The Hard Way

There is a package on my desk, unopened. I know what’s in it. It weighs slightly more than a pound, and its cold, metallic heart holds my merchant’s life blood as surely as did that pound of flesh from another merchant so long ago.

It’s my hard drive, still encased in the static-free, plastic sleeve the technicians used when they returned it to me. Through the lightly tinted plastic, I can read the “Seagate Recovery Services” sticker.

I have finally learned the hard way what every computer geek and technical website has been saying since computers become commonplace: If you’ve never lost all of your data, it’s only a matter of time.

I can remember reading those words so clearly, and thinking that I really should back up my important files. But somehow, I never got around to buying that extra hard drive, never found the time to burn it on disks. I did find the time, however, to fully savor the heart-stopping moment when I realized that my hard drive was dead, dead, dead, and beyond the help of ordinary technicians.

Well, I’ve got the external hard drive now. Seagate Recovery Services offered to sell me one for $120 so they would have somewhere to load the 31 gig of recovered data, but I saved $20 with a Costco coupon. Frugal me. I could have bought nine of these external hard drives for what it cost me to have the lab recover my data.

And I got lucky, coming in near the low end of the $700 to $1900 quote for “economy” service (five to six weeks). To get my data back in a week would have been another $500. My friends who are IT techs tell me that $1000 is right in the ballpark for a data recovery job that has to be handled by a lab, as mine was.

So…what have I learned? I mean, besides the fact that life is much more difficult without my data base, my address book, my customer list, and all of my inventory, sales, and other tax records.

Well, the first thing is, all of those annoying techies who claimed that if you haven’t lost your data yet you surely will some day were right, at least in my case.

Second, the cost of that extra data storage is the same whether you buy it before you need it or after, but it’s a whole lot cheaper to make your own backup files as you go along than it is to pay a lab to do it after the fact.

Third, now that I’m reloading all of my programs and scrounging for the data files in my recovered documents, I’m putting everything I create in My Documents instead of making up clever personal folders for it, and I’m writing down where each program stores its files, so that I can get it all backed up on a regular basis.

Fourth, I’m thanking my lucky stars that this didn’t happen closer to tax time! I would have been able to recreate most of my records, but for Cost of Goods sold almost everything was on the computer, and I’m not sure I could have ever recreated that.

I’m considering hot-gluing my old hard drive to a suitable plaque and mounting it on my office wall like a diploma. It’s been an expensive education.

Alice Voith operates MyWings Books out of Schaumburg, Illinois and can be contacted at http://www.mywingsbooks.com.

Insurance for Bookdealers

I decided a while ago that it was time to reconsider what I was doing with insurance for the company and began collecting information on the various options. One of my first paths was to post a request to the two book listserv groups that I follow the most closely, seeking recommendations (or warnings) from others. I also asked a number of specific dealers who I knew approached such matters with considerable care and forethought. I received a *lot* of responses. (N.B. A fair bit of what follows is sort of Insurance 101, but I received a number of requests from people asking if I would post about the responses I got from people and/or about the various insurance options.)

First and foremost, as much as I personally dislike insurance companies (far too much of a previous incarnation of my life was spent up to my eyes in CGL policies and/or negotiating with various insurers), the importance of business insurance really can’t be understated. Mind you, you do not *need* to have insurance (though some clients, particularly at the higher end of the spectrum, will require that you prove you are insured/bonded). You can “self insure,” with all the risk that entails (and very few people actually create/maintain the reserves such self insurance requires).

In addition to our E&O, CGL and Workman’s Comp, I wanted to put a Fine Art policy in place that would insure our stock *and* items that have been consigned with us (this can be a bit tricky, as title does not actually pass until sale and the owner’s homeowner’s policy is still in play). Every bit as importantly, I wanted coverage that would insure our books while at book fairs *and* while in transit to book fairs (both in our vehicle and/or while being shipped). Finally, I wanted coverage that would insure any package being shipped to a client.

