Book Selling at Antique Malls

with Lee Kirk, Gayle Williamson, and Sharon Eisenberg

So as part of this month’s theme of alternate selling venues for online book sellers, I thought it would be interesting to do a piece on selling in antique malls. Over the years I’ve heard many anecdotal accounts of dealers who set up spaces in antique malls, with mixed positive and negative results. I’ve been selling at the Westminster Antique Mall  for over a year, taking over my current space as of January 2013.

Selling at an antique mall is pretty simple in concept: the mall owners rent you space in which to set up your stock. The details of the rental agreement vary from mall to mall. Some places charge a flat amount per square foot. Some have varying rates based on the size and location of the space in the mall. Some require the seller to work a certain amount of time as part of the rental agreement, or offer a reduced rate in return for time spent working. Some have lower rent, but take a commission on your sales as part of the agreement. In addition, there may be other terms in the contract: for example, a common element is a percentage that is charged for processing credit card purchases of items from your booth. You should of course read the terms of the rental agreement carefully: look for things like, for example, who will absorb the cost of a bounced check. Because the mall houses a number of different vendors, all of your items should be marked with at least your price and booth/vendor number. You will probably also want to include an inventory or sku number. The sku number can be recorded at the point of sale, and appear on the sales statement you get with your check at the end of each pay period. This assumes the mall is sophisticated enough to have a point of sale system that allows recording of information like this, and the generation of sales statements.

One of the central advantages of the well-run antique mall is that multiple sellers are present offering a wide variety of goods to attract a variety of customers, with full time staff to keep an eye on things and open locked cases, and a central checkout area that handles sales (cash, check and credit, and sometimes layaway) for all the vendors. It has some of the advantages of a brick and mortar store, without a lot of the initial investment and continuing overhead. Also, unlike a brick and mortar store, you aren’t tied to being there or hiring staff.

An antique mall space can complement your online business. Many online sellers won’t list books below a certain minimum value – say $20. Booksellers routinely run into decent sellable books while scouting or in auction box lots that don’t meet this online minimum. Many of us have accumulated box after box of books like this over the years, taking up valuable room. A mall space can be perfect for selling these books. You may also find that select higher priced books will sell quite readily in an antique mall venue, thus saving the online commission fee. And finally, books that might be difficult to sell online – oversize, bulky, heavy – could profitably spend some time at the mall.In theory, a good generalist book seller could have something of interest for all the customers one might expect in an antique mall: the military collector who initially came because of another vendor who has a selection of uniforms and military paraphernalia will also be interested in your military history books; someone who visits the mall looking for objects related to local history will be interested in your books on the same topic. Collectors of glass, ceramic, paperweights, oil lamps, and on and on will be interested in books you have on those topics. And the unfortunate spouse or kid who got dragged along on an antique mall shopping trip will welcome a place to hang out and browse – and buy – books.

Sounds great, huh? Well, not so fast. In preparing for this article, I asked for input from IOBA members regarding their experiences selling in antique malls. Of those who responded, their experiences ranged from guardedly positive to lukewarm to profoundly negative.

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What were some of the bad parts of selling in antique malls?

Lee Kirk of The Prints & The Paper had this to say about antique mall selling: “At one time I set up in antique malls – some books, some small antiques, lots of ephemera. My experience was that there was so much theft and destruction (of ephemera) that I didn’t make any money. I’m sure others have had a more positive experience. What was galling is that people did it just to show that they could – if I had a pair of something, they took one. If I had a set of something, they took one piece. Ephemera were swiped and the empty sleeve placed carefully on top of the display so I would be sure to see it. Others just handled things roughly – pulling ephemera out of sleeves and shoving it back in roughly. Even books walked away, so I gave it up.”

Gayle Williamson of Champ & Mabel Collectibles  had this experience at one of several different antique malls where she sold books: “The owners at Pieces of the Past were doing some kind of monkey business, either drugs or skimming profits. When they absconded the mall was locked with all the dealers’ merchandise in it. Eventually the building’s owner reopened the mall with the same employees. Unfortunately I don’t think he was that interested in running an antique mall so there were few promotions or advertising, so sales dropped.”

