-owned, out-of-print or antiquarian books. Stores that sell both new and used books are included.

– – Dealers whose business has been verified by phone, mail, email or personal visit.

Who’s Not Included

– – Paperback exchanges that sell only used paperbacks.

– – Used booksellers who sell only at book fairs.

– – Dealers whose business operations could not be verified.

– – Relatively new dealers who operate exclusively via the Internet and typically, but not always, have limited stock.

Information Gathering

– – The names of potential used booksellers are gathered from a variety of sources including, but not limited to: . membership directories of state and national bookseller associations . local lists of booksellers . the Internet . trade publications . direct requests from booksellers . leads from other booksellers . leads from book collectors . telephone directories

– – Information about dealers is continuously gathered by questionnaire, phone calls and personal visits to bookstores. A minimum of two attempts, and often more, are made to verify information about a potential dealer.

– – Information gathered between 1992 and 1996 was first published in six regional Used Book Lover’s Guides plus a revised edition of the New England Guide. Between 1997-2000, revised editions were published for five editions, including a second revised New England edition.

– – Beginninig in 2000 when the database was put online, updates to all six guides have been made on a weekly basis. The print guides are updated yearly with print supplements.

Regions – – New England: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island – – Mid-Atlantic: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware – – South Atlantic: Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida – – Midwest: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia – – Central/Western: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana – – Pacific: California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii

About the Company

Book Hunter Press was founded in 1992 by David S. and Susan Siegel.

A life long book collector, David Siegel retired as Superintendent of Schools for the Croton-Harmon School District in 1992. Susan Siegel was a public relations consultant before teaming up with her husband to form Book Hunter Press.

Since 1992, the company has been gathering information on the used book market in the United States, and, beginning in 1999, in Canada. The company’s database is the most comprehensive and most up-to-date database of used booksellers in North America.

In 1993, the company published The Used Book Lover’s Guide to New England. Subsequently, five additional guides were published covering other parts of the United States, and in 1999, a guide for Canada was added to the series.

Since 1995, the company has published revised and expanded editions of five of the original six guides. Between new editions, the guides are updated annually with published Supplements. The series currently features 8,000+ used book dealers offering in excess of 200 million books. In 2000, the entire database of 8,000 used book dealers was put online in a searchable format. The online database is updated on a continuing basis.

To date, the Siegels have traveled over 100,000 miles and visited thousands of used bookstores in the United States and Canada. 0ver 50,000 copies of the Used Book Lover’s Guides are in the hands of book collectors, specialty enthusiasts, used book dealers and librarians around the world.

The Siegels have been featured on national television on C-SPAN’s Book-TV, and in the Wall Street Journal , Washington Post, The New York Times , the Gannett Newspapers, Kiplinger’s Magazine and dozens of national and regional newspapers and magazines across the United States and Canada.

Stanford Libraries Create Saroyan Prize for Writers

Ken Fermoyle
Mar 13, 2003
2 min read

The new literary prize, officially titled the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, will be sponsored by the Stanford University Libraries in partnership with the William Saroyan Foundation. Aimed at encouraging new or emerging writers rather than established authors, it will recognize a newly published work of fiction or memoir with a purse of $12,300.

The Saroyan Writing Prize (the monicker which I suspect it will be most commonly used) will be awarded every other year, with January 31, 2003 set as deadline for entries in the first competition. Entries are limited to works published in English in book form during calendar 2002 and available for purchase by the general public. Complete information, including entry forms and rules, are available at this website: http://saroyanprize.stanford.edu

“As a newcomer to the publishing world, the Saroyan Writing Prize has no track record,”says Michael A. Keller, Stanford Librarian and Stanford University Press publisher. “But our hope is that over time it will join the ranks of notable literary awards and prizes. It was established both to fulfill William Saroyan’s expressed desire to encourage other writers and to fulfill the Foundation’s mission to draw attention to Saroyan’s works and legacy.”

Stanford was the logical choice to cosponsor the award since it holds the Saroyan Archive, and Keller adds that the university sees the Writing Prize as a means “to participate in the book arts, to focus on writing in general and Saroyan’s writing in particular and to place Stanford’s archival collections in the public eye.”

Perhaps it will also draw some attention to Standford’s Professional Publishing Course, a unique and outstanding program held every summer at The Farm in Palo Alto.

“We are currently making plans to hold the award ceremony for the Prize in conjunction with next summer’s Professional Publishing Course,” reports Holly Brady, executive director of that program.

I can attest to the high quality and value of this course, thanks to a $5000 education grant I received upon taking early retirement from my “day job” in 1989. I blew the windfall on the Stanford course, a 15-day concentrated “boot camp” with notable, often distinguished, instructors from the “real worlds” of book and magazine publishing. It was probably the most interesting and valuable educational experience of my life. My only regret is that I didn’t attend it years earlier!

Good ethics are good business (but don’t forget your margins)

Stuart and Mary Manley
Mar 12, 2003
6 min read

Anyone who has read the autobiography of Richard Booth, founder and ‘King’ of Hay on Wye, the original and foremost Book Town in Britain (indeed, the world), will have their views on booksellers confirmed – they are a shady lot who will take you for a ride if you give them half a chance.

Richard is a very colourful character (the book is an entertaining read) and the success of Hay is indisputable – an annual footfall of over 2m people and enough business to support around forty bookshops. But with such wild success, how come he has gone bankrupt several times?

One of the reasons is there for all to see in his biography – his ethics were deplorable. Not only does he recount many ‘deals’ of questionable morality, but also he does so with pride – he actually believes he is being a smart businessman. In reality, what he is doing is making a short-term gain and a long-term loss.

Which is the subject of this article.

There are as many ways to run a successful business as there are to run an unsuccessful one.

And there are more pitfalls to screw up a successful business than you can count, not the least being hubris.

You can run a successful business being smart, ruthless, cynical, and hard. And you can throw in sharp practice and even criminality and it can still be successful. Often wildly successful. But, sooner or later, such businesses founder.

Or you can run a successful business going down a different route.

You still need smart, and even a little bit of ruthless, but the rest you replace with basic honesty, honourable practices, and genuine effort on behalf of your customers, clients, business associates, and staff.

Such businesses tend to endure and grow.

It is on this latter method I will be dwelling, but before I do, let me remind you of the famous three Paul Getty principles for a successful business:

Get up early. Work late. Strike oil!

Which means that whichever method you finally choose to run a business, high ethics or low, it will not succeed if the basic business is flawed.

Getting up early and working late is good, but if the basic business is unsound, it will still founder.

Likewise, striking oil is good, but rare is the business that succeeds if you do not work at it.

Never forget that.

These rules run throughout all business (Enron is a spectacular example of low business ethics – incandescent short-term gain – long-term disaster) but I will concentrate on the relevance to the business of selling books.

The bookshop (and its small branch) that my wife and I run is a very successful business that is now a major employer in the very small pond that is Alnwick. It has had twelve years of constant growth in a market that some say is declining, so we must be doing some things better or differently than others.

It has been our equivalent of striking oil and the strong ethics behind the business is, I believe, one of the reasons for its success.

We have never knowingly ripped off a customer.

That is not to say we have not made mistakes, but we have never knowingly offered less for a book that is offered to us than we believed it was worth, or charged more for a book than we believed was its market price. Yes, we only offer trade price and guard our profit margin with our life, but we never offer less than that.

To see how this affects your business let us examine this ethic in practice.

All the prices I am about to quote are in pounds sterling. If you have a problem with this, whenever I say pounds, think dollars – it will do for the purposes of this demonstration.

A little old lady comes into the shop with a valuable book to sell, say, for example, worth £200.

She clearly has no idea of the value – it has been in the family for years.

The low ethic business offers £20. The little old lady is perhaps disappointed, but she accepts because she knows no better – she might even be persuaded that it is a wonderful offer.

Whoopee, our smart businessman has made a huge profit – what a clever lad am I!

But stop – let us follow this through a little further.

He puts the book on display at a massive mark up.

The granddaughter comes into the shop and sees ‘Grannies book’ at £300. (or even more!).

She tells granny and the rot sets in. Granny vows never to bring another book to that bookshop, and more importantly, tells all her friends.

Sooner or later that short-term profit will become a long-term loss. She will grumble about that bookshop for years to come and do untold damage.

Now look at the other side.

The same little old lady offers the book to a high ethic business, and is absolutely thrilled with the £200 she is offered.

The granddaughter comes into the shop and sees ‘Grannies book’ at £300. (or even more!).

She tells granny and, and granny, who is older and wiser than the granddaughter, explains why, with overheads and staff to pay, the shop must charge more than she got for the book.

Granny is happy, tells all her friends, and the bookshop continues to be offered excellent books.

Now look at a third scenario, which is even more wonderful.

It is a high ethic business but it gets the initial valuation wrong – not intentional, but perhaps a signature or a plate was missed during the valuation.

Granny is offered only £100.

Later, the bookshop discovers its mistake, and gets back to granny and insists on paying her a further £100.

Granny is astonished.

But more importantly, ‘the story of the book’ becomes a standard anecdote with granny for the rest of her life.

I maintain that, in business terms, this ‘word of mouth’ recommendation is worth many more hundreds of pounds than the extra payment made to granny.

You can extend this principle to all aspects of your business – how you deal with your colleagues or how you offer at yard or boot sales. Keep doing it and your reputation will grow to the point where all the best books and all the best deals are offered to you before anyone else.

If you look through the histories of major corporations that have taken a fall, it can often be traced to the low business ethic of ruthlessly taking advantage of your customers when you feel you can get away with it or have the market cornered.

IBM and Enron are classic examples of this, but there are many others.

When customers have been abused they will stay with you only as long as they have to. The moment they have the opportunity to go elsewhere, they will leave you in droves. And conversely, if you treat them well, they will stay with you – the competition never gets a chance to break in.

If you make ‘doing the right thing’ your instinctive reaction to any business situation, it can be remarkable how well it can turn out in business terms in the end.

Another important area of business ethics is dealing with complaints when things go wrong.

A high ethic business will take extraordinary care with complaints and to hang with the expense. A low ethic business will avoid responsibility wherever possible. This does not mean caving in to unreasonable complaints on the principle that ‘the customer is always right’. I do not think this is so, and the maxim should be modified to: ‘the customer should always have the benefit of the doubt’.

The same sort of reward awaits the business that treats its staff well – we pay above the local norm, and, importantly, have a bonus system geared to the success of the business, so everyone who works for us has a direct financial interest in the shop doing well. The result is a happy and loyal staff – undoubtedly one of our major strengths. I forget the name of the man who said this, but it is true: ‘I pay my staff well, but this is not because I am rich. The reverse is true – I am rich because I pay my staff well.’

So there you have it – two ways to run a business, both of which can be successful: high ethics, low ethics.

I maintain that high ethics brings the biggest business gains – and has the added value that you get to sleep at night!

Stuart Manley, co-owner, Barter Books, Alnwick, Northumberland, England