Are Used Book Sales Hurting New Book Sales ?

Are rising used book sales hurting new book sales – and if so – by how much?

Lots of people would like the answer to that question, from publishers and authors to paper manufacturers and new and used booksellers.

It’s fairly easy to answer the first part of the question: anecdotally, and intuitively, there’s probably no question that rising used book sales are eating into new books sales. If you have any doubt, look up theDa Vinci Code online. A recent search brought up 140 used copies on Amazon, 729 copies on Abebooks and 377 on eBay.

It’s when you try to answer the “by how much?” part of the question that the picture get muddier.

For starters, there are a host of very basic data collection issues unique to the used book market that affect any statistical analysis of total used book sales and the number of used books sold.

1. What used books are being included in the sales figure? Remainders? Antiquarian (a.k.a. old, rare, or collectible) books? Textbooks?

2. Sales from what selling venues are being counted? Online? Store sales? Catalogs? Library sales?

3. Sales to what customers are being counted? Consumers only? Dealer to dealer sales? Sales to libraries?

4. What is the source of the sales data? Consumer buying patterns or dealer sales? If dealer sales, what dealers?

Then there’s the overriding question that gets to the heart of the issue: Of all the used books sold in a given year, what percentage were in-print versus out-of-print titles? Clearly, the “new” book market is not concerned with sales of out-of-print titles.

It’s this last question that is the most difficult to answer – if, indeed, it can be answered.

Theoretically, a computer program could be developed that could easily match up ISBNs (International Standard Book Number) in seller sales records with the Bowker database that shows whether a title is in-print or out-of-print. Obviously, any book without an ISBN is out-of-print, although a later edition with an ISBN could be in-print.

The one caveat to this methodology, though, would be the assumption that most publishers, large and small, have, over the years, been diligent in notifying Bowker when their titles go out-of-print. Alas, there’s no quick and easy way to test this assumption for millions of titles.

Notwithstanding the above caveat, the ISBN match methodology does has one serious drawback: As only a portion of used book sales are computerized, any matching that could be done would, from the start, be incomplete. How incomplete? That’s hard to know.

According to the recent Book Hunter Press study of the U.S. used book market (highlights of the report, A Portrait of the U.S. Used Book Market, are available online at www.bookhunterpress.com), in 2003, 54% of used book sales were made online. For these sales, ISBNs, if they existed, would most likely be available and the in versus out-of-print match could be made.

But what about the remaining 46% of used book sales that were made offline?

Many of these sales were most likely recorded on individual sales slips, only some of which were then entered into a computerized accounting or inventory program which may or may not have included an ISBN in a separate searchable data field.

This means that an in versus out-of-print match using dealer sales records may only be possible for just over half of all used book sales.

Where does that leave us? Are online and offline inventories similar enough so that the online ISBN match statistics for 54% of the sales match can reliably be extrapolated to the 46% of sales that were made offline?

As an aside, the Book Hunter Press study also found that only 49% of total dealer inventory was listed online and that only 18% of dealers had 100% of their inventories online compared with 46% who had less than one third online. These numbers raise the interesting question of what portion of the remaining 51% of dealer inventory is computerized, the first step in any possible ISBN match program.

What about using sales figures from Amazon or Abebooks? Assuming that the companies wanted to cooperate with such a study (some would consider this highly unlikely), would an ISBN comparison be easier or more fruitful if these larger databases were used? Yes and no.

While Abebooks could generate statistics on the number of books with and without ISBNs, when it comes to sales statistics Abebooks only knows about sales made through its own shopping cart. The company has no way of knowing how many sales of what books were made directly by the dealer.

Would Amazon sales data be more helpful? Again, the answer is yes and no.

Yes, because, unlike Abebooks, all used book sales originating from the site must go through Amazon’s shopping cart. But, no, because not all books sold as used on Amazon are, in reality, used. Look at some of the Condition descriptions for books being sold in the Used and Collectible categories: brand new, direct from distributor or publisher, still shrink wrapped, etc. Are these used books? If they’re remainders, then that gets back to one of the earlier question of whether remainders are or should be considered used books when tallying up used book sales. And, if the books are “brand new,” then where are they coming from if not from the publisher?

eBay isn’t much help either as its listings do not include ISBNs in a searchable field.

The bottom line: The next time you read a report or see a press release that says used book sales have caused a ##% decline in new book sales, stop for a minute and ask yourself where the numbers are coming from and what they represent.

As discussed in greater detail in our study report, the used book market does not lend itself to easy statistical analysis.

Book Hunter Press publishes the Used Book Lover’s Guides, a series of seven regional guides to used book dealers throughout the United States and Canada. The company has been tracking the used book market since 1992. In 1999, the company published it’s first comprehensive report on the U.S. used book market, The Quiet Revolution: The Expansion of the Used Book Market. In 2003, the company published A Portrait of the U.S. Used Book Market. The report, based on a survey of 827 used book dealers, looks at the used book market in terms of dealer size and inventory as well as changes in selling venues and sales between 2001-2003. The report also ranks the major online selling sites in terms of dealer usage and sales generation. More information is available at www.bookhunterpress.com

The Bookstores of Madison Wisconsin

Here is my long-promised review of book buying in and around Madison, Wisconsin. A few non-book – or nearly non-book observations: it is cold and it is flat. There are lakes and ponds everywhere. Lakes and ponds are not oceans and slight rises are not mountains. There really is a lot of cheese including chocolate cheese. As much as I like chocolate, chocolate cheese is an abomination.

The best restaurant we found is The Blue Plate Café whose chicken and dumplings is just like mother wished she could make. One order and you don’t have to eat again for days. All Wisconsin restaurants serve portions for farmhands – young farmhands – young teenage male farmhands – young teenage male German farmhands. It is a very dangerous place for folks like myself who were taught as children that it is a moral imperative to clean your plate. I have hit 200 pounds for the first time in my life. My fighting weight is 165.

The best side trip we made was to Taliesin. It is almost worth being so far from salt water to see it. The tour is great and there are lots of books, architectural toys and decorative originals and reproductions in the gift shop. If you would like to buy me a $3000 screen…

On to book scouting, the first rule is to get a map. Streets in Madison change names in mid-block, change directions, and dead end with alarming frequency. I found two guides: a guide to used and rare book dealers and a guide to independent bookstores. The latter included used and new dealers but some of the new shops were so independent and so specialized that it was worth a visit. I found a discounted copy of a history of women in bullfighting at A Room of One’s Own, a feminist shop just off State Street, for example. The other new shops of interest were the three Frugal Muses (located all over the place), a local chain of discount stores, and Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative, the mandatory college town lefty shop also just off State Street.

If you have limited time or mobility, State Street is where the action is. It has no car traffic (but watch out for buses) and runs about 6 blocks between the University and the Capitol. It seems to be the mid-West cultural equivalent of Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue. I think there are 8 book stores in those 6 blocks. There may be a few more or less and they seem to keep opening and closing. I found two that suited my purposes at opposite ends of the street.

Near the university is Paul’s Book Store whose clerk was helpful, knew the stock, and had a pretty good section of Mexican history and social sciences which was better than I expected in Wisconsin. He didn’t give me a trade discount but at least did not try to charge me sales tax. The shop was clean, well lit, and probably too well-organized for my tastes. The chances of finding the jewel hidden in the dusty corner seemed remote.

Near the capitol at Shakespeare’s Books (“Madison’s oldest and largest”) I did get a discount. It was many things Paul’s was not (including neither so clean nor so well organized) and did give me a discount. The clerk was an older woman who really knew her books. I bought more at Paul’s but bought more interesting things (bullfight books I had never seen before) at Shakespeare’s. I had the feeling that if I only spent another hour I would find the diamond in the coal pile.

My favorite place was Stony Hill Books and Antiques at 2140 Regent Street. They are moving away from books to antiques and having a half price sale, but even without that I would have (and did) buy more there than everywhere else added together. The proprietor is another Guatemalophile, which probably says it all, but there is lots of stuff in most areas available in his shop now – for how long? Who knows? It was all we could do to get out without buying a painting from Santiago Atitlan and a silk screen from Cuba.

I wanted to visit Scholar’s Haven on the west side on University Avenue, but the hours were erratic and I could not get the timing right. I was told the stock was interesting and from what I could see with my cold little nose pressed against the window pane, I’d agree. (I’ve browsed and bought there and can confirm that the stock is as interesting as you imagined. -ed.) I also was unable to hook up with J. Tuttle Maritime Books (mail order/by appointment).

There are other shops in the area but for me the ones mentioned are the ones I would return to. In general I was surprised at how little of the stock in most shops had been put on line. Of course, for the buyer, that is a good thing.

I should also mention that, as I was told, the St. Vincent store has a very good book section, seemingly with a lot of turnover, and I was able to pick up a much needed pair of Green Bay Packer mittens there for $4.00. If you can’t find the St. Vincent store on your own, your nose will never lead you to a good book there anyhow.

All in all I think Madison may beat out Tucson as the best small book town I’ve shopped in. (But it still is not worth a trip in the late fall or winter without a daughter to visit there. It is really cold!) Now if I can only drop these 20 pounds – chocolate cheese & dumplings, indeed!

Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson specializes in books on Latin America and the Caribbean and peddles such wares at www.bibliophilegroup.com/lynnsbookstore

28th Annual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair,

The 28th Annual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, November 19-21, 2004, Hynes Convention Center, Boston, MA On Saturday, November 20, 2004 I attended my first antiquarian book fair. As a voracious reader, compulsive collector, and fledgling online bookseller, with dreams of my own “Bricks and Mortar” store, I was excited to be attending. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I didn’t expect to become a 5-year-old again! I bought my ticket, entered the hall, and stopped, stunned. I stood there for several minutes just to get my bearings. I saw row upon row of treasures to explore, voices of booksellers and buyers, people who understood the magical feeling I was having at that moment. I was overwhelmed, to say the least.

I knew I would be writing this article, so I decided to take a quick walk around the perimeter first, just to get a feel for how the booths were set up. I had already gone through the exhibitor list and circled the names of booksellers who specialized in my particular interests, namely, children’s books, illustrated books, beat generation, and poetry. I had a goal – this article – and a plan. I arrived at 12:00, which gave me an hour to browse before attending the first of three seminars being offered that day. Two hours later, I emerged from only the fourth booth, dazed and bedazzled. Needless to say, I missed the seminar.

The book fair was held in conjunction with the 6th Annual New England Print Fair, which featured nine exhibitors adjacent to the book fair and printmaking demonstrations throughout the weekend. I can’t say much about the Print Fair, because despite my best intentions, I only had a chance to pass quickly through on my way to the second seminar of the day.

The scheduled events that day were as follows:

1. 1:00 pm: The Art of Bookbinding presented by North Bennett Street School.

2. 2:00-4:00 pm: Nicholas Basbanes Book Signing for his new book, A Splendor of Letters.

3. 2:30 pm: How to Shop a Book Fair: An Insider’s View presented by John Schulman of Pittsburgh’s Caliban Books, Ann and David Bromer of Boston’s Bromer Booksellers, and Jeffrey Marks of Jeffrey H. Marks Rare Books in Rochester, NY.

4. 4:00 pm: The World’s Most Beautiful Papers presented by Sidney Berger, Professor at Simmons College.

The How to Shop a Book Fair seminar was presented as a panel discussion, then opened up for a question and answer period.

The first speaker was John Schulman from Caliban Book Shop. He opened with an opinion that book fairs seem to be dying out for a couple of reasons:

1. Middle-class collectors, who generally purchase books priced under $500, are spending their book budget online; and

2. Collectors aren’t attending like they used to because they assume all of the vendors’ books are listed online anyway.

The panel agreed that not everything is online, nor is every bookseller. Some don’t use computers at all.

Other good reasons to attend a book fair:

1. The approach is different from shopping online. Online buyers are typically searching for something specific and are not as likely to discover the unexpected books you find browsing at book fairs.

2. The ability to begin establishing relationships with dealers who can help you find what you are looking for or call you when something you might like comes in.

He also suggested some points of book fair etiquette, which may seem like common sense to a seasoned book fair attendee, but I found useful as a newcomer.

Don’t:

1. Stand in the middle of a dealer’s booth and have a conversation. (I actually saw this happening, and there were probably items I didn’t see simply because I couldn’t get in to have a look.)

2. Ask for a discount. Most dealers price at what they expect to sell the item for, and you don’t want to get off on the wrong foot.

3. Put an item on hold unless you plan to buy it.

4. Leave the item on the shelf if you do plan to buy it. It may not be there when you return!

5. finally, he addressed the question: “How do you know if an item is priced reasonably?” He suggested Collected Books by Allen Ahearn and Patricia Ahearn, other price guides, and the Internet:Bookfinder and Addall were suggested sites. Additionally, ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America) sponsored fairs feature dealers committed to their strict ethics code.Next, Ann and David Bromer of Boston’s Bromer Booksellers, seated at opposite ends of the table, demonstrated one of their tips for shopping a book fair: walkie-talkies. David’s approach is to walk up and down each aisle so he can see everything, while Ann takes a quick walk around the entire fair to see which booksellers are there and get “into the rhythm and revved up”. She tends to check out items in the glass cases first. Then, if she sees something she likes, she calls David on the walkie-talkie.
   

While I intended to use Ann’s approach when I arrived, I ended up using David’s approach which is my natural inclination and, like gravity, cannot be defied.

The Bromers contributed their thoughts on why one should attend book fairs:

1. There are unique and unusual books that you just won’t find online.

2. There is nothing like the hands-on experience – the true beauty of many books just can’t be reproduced online.

3. With 100 or more dealers, you have the ability to compare multiple copies of the same book and get a feel for how different dealers price.

4. Not all Internet sites have photographs of the books, and descriptions are not always detailed. At a book fair, you can pick up the book and examine it yourself.

A couple of the questions posed during the Q&A portion:

Q: How do dealers decide what to bring? A: Some dealers bring their most recent acquisitions or what they think will sell based on their experience, but it can be hard to forecast. Ann Bromer suggested that dealers bring items that have the title on the spine.

Q: Do dealers price differently at book fairs vs. online? Would a dealer have two prices for the same book – a book fair price and an online price? A: The panel agreed that this was unlikely. The books they bring to the fair are some of their best items and may not be listed online. If there was a difference, the price would probably be lower at the book fair, for example if an item is not selling the price may be reduced as the dealer contemplates boxing everything up and carting it home or back to the shop.

Jeffrey Marks of Jeffrey H. Marks Rare Books provided another key piece of advice: for the best chance of finding what you are looking for at a book fair, contact dealers in advance (their e-mail and mailing addresses and telephone numbers are usually listed on the exhibitors list) and let them know if you collect a specific type of book. He also provided the following anecdote:

“Many years ago, at a New Hampshire book fair, I was in my booth when a man walked up and began a long and impassioned lament about a book from his childhood that he had been trying to replace for what sounded like most of his adult life. One was meant to get the impression that this book would be the making, if not the saving, of that life. I happened to have the book there, and took it off the shelf. When I handed it to him, he, after glancing at it for no more than a second, and without opening it to learn the price, returned it to me, saying, I guess I’m still at the stage where I’m just looking for it.”

This is where I noticed something unexpected. I don’t know if this is the case at other book fairs, but when a book was purchased it was placed in a bag and the bag was then sealed closed with a neon-colored sticker that said “SOLD”. Then the name of the bookseller, booth number, and number of items was written on the label. This label was then checked each time one entered or exited the exhibit hall. I didn’t wear a coat, but I did notice that there was a free, but mandatory, coat check.

After the book signing I allowed myself to wander and explore. There seemed to be a good mix of titles and price ranges. There were maps, broadsides, prints, and autographs as well. As a collector, I found some interesting items. One bookseller had a copy of an 1894 octavo editionRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam translated by Edward Fitzgerald with drawings by Elihu Vedder (Houghton Mifflin), which I happen to have a copy of that I picked up for $4.50 at a library sale years ago simply because it was beautiful. I believe it was priced around $350. After that, I started noticing many beautifully illustrated editions of this title. I realized that I, myself, have more than one edition and could make a collection of this one title alone. Another tempting item was a broadside hand-colored by poet Kenneth Patchen, who I absolutely love. I must admit, that I didn’t know what a broadside was until now. I would have called it a “print”. So, I learned something!

On day two, I revisited one of the four booths I had been immersed in the first day. At McIntyre and Moore Booksellers I stood outside a moment trying to remember why I wanted to revisit the booth. I had written the reason on the back of their business card as a reminder, but I didn’t bring it with me. When the seller asked if he could help me, I explained that there was a reason I returned to the booth but couldn’t remember what it was. He said, “To buy a book, I hope!” I entered the booth and then remembered: they had some interesting math and physics books. I recently acquired a collection of these and was interested to see how they were priced. As I browsed the booth I came across the most unlikely title – one I had been searching for since I read it in the 5th grade! I remembered the anecdote about the collector who was “still at the stage where I’m just looking for it.” Not me! I purchased a first edition of Joan G. Robinson’s When Marnie Was There for $30. This is a prime example of a good reason to attend a book fair. I didn’t find this book online. It was waiting for me among math, physics, and occult books in Boston. As the book fair was nearing the end, I was determined to actually speak to some booksellers. I am not normally at a loss for words – I have spoken at IT conferences and was VP of membership in my Toastmaster’s club – but I felt tongue-tied for some reason.

On the plus side, I accidentally discovered my digital camera’s movie mode when attempting to photograph Mr. Harrington’s booth. (No wonder the flash wouldn’t go off!) I have a lovely 30-second film of books sitting on a shelf, which I did manage to convert to images.

I would like to thank John Schulman of Caliban books for responding to my e-mail request for the name of Jeffrey Marks since he wasn’t listed as a panelist for the “How to Shop a Book Fair” seminar, and also Jeffrey Marks for e-mailing me the story he told during the seminar.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Boston Book Fair, although I think I could have spent a week there. I learned a lot, met a wonderful author, friendly booksellers, and found a favorite childhood book. What more could I ask for?

Lynn Naylor operates Magical Readers Books at http://www.magicalreadersbooks.com and specializes in children’s books.