Sharon Eisenberg of CE Ranch Books  related this challenging situation: “The first antique mall I was in was a branch of a well-known west coast auction house. It had quite a staff and 30,000 square feet of space. There were always at least 3 people working the floor. After a few years, the company pulled out of Montana and that mall was taken over by a different company. The second company tried to run the mall with one person and occasionally two. After a couple of years, the company owner passed away suddenly and after a few months we were all told to move out (April 2012). I had 32 bookcases and 90 boxes of books there in about 450 sq ft. Moving was no fun.”

Tim Doyle of Bayside Books of Maryland  notes another problem: “I moved into a larger space at the mall in January 2013, and getting the space up and running ate up a lot of my time in the first few months – to the detriment of my online business. Now the space is established, it still requires regular maintenance and investment of time – but not nearly to the same level as at first.”

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What are some of the benefits of selling in an antique mall?

Gayle Williamson: “The best part was learning about selling and slowly learning to run my own business…. One advantage to having a mall space was when people asked if they could pick up a book, I could leave it at the mall with a note of who was to pick it up. I work from home and am not equipped to have people coming to my home to purchase books.”

Sharon Eisenberg: “After about 6 years of selling part-time online, I decided that I needed to become better known in the Great Falls area which is the largest city near here – 60 miles from where I live. I already knew some of the auctioneers and the one company that did estate sales, but I really didn’t know any of the antique dealers. After 6 years of selling in three different antique malls, I finally know a lot of the dealers. This leads to referrals and calls when there are large quantities of books at an estate sale, etc. Other advantages – you call sell other things besides books-like the family stamp collection that needs a new home, postcards, old local newspapers, maps, photos, scrapbooks, photo albums, toys, framed art, and anything else you can fit into your space.”

 Tim Doyle: “I’m the only book seller out of more than 165 dealers at the Westminster Antique Mall. So I have found that I get a lot of referrals as a result of my mall space. These are from people looking to sell books, who have picked up one of my business cards at the space or who have talked to the mall owners who gave them my information. Of course, many of these leads don’t pan out – the books are of no real interest, or the owner has unrealistic expectations and wants more than I can pay and still make a reasonable profit. But there have been worthwhile calls that I would never have gotten otherwise.”

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What kinds of books have sold best for you in an antique mall setting?

Sharon Eisenberg: “Top sellers for CE Ranch Books in antique malls – local history including county histories, Custer and Lewis and Clark, local authors especially signed first editions, Nancy Drew books, local yearbooks, bird books, Irish and Celtic books, cookbooks (especially older ones and those produced by local groups), military history, Western art. I also like to sell ephemera and what does well for me – road maps from the 30s-60s, Montana paper of all kinds – business invoices, checks, old letters, envelopes with Montana cancellations, old basketball and football programs featuring local teams. Most interesting sale this year- a framed Montana territorial map circa 1865 found at a local estate sale.”

Gayle Williamson: “In all the malls, I tried to stock books on local history. The only mall where I exclusively sold books was Pieces of the Past and I had no more than 500 books. At Craft-tique, I sold new and secondhand local history books. At Best of Times, I sold local history books, and books on music, crafts, cats & dogs, humor, and vintage fiction. The best-selling were books on local history and visual books. I found that books like Golden Books, the Time Life series, and vintage children’s books, that might be readily available online, would sell. Worst selling would be fiction.”

Tim Doyle: “Local history, local authors, new and vintage children’s books, mysteries (particularly Agatha Christie), signed local sports books, classic TV/movies books (Little Rascals, Three Stooges, I Dream of Jeannie, Hollywood, film noir, etc), Civil War and other military history. I have also had success selling higher priced books ($30 to $150) in the mall space. I like this strategy particularly for large and/or heavy books and sets that would be a hassle to ship if sold online.”

