Spring 2004 (Vol V, No. 1)

Table of Contents

• What’s your best price?

• Editor’s Swan Song & Announcement of New Editor(s)

• eBay Bookselling

• Campaign to Amend USA Patriot Act Grows

• Advance Look at 2004’s Big Bookselling Story: Amend Section 215 of the Patriot Act

• Buying And Selling Autographed Books – Past, Present & Future

• Safe shopping on eBay?

• Ain’t No Gold In Them There Hills – Book Buying in Appalachia

• New Age Book Sellers

• Things You Don’t Know Can Cramp Your Style

• Searching for Ulysses in Greek Or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation

• Current Stats for Used Book Market

• Libraries I Have Known and Loved

• Forgotten Americana – The Women’s Suffrage Movement

• Ephemeral Assays: George the First

• Setting Up Your Own Internet Book Store

• Touring the Library of Congress

• Samuel T. Freeman’s Catalog: Pros/Cons of CD vs. Print Version

• The Alibris Pricing Tool

• IOBA Q & A Column and an unanswered question

• New Price Guide for Paperbacks Available

• Trade Names

• BookWriter Professional: Flagship Software for Booksellers

• 15th NYC Collectable Paperback & Pulp Fiction Expo

• 31st Annual Rochester Antiquarian Book Fair

• A Michigan undertaker/poet deals with the humor and pathos of death

• New York Is Book Country Fair

• Seattle Fair Continues Success in a Tough Economy and Looks to Future Additions

• 19th Annual Denver Book Fair

• Fall 2003 MARIAB Book Fair: Making a Regional Fair Work

• Sacramento Book Fair

• Pasadena Book Fair

• The Tattoo Encyclopedia: A Guide To Choosing Your Tattoo

• 25th Annual Colorado Book Market Seminar

• Postcards of Nursing: A Worldwide Tribute

• IOBAbooks.com

• Burke’s Dave Robicheaux Chases Demons Down Purple Cane Road

• Walter Mosley, Sharan Newman And Monterey, Too! That’s What Left Coast Crime 2004 Promises

• Book Deodorizer

• Changes at TitlesDirect.com, Inc.

• Rozan’s Winter and Night WinsTop 2003 Macavity Mystery Award

• Hijacking Elvis Cole & Joe Pike Is a Crime, Claims Popular Mystery Author Robert Crais

• New Features at TomFolio.com

• Books & Collectibles Updated Services

• ChooseBooks.com Celebrates First Anniversary and continues to expand services

• Global Book Mart: New Fee Schedule in 2004

Editor’s Swan Song & Announcement of New Editor(s)

Well, here we are…. finally. Sorry this issue is so terribly late-there were a few (well, okay, a whole bunch) of delays in getting our insurance finalized at IOBA and The Standard couldn’t go live again till that was accomplished. But we’re back with an issue I hope will be interesting and entertaining for you, and The Standard will be on the regular quarterly schedule hereafter.

Ken Fermoyle has had to step aside as my replacement editor. He has had to have some drastic eye surgery to save his vision in one eye-and won’t know for some time to what extent that has been accomplished. While Ken will still work all he can on The Standard, as he’s done for some time now, he understandably doesn’t feel he can take on the whole burden of the editor job with the uncertainty he’s facing although, thankfully, his vision is starting to show some improvement.

DeWayne White, of White Unicorn Books, has meanwhile kindly volunteered to take on the editor’s job. DeWayne will be The Standard’s Editor after this issue, and Ken will have the title of Articles Editor, helping DeWayne where and when he can.

A bit of background on DeWayne for you, though I’m sure many of you are well acquainted with him from various booksellers’ lists.

“I’ve been an avid reader almost all of my life, as was my Mother. I’m still a reader, mostly fiction outside of work and mostly SF&F but also some westerns, mystery, history, philosophy and others. I never really wanted to turn loose of my books and finally, after I could afford to quit trading them in 2 for 1, I started to keep them. This turned into collecting books, mostly used, so I had to learn the lingo and what it meant. This interest finally turned into a B&M with basically only SF&F new books, sometime in the mid 70’s. It was run as a business by my wife and I came in at night after work (I was a scientist in the US Civil Service at the time). I talked to the customers, kept the books for the store, and helped out here and there. There was a used bookstore down the street a few miles away that we frequented (I got a large part of my collection of used books from them over time). We started talking one day about us handling used books and they thought it would be a great idea. We had only been handling used books for maybe six months, mostly paperbacks and trades, when I had the opportunity for quite a promotion at my day job. After a family discussion, I decided to take the job. There were a couple of projects that I had to finish up at work. Because of that and other considerations I gave about 4 or 5 months’ notice. During that time we half-heartedly looked for a buyer. We finally decided to just close the shop after 5 years. We kept a large part of the hardbacks since we figured they would appreciate in value anyway and we might open up another store someday.