Inclusion of this last coverage will save a fair bit of money and streamline our processes a bit. We insure every shipment we post and have been using Endicia recently. We have found that they become unreasonably expensive over a fairly low limit and cap at a relatively low level. Rolling our shipping insurance into our new policy will not pay for the added policy, but it certainly makes a reasonable dent in the premium.

From the responses I received, three insurers clearly dominate the market. They are, in no particular order:

-Michals Insurance Agency (Bernie Michals)

-DeWitt Stern Group

-Collectibles Insurance Group (CIA)

Of people who emailed me, two were using CIA and had no complaints. Three or four were using DeWitt Stern and generally had no complaints (though at least one said my email was going to make him go re-evaluate staying with them). Six or seven people said they were using Bernie Michals and, interestingly, they were overall the most positive and “happy” with their choice (while one or two did complain about growing premiums…which is, of course, par for the course in all insurance matters).

I think this highlights a major issue in/around insurance matters. In the end, if you have spent any amount of time negotiating, identifying terms and conditions, etc., nearly all coverages are fungible. The underwriters all write more or less the same paper and, in the end, one’s being happy with their insurance experience rests heavily with their relationship with their agent. In *this* area there are great differences. How much an agent knows or doesn’t know about a given area, how hard they are willing to work to tailor a policy to your needs, and/or how experienced an agent is in working with their underwriter(s) to get quick answers/solutions is what really separates the great from the good from the…er…not so good.

I talked with people at each company (or several people, as the case may be). After talking with them all and pretty much before premiums were quoted, I knew I was going to go with Bernie Michals. I never spoke with anyone “in charge” at CIA and while the woman I spoke with was pleasant, the interaction was cursory at best. DeWitt is a large and sophisticated firm. I spoke with a very nice woman based in NY City who has published in the area of Fine Art insurance and seemed knowledgeable and pleasant. I received a quick follow-up message from one of the others in her department, basically saying that any further questions should be directed to him. They are a very big agency and operate at a very high level. Nice, professional and competent…but, distant (N.B. part of my lukewarm reaction is undoubtedly based on spending too much time around law firms where the big name and generally brilliant partners gave some face time and worked major cases/clients, but the vast majority of “work” was executed by minions of widely varying skill sets).

Bernie Michals is one of those old-school, high-touch agencies. My first call put me in touch with Brad, Bernie’s son who now owns the firm and is clearly focused on filling his father’s shoes. We had a long good talk about what I needed (short and long term), what was happening with the firm, insurance generally and the Maine Black Bears (Brad went to UMO, it turns out). He explained that his dad was unavailable at the time, but he would get in touch with him and I should hear something shortly. Brad called me back to give me an update and Bernie called me first thing the next day. It was absolutely clear from the beginning that Bernie *knows* the book business and how and where insurance issues rest and how to address those issues.

I admit that the quote form didn’t hurt my impression. It is clearly from Lloyd’s and uses some terms that one simply doesn’t see on this side of the pond (I had not seen the term “entrustments” since first year law/commercial paper). It also did not hurt that some dealers I respect a great deal (including two of my three ABAA sponsors) *strongly* advocated Bernie.

In the end, however, it was Bernie himself (and, frankly, Brad emerging behind him) that closed the deal. I hope I will never need to file a claim, but I know if I do, Bernie will deal with it in a way that annoys me a little as possible. I am absolutely confident that if I need to tweak a coverage for a specific shipment or show, it will get done quickly and correctly. Insurance is, in the end, all about peace of mind. I am very pleased to have signed up with Bernie and look forward to working with him (and/or Brad) for years to come.

I thought a couple of clarifying statements might be useful:

1. Comprehensive General Liability (CGL) is pretty much what it claims to be…coverage from all sorts of interesting, surprising and/or annoying liability matters. Broadly, it covers bodily injury, personal injury, advertising injury and, perhaps most importantly, property damage. If you are at a friend’s shop and pour your toxic sugar/dairy quasi-coffee drink all over their wildly fragile galley proof of Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, you will be happy to have your CGL (as will your friend).

2. Errors and Omissions insurance (E&O, also called Professional Liability) generally covers liability for actions *not* covered by a CGL policy. This is especially important if you do any appraisal work…but it also covers such things as loss of client data, breach of contract, copyright infringement and the like.

3. Workers’ Comp covers medical and rehab costs and lost wages for employees injured at work (this includes “you” under most circumstances). It is *required* in all states and should be ignored at your own risk.

Ian J. Kahn operates Lux Mentis, Booksellers out of Portland, Maine and can be contacted at http://www.luxmentis.com.

Book Hunter Press

(An update by Susan Siegel, co-author and publisher of the Used Book Lover’s Guides, the series of seven regional guides to 8,000 used book dealers in the United States and Canada.)

Just as the Internet has dramatically changed the business of buying and selling used books, the computer has also changed the way Book Hunter Press delivers the information contained in the Used Book Lover’s Guides to its target audience: traveling bibliophiles.

First published in 1993 as travel guides for book lovers who enjoyed browsing used bookstores, and kept up to date with new editions and annual print supplements, beginning in 2000 the entire Book Hunter Press database was put online, giving bibliophiles instant access to the constantly changing world of used booksellers.

Today, the Book Hunter Press database remains the most comprehensive and continuously updated online directory of brick and mortar used bookstores in the United States and Canada. By accessing the database, traveling book buyers can learn if there are used bookstores in or near the cities they’ll be visiting or passing through and whether those stores are likely to have the types of books they’re looking for.

Some things change but others remain constant. The Guides continue to include all three categories of dealers: open shops, by appointment dealers, and Internet only dealers, as well as antique malls where dealers have booths. In recent years, however, as used book buying patterns have changed, updates to the Guides have focused primarily on open shops. And, as the name implies, the Guides continue to list only dealers who sell used books, although they do include dealers who sell both new and used books. The Guides do not include shops that sell only used paperbacks.

Dealer listings remain free, but the online version does give dealers the option to upgrade their listing in order to give their business greater visibility.

And, unlike other online book dealer directories that rely on dealers to submit listing information, Book Hunter Press continues to take the initiative in searching out new shops to add to the database while continuing to update existing listings. This extra effort results in more dealer listings and more useful and accurate information.

For bibliophiles not yet familiar with the Online Used Book Lover’s Guides, the database contains the same basic information that book lovers have found useful in the print guides for so many years, plus the ability to search the database by any combination of the following eight search criteria:

1. Dealer name

2. Specialty (from a list of 1,400 possible subject headings)

3. State or province

4. City

5. Size of the collection

6. Type of dealer: open shop, by appointment, mail order/Internet only, antique mall

7. Type of collection: general or specialty

8. Along the interstate highway network

Visitors to bookhunterpress.com who already have the latest edition of the print guides have the added option of being able to search the database to bring up ALL the dealers who meet their search criteria, OR only dealers who have been added to the database since the current edition of the print guide was published, OR only dealers whose listings in the print guide have been changed.

Full access to the online database is available on a subscription basis, although non-subscribers can do limited searches for free. Also available are special book/subscription packages that, at a substantial savings, enable book lovers to combine the convenience of the print guides with the most up-to-date dealer information in the online database.

The Guides cover the following seven regions:

1. New England

2. Mid-Atlantic States (NY, NJ, PA, DE)

3. South Atlantic States (along the Atlantic coast from MD to FL)

4. Midwest (a 10 state region)

5. Central/Western States (a diverse collection of 19 states)

6. Pacific Coast States (CA, OR, WA, AK, HI)

7. Canada (the entire country)

More information about the Used Book Lover’s Guides, including an Information Form dealers can use to submit their new listing, or update an existing listing, and/or information on how to order one or more of the seven regional Guides, is available at http://bookhunterpress.com, or by contacting Book Hunter Press directly at bookhunterpress@verizon.net or (914) 245-6608.