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Gayle Williamson: “I would say the instability of the management and ownership…. Best of Times and Pieces of the Past are now out of business. Both Craft-tique and Memory Lanes have changed to where they are a step above a thrift shop in merchandise and maintenance…. Also since I started selling tchotchkes and then converted to books, I think I was surprised that books even sold in antique malls, since I normally wouldn’t go to an antique mall looking for books. I think that is why vintage, children’s books, and local history sold well since I think those appeal to the antique mall customer.”

Sharon Eisenberg: “I thought that I could sell a lot of books in an antique mall that were not saleable online but that turned out to be only partially true. What isn’t valuable online many times is not saleable in an antique mall. Most of my antique mall stock was purchased specifically for that market. The antique mall buyers are a completely different group of buyers and some of them never shop online. There are regular buyers here who go through the local antique malls almost weekly. Some sell on ebay and some are just collectors looking for treasures.”

Tim Doyle: “The number of calls I get from people wanting to sell me books. I’ve had more calls in the last six months than in the previous ten years. I had hoped for some referrals – that was one of the reasons I wanted to have a physical location in the community. I think it’s a combination of the economy and people wanting a little extra income, and the rise of used book selling on the internet which has given people a tool to judge the value of their books. That they use the tool incorrectly most of the time does complicate things for book dealers.”

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Getting Started Finally, Sharon Eisenberg offers the following list of advice for anyone considering selling books at an antique mall:

1.  Some malls are much better run that others. The owner or staff should be interested in what you bring in and we try to bring in new material every week or every other week. They need to know what you have in order to tell customers where to look. The better staff will often call someone based on what we just brought in to alert a possible customer of something they are looking for. If the staff doesn’t care what your inventory is, it is going to much harder to be successful. The malls should be advertising but this varies widely.

2. Talk to antique dealers that you know to find out where they are doing well and what sells well.

3. Start small-you can always expand if there is more space available.

4. Bring in new stock on a regular basis and make your space look interesting. Books displayed on easels always seem to sell faster than books just lined up on a shelf.

5. Have regular sales. The public loves sales. Find out what the sales schedule is for the mall you are considering.

6. Have a lighted, locked showcase for more valuable items.

7. Talk to the mall staff regularly about what buyers are looking for.

8. Put up some signs. It surprises me that most antique mall spaces are very anonymous. We have a huge banner with our business name and business cards available, as well as a sign that says “We buy books”.

9. Keep your online and antique mall inventories separate. There is the opportunity to move things back and forth if they don’t sell but you don’t want to get an online order and not have the book because it just sold at the mall.

10. Pricing for the local market is a challenge. We try not to be too far above the online price for most things. Many antique dealers put very high prices on books and we are trying to be more reasonable with our prices. We don’t want our buyers to buy an expensive book from us only to go home and find that it was a five dollar book on amazon.

11. You have to expect some shoplifting although a well-run mall should be able to keep that at a minimum.

12. Get insurance on your inventory if you will have a substantial amount of it in a mall. The mall is not going to cover fire, theft, or water damage. We are using DeWitt and Stern through IOBA.

13. Read the contract for the mall space and make sure you understand what it says. Rent per square foot, commissions, mall-wide sales schedule, language regarding what can be sold there, etc. will vary from one mall to the next. There may be some options regarding discounts, layaways, etc. Discounts to buyers are very common in the antique mall world but we are becoming less willing to offer discounts as a matter of course. Your ability to honor requests for discounts depends on how you do your pricing. If you are going to get called every day or every week because a buyer wants a discount, you should price accordingly or set your own policy on discounts. Our current policy-10% off if a buyer purchases over $100.00. We also have regular sales as well as a table of items on sale.

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Conclusion There are a number of good reasons to sell books at an antique mall. It gives you a venue for those books that aren’t quite good enough to list online, that would be a hassle to ship, or that could sell quckly to a local customer and without an online commission. It gives you a physical presence in the community which can generate leads to buy local collections and estates. In that sense, your mall rent could be seen as money well spent on advertising. And of course, your mall sales should be a source of profit.

But as with online sales, your success in an antique store venue will largely be a function of factors under your control, primarily the time, effort and intelligence you are willing to put into it … and also by what you define as success. Other factors – notably the availability and stability of a well-run mall with an adequate customer base – are beyond your control. And of course, only you can decide if the time and effort is worth the potential benefit.

From On-Line to Selling at Antiquarian Book Fairs

with Lee Kirk, Ken Karmiole, and Nancy Johnson

We asked several IOBA members for their perspectives on selling at book fairs. The focus of this article is not on the large international and member only trade association fairs, but on the smaller regional fairs where booths are open to all sellers with a good reputation. Many of these fairs sell out of booth space, so if you are interested in exhibiting at one, get on the waiting list early.

Madlyn Blom of OldBagLady Books has some advice for first-timers. She exhibits at The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair – or the St Petersburg Fair as it is more frequently called – which is the Southeast’s oldest and largest antiquarian book fair, and one with an excellent reputation. 2014 will be its 33rd show. It features more than 115 dealers in books, maps, photographs, prints, ephemera and autographs:

Are you thinking of selling at your first antiquarian book fair? If so, I bet you have a number of questions so I’m going to tell you what I’ve experienced at many different fairs and the St. Petersburg, FL Antiquarian Book fair in particular.

Why do all the packing/pricing/selecting/work and spend all the money? It is disruptive to your organization; it is expensive and it is exhausting physical labor. Worst of all, you have to restock the unsold books (and usually the books which do sell are only a fraction of the ones you bring, so there is a lot of restocking.)

You can actually ask for their contact information – unlike Amazon, book fair promoters want you develop your business! You can hand out your book marks, business cards and/or catalogs with every purchase, hold a drawing to get names, anything except “walk all over” your neighbors’ business. Rule: if you hear a customer ask another dealer about a book that you actually have, do not walk into that dealer’s booth and start talking to that customer! Wait until s/he walks away….

The on-line only dealer can upgrade their knowledge by studying the other books being offered for sale by both store dealers and other on-line dealers and their prices.

You can connect with other dealers in your specialty area or specific locales. And meeting the people face-to-face with whom you email, sometimes daily, is worth (half) of the booth rental fee!

Then there is the opportunity to buy books! I used to “do” the Michigan book fair two times a year and there was a dealer there who would, quite regularly, rent a booth but bring only one book. He would be first in line among the dealers to place his lone book on his table and then go shopping as other dealers were busy opening their boxes. As these dealers concentrated on setting up their booth – unpacking, paying attention to the lighting, and all of the other booth display details, like which book should go next to that book – he was looking and buying. He measured his success in dollars spent, not dollars “earned”. {Editor’s note: This is not a recommended practice: in fact, many book fair managers will not let you back if you do it once, since empty booths are unfair both to other sellers and especially to those who will be attending the show – the customers! Sometimes if you are coming a long way, keeping things light might make sense, but don’t overdo it.}

Finally, if this was a “good” fair, you can leave with a pile of cash, more books than you came with, a notebook full of new customers and business cards from all your dealer friends and maybe a few more books signed. Well… ALL of this has never happened to me but I have come away with one or more of these goals achieved! And, in addition, I’ve spent some “vacation time” with my spouse!

So, my advice: sign-up, pay-up and show-up. Expose your stock to new buyers and recalibrate. Have fun.

Lee Kirk of The Prints & The Paper is primarily an ephemera dealer. Many of the regional book fairs include a significant number of ephemera dealers – even the names often reflect that. Lee exhibited at the Rose City Used Book Fair, a relatively new fair sponsored by the Portland Used Booksellers’ Association (PAUBA). This fair’s slogan is “An unpretentious book fair.” Here is her list of reasons. . .

Why I sell at book fairs: To visit with seldom-seen colleagues and hobnob about the business. This often leads to ideas, sources, and congenial dinners. I can also extend invitations to visit my at-home business for buying purposes.