Skip ahead some 25 years. I was still an avid reader but had cut back quite a bit on my collecting, generally just buying those hardcover books which I expect to re-read sometime in the future (or to invest in, I keep telling myself) and paperbacks for the rest. We still had the store inventory we had kept. My wife was working as an insurance consultant for some class action lawsuits for a law firm. They had finished one case with quite a large settlement and the law firm decided to start investigating another “on spec”. Enter 9/11 and the following market crash. The law firm now didn’t have the funding for the “spec” cases and so, since my wife was working as a full time consultant for them by now, she lost her job. Since I was just a few years from retiring (I’m 64 now) and we had talked about starting an internet bookstore, my wife decided she would like to do that rather than keep working full time “at an office”. Since I had been working out of my home for the past six or seven years, I thought it would be great if we could both work at home. We started the White Unicorn Books online bookstore with my collection (maybe five thousand including about 15% paperbacks) and the store inventory we had kept (a few thousand books). Most of my books still aren’t online, but my wife has bought several thousand more and they are mostly online. We finally opened our own site. I belong to a few lists [including Biblio, Insider, and IOBA], which I read fairly religiously and sometimes even post. I look around on other places like rec.art.books and the ABE board. I got involved with the creation of Global Book Town and we joined when they finally became an organization. I’m still on the “advisory panel” there.”

And now DeWayne will have a new adventure as The Standard’s editor! I’ll be around in the background at least through the spring issue, to try to make it a smooth transition. I’m positive that both DeWayne and Ken will do a marvelous job with The Standard, and I look forward to seeing what new directions they move it in.

A special thanks to Deanna Ramsay for her efforts on this issue. Deanna suffered a concussion in falls from her horse in December, 2003, and is still feeling the effects. It has not been easy for her to get this issue together. And I want that special thanks to extend to her work on all the issues of The Standard that we’ve put out together-I could not at all have done my job without her. Thanks so much, Deanna!

A wonderful 2004 to all of you, and thanks for all the support and help that so many of you have given me in the past!

Shirley Bryant, Editor

What’s your best price?

Whenever the subject of discount comes up in a bookseller discussion group, back come a wonderful range of opinions and advice. Most of it being the ‘it works for me’ variety, but of such a mixed message that any newcomer must be left wondering how on earth one can make any sense of it.

This article is an attempt to clear the thinking on this thorny subject.

Of course, you Americans are part of the problem: – not content with over-tipping our taxi drivers, you mess up our discount structure too!

From time immemorial, the accepted trade discount in Britain was 10%. Somehow, our transatlantic cousins seem to have crept up to 20% in some quarters, but we will leave that to one side at the moment.

The key point about this discount was that it was TRADE and it was RECIPROCAL. It was referred to as ‘TWC’ – Trade, With Card. It was therefore offered only to genuine fellow traders – not collectors, amateurs, or poseurs. To qualify, you had to be a member of a recognised book trade association such as ABA or PBFA, or be listed in one of the bookdealer directories such as Shephards, Skoob, Coles, or even the memorable Drif’s guide. Or at the very least, to produce an acceptable business card or catalogue.

The arrival of the internet has blurred these lines considerably, but that is no reason not to have standards and stick to them.

Why bother, you might ask?

(Once again I have to give the health warning that I seem to have to give with all the articles I write for the IOBA – if you are a ‘bookdealer’ for any of the following reasons, do not bother to read on – this article is not for you:

1. I’m lonely, and need the emails and ‘contact’ that my ‘business’ gives me.

2. I’m just doing this for fun.

3. Its only pin money and my day job is my real income.

4. I love books and I don’t care whether or not it makes money.

But if you are serious about trying to run a business, read on.)

Why not just increase your prices and give discount to anyone who asks? (And rub your hands with glee when they don’t ask.)

Well, for one reason, it is not FAIR.

Secondly, it tends to make your books overpriced. And, most importantly, it encourages the culture of haggling.

Haggling in itself is fun, but as a business practice it is time consuming and therefore expensive. Every time you have to negotiate a price, the dollars or pounds are going out of the window – not only are you having to give a discount, but it is costing you money to do so!

Or why not keep your prices level but give a discount whenever the customer asks or insists?

Once again, because it is not fair. But more importantly, because it eats into your margins, both in time and money. And the more you encourage this sort of haggling by caving in, the more difficult you make it for yourself in the future. Whereas I do not care too much if you struggle to make a profit because of your own stupidity, I do care about the effect it has on other more sensible dealers – who strive to run a fair discount policy and are constantly undermined and have their time wasted by customers expecting a discount for no good reason beyond that they asked for it.

So what is a fair discount policy?

One way is to give no discount whatsoever.

This has many advantages and is certainly easy to administer. But it does not encourage trade. Nor does it reward genuine major orders or regular clients.

Another way is to establish straightforward rules – and stick to them:

1. A fixed reciprocal discount (in our case, 10%) to genuine fellow dealers, to be offered whether or not it is asked for. (And hope/expect to be given the same treatment if ever you order a book from them.)

2. A quantity discount whenever an order qualifies for such a discount – again, whether or not it is asked for.

3. An education or library discount whenever the institution qualifies.

4. An ongoing quantity discount to proven major buyers.

5. A special negotiated discount for a significant major order.

6. No discount for any other reason whatsoever!

‘Genuine fellow dealers’?

Set your own standards, but our criteria goes like this: Trade discount – a note to dealers:Although we operate the usual 10% reciprocal trade discount to accredited fellow dealers for our main catalogue range, this does not extend to the ‘Bargain Book’ section (the under £10 range) of our catalogue. Books from this range are strictly net.Important – trade accreditation: We require ONE of the following references: EITHER (1) direction to a trade directory (Sheppard’s, Cole’s, Skoob, PBFA, IOBA, etc.) where you are listed, OR (2) the URL of a site where your catalogue is listed, OR (3) A scan of the cover of a recent book catalogue that you have issued.

We regret that without one of these references, we will be unable to offer trade terms.

10% discount?

All right, you Yanks, give me 20%, but don’t expect it to be reciprocal!

If you do decide to adopt a solid discount policy in some similar fashion to the above, how do you handle those customers who ask ‘What’s your best price?’

The answer is to treat them in a courteous, friendly, but firm manner – they are still potential customers and it is not their fault that others have encouraged haggling in the past.

Our stock reply goes along these lines:“Long ago we had to decide whether we should inflate our prices so that we could ‘give’ a ‘discount’, or work from a straight margin. For better or worse, we chose the latter course.

I’m very sorry we cannot help in this instance.”

Quite apart from this being fair to all (a concept on which I am very keen), in practice I have found it to be effective – as often as not the customer proceeds with the purchase and accepts the clear guidelines that have been laid down. ‘Sorry we cannot help in this instance’ seems to increase the appetite to purchase, not diminish it!

On a few occasions, just as an experiment, we have tried the other tack – giving in to an unjustified discount demand/request and offering the book at the price the customer wanted. The astonishing result of this experiment was less finalised sales than refusing to reduce the prices, which gave much food for thought and helped solidify the advice being offered in this article.

Selling books on the web at any old price is easy – any fool can do it and many do. But SUCCESSFUL book dealing (i.e. selling books in enough volume and at a big enough profit margin to make a proper living), whether on the web or via a bookshop, is quite a skilled and complicated business. A sensible discount policy is only one of a myriad of things you have to get right, but it is a very good foundation stone to lay before tackling other issues.

If you think that selling your books at any price is more important than maintaining your profit margins, keep on doing it your way, but don’t blame me if you join the many moaners that I see on the book discussion groups complaining of their lack of profitability.

But for those who have followed this complex argument to the end, I thank you – If I have convinced just a few of you to tighten up and clarify your discount practices, I will be well pleased – welcome to the professionals.

Having had a surprisingly large response to my article ‘Penny Selling’ in the last issue of ‘The Standard’, I intend to talk further on pricing and profitability next issue – if I’m asked back!

Stuart Manley, co-owner, Barter Books, Alnwick, Northumberland, England http://www.barterbooks.co.uk