To interact with the public (refreshing for those who work at home). You can also tune in on current interests and views. Interests tend to change with the times, and I’m often surprised at what becomes collectible. I also find that shows are useful in presenting ephemera to a younger generation who may not know that such material is available. I always have a few who gush over the variety and uniqueness of ephemera.

To acquire new clients for “wants”. I have a “want” slip to be filled out. I sometimes request that they send an email with wants, but they rarely do. Having the information to make first email contact is helpful.

To acquire new merchandise. One often buys more than one sells. That’s expected. My buying is usually focused on my client’s needs or my specialties.

To make oneself visible. Pass out business cards and catalogs, brochures, whatever you have. Advertising the hands-on experience.

Oh yeah – and to sell inventory. This, in the long run, is the least important aspect of a fair. The follow-up is usually much more profitable.

Of course, a book fair is a lot of work no matter how you cut it. We are getting too old to haul stuff very far, so we’re cutting back to fairs close to home. In fact, right now I’m working with a local non-profit with the thought of holding a book fair that would benefit the organization, and their presence and influence could help advertise and embellish such an event.

Ken Karmiole, of Kenneth Karmiole, Bookseller, Inc of Santa Monica  is an ABAA member who participates in the large national and international shows, but also emphasizes the importance of regional book fairs to the health of the bookselling industry and as a valuable experience for all booksellers. His comments focus on two of the larger regional West coast shows – Pasadena in Southern California and Seattle in the Northwest.

SELLING/PARTICIPATING AT REGIONAL BOOKFAIRS: I am a strong believer in participating in regional book fairs. While it might not be true for all booksellers, they make a great deal of sense for my business. Fairs work for me, a generalist, who does a great deal of business with the specialist trade and who looks at book fairs as a place to buy and sell, both equal in importance to making a book fair successful. Also, fairs can result (although these results are quite varied) in new clientele and are important for business exposure and new opportunities for buying privately.

Seattle and Pasadena are the only two surviving major West Coast regional fairs and these shows are valuable for both generalist and specialist dealers. If you are a specialist in press books or photography or travel books, for example, and you had a number of good customers in Seattle or Southern California whom you could expect to visit your booth, participation might be economically viable. Also, as a specialist dealer your expertise is much greater than the generalist dealer, and you should find some good buying opportunities in the booths of the other exhibitors.

The generalist, like me, has a guaranteed audience with the other exhibitors on the floor as well as the visiting dealers who do not exhibit but still attend as buyers. I always notify everyone on my mailing list local to the show, and love to have private collectors and librarians visit.

Participation at regional fairs is relatively inexpensive. Seattle and Pasadena are quite similar in cost. A standard 10 x 10 booth is $850 in Seattle ($500 for a half-booth) and $875 in Pasadena (the Bustamante show), where a half-booth is $437.50. Both fairs have a Friday set-up and then run Saturday and Sunday. If you want to keep your costs down and/or don’t want to bring a great deal of inventory, a half booth can be the best option. I’ve done over 200 fairs in the 37 years that I’ve been in business and some of my best shows have been with a half-booth and 120 to 150 well selected books, keeping in mind the audience (the dealers, collectors, and librarians) that I expect to see at that particular fair.

I enjoy looking at the stock of my colleagues in the trade, and even if this doesn’t result in much buying, there is always something to be learned, looking at something you’ve never seen before, a special copy, a special binding, or a great presentation copy. Typically the interaction with the other exhibitors results in some business, if not during the fair weekend, then down the road. A dealer might mention a collection that is being acquired and give you an opportunity to take a first look, or you learn about a new client that is looking for the type of book you regularly acquire, and often sales are generated in the following months. Of course, being an exhibitor rather than a visiting dealer allows you a full day (the set-up day) of perusing and buying some goodies before the fair opens to the public. It has always been time well spent in my experience.

Fairs are a great place to move along inventory, such as those books that don’t mean that much to you, perhaps acquired a long time ago, remnants from a collection that was quite profitable or books outside your main areas of current interest. I’ll take a smaller profit than normal, making some price reductions, but generating that all important cash flow, and making room for something else. Although I am a dealer that specializes in antiquarian books (pre 1800), like most of us, when something out-of-field, but nevertheless interesting, is offered at the right price (cheaply), I buy it. I just can’t help myself. Somehow nice leather bound sets, limited signed editions of illustrated books, and even the occasional book in a dust jacket (!) enter into my stock. I’m happy to take a quick profit on these books and fairs are the best exposure for their sale.

I recommend that you try one of the regional fairs. You are there to do two things, buy and sell. Price your books intelligently, i.e. very competitively. Describe your books accurately. Don’t sit in your booth the whole show, get around and mingle. Have a good, hopefully profitable, time.

And finally, a few passionate comments from the perspective of a book fair promoter and manager.  Nancy Johnson organizes the San Francisco Antiquarian Book Print & Paper Fair  which is held in February every other year (the coming show will be Feb 1 and 2, 2014 at a new location – the Festival Pavilion in Fort Mason Center. This is a huge fair, comparable in size and quality to the fairs run by ILAB and is an opportunity for sellers to reach a large audience, including some very serious collectors.

The whole is a sum of its parts: Brick-and-mortar sellers, mail order by printed catalogue, book fairs and online retailing. The world of book commerce is comprised of all these parts, and it must have all those components.

As the passionate producer of the San Francisco Antiquarian Book Print & Paper Fair, an enthusiastic exhibitor in Antique Shows & Book Fairs and a lethargic online seller (member of IOBA, to which I was introduced in 2006 at this same Fair), I wouldn’t trade in-person sales for all the sales in the big jungle. So I’m definitely biased. I know that many members of IOBA are equally passionate about online and lethargic-to-down-right-disinterested in doing a show in-person.

How can I convince you? After all those books are heavy, there is booth rental to pay, fuel, airfare and shipping are not cheap, those hotels keep going up in price, and if you have the whole world looking at your stock online, why just settle for a local or regional audience?

First of all as much as we would like, the entire world is not looking at our stock. For many of our books, unless they are rare or hard to find specialty books originally printed in small quantities, we’re competing pure and simple on price when we offer books online. At a book fair, you may still be competing on price but not because 200 sellers have the same book with a dollar price variance. Your competition will be primarily because attendees at a book fair want all of it (slight exaggeration). Book fair attendees come eager to buy and the browsing, the lusting and the eventual selection of items to purchase is part of the appeal. Listen to the real chatter among the customers and your fellow exhibitors. Skype and IM will never duplicate that verbal exchange.

Think of a book fair as an expansion of your online site to a real site and back to your always up online site. Look at your stock and pack up the unusual, even the odd-ball, the book with the stunning graphics and linen paper that is best appreciated in person, and yes, the book that sits on a page no one has virtually browsed. During set-up hours, get to know your fellow exhibitors, exchange information, and network! After the Fair opens to the public, tell the fair-goer, if he or she asks for a title you are not displaying, that yes, you have that book! Personally introduce that person to your site, perhaps even a tour of your own website on your portable device, and hand out bookmarks, business cards and the very effective catalogue. You may not make a sale right on the spot, but it is going to be better advertising for your online sales than any other promotion you can do.

To sum this all up, there is an old booksellers’ adage: You can sell your way out of a fair, buy your way out, or drink your way out. That is, a fair can be profitable because of sales made there, or some great buys, or simply because of contacts that were made. No two fairs are ever the same: at some fairs, the bulk of your sales might be to other booksellers; at other fairs, all of your sales might be to the public. A sale of an inexpensive item can lead to a profitable years-long relationship with a collector or institutional buyer. Paradoxically, fairs are an opportunity to sell books in exceptional condition – books that have to be seen to be appreciated – but also essentially interesting books with a lot of condition problems, where detailing the flaws online just doesn’t work very well. But most of all, book fairs offer a way to break out of your routine, to look at your inventory with a fresh eye, to handle a lot of exceptional books, and to have a good time!

Book Selling at Genre Conventions

The first SF convention was held in 1936 in the United States (New York City), or in 1937 in England (Leeds) – a matter of debate that hinges on the definition of “convention”. At any rate, more than seventy-five years later, SF conventions are Big Business, with events held every weekend of the year around the globe. Nearly every convention has a Dealer’s (Huckster’s) Room. Typical merchandise for sale includes jewelry, artwork, clothing, toys, games, weapons … and books. For dealers, the great thing about genre conventions is that they provide a tightly focused customer base that is highly motivated to spend money. And while it is true that in the last decade or so more and more of the money spent in the Dealer’s Room has been going to non-book merchandise, reading is still the core of most genre conventions and books remain a very strong seller.

Upcomingcons.com/science-fiction-conventions is a good resource for finding information on a variety of upcoming conventions. Once you’ve located a con in your area, check out its website. Look for the email for the Dealer’s Room contact, but carefully read any information that might be available. For example, if the Dealer’s Room contact specifies no inquiries before a certain date, then you should pay attention. A large number of SF conventions are run by volunteers, and irritating someone who is doing a difficult task without getting paid is a bad way to introduce yourself.

This article is mainly based on my experience selling at the past nine Balticons, with a couple smaller cons thrown in over the years. Balticon is a four day SF and Fantasy convention held annually on Memorial Day weekend. It is the largest convention of its kind in the Baltimore, MD area, with approximately 1500 registered members. It is not my intent to push the idea of selling at genre conventions as a viable option for all online sellers. But even if con selling isn’t right for you, this article should help demonstrate that there are alternative selling venues for online sellers. These alternative face to face sales venues represent an opportunity to make some profit, generate contacts, and have fun selling books.

To be sure, SF convention selling is not for everyone. For example, you need to have a strong knowledge of the genre. Genre readers love to talk about what they’ve read and are always looking for recommendations for new books and authors, so you need to be able to at least hold your own in conversation. You can’t expect to make money if you know nothing about the genre, and show up cold with some boxes of SF paperback tat that you’ve randomly accumulated. In the nine years I’ve been selling at Balticon, I’ve established relationships with a number of repeat customers. For example, one woman likes omnibus editions, and spent nearly $300 at this year’s con because I scout inventory with her in mind.

Space in the Dealer’s Room is usually sold by the table. You should check to see if the con provides the tables, or if you need to bring your own. Spaces are limited, and routinely sell out early for the mid-size and bigger conventions. When you email the Dealer’s Room coordinator make it clear that you will be selling books. Some conventions are having trouble getting as many book dealers as they would like, and so might give you preference in getting a space. However, preference is also given to veteran dealers so don’t be surprised if they tell you there is no room left. Ask to be put on the wait list, and you might get in if another dealer drops out. This will also give you a head start for the following year.

Costs will vary, mainly depending on the size of the convention. Balticon currently charges $150 per table, and includes a convention registration with each of the first two tables. You might have to purchase con registrations separately from the spaces in the Dealer’s Room, or you might need additional registrations if you have people helping you. If you do, be aware that most cons raise the registration prices as the event date gets closer.

Overhead costs will certainly be a major consideration in deciding if convention selling will work for you. As with book fairs, you will have to figure travel, food and lodging into your expenses. In my case, the site for Balticon is only about 30 miles from my house, so not having to pay for a hotel lowers my overhead considerably. I have thought about doing large conventions that are further away, such as Philcon in Philadelphia, but have not taken that step yet mainly because of the added overhead. Some of the dealers I know do six or more conventions each year.

Be very picky when acquiring stock. Don’t worry about having enough stock to fill up your space – your problem will be having enough space to show all your stock. In general, don’t waste time, money or space on anything less than Very Good condition. A worn paperback with spine creasing just takes up the place of a better condition book, which has a much better chance of selling. My minimum selling price is $3 for paperbacks, and $8 for hardbacks – though I carry many books that well exceed those minimums. For that amount I think the customer deserves a very good or better book. Obviously, exceptions apply – some books are so scarce that the price goes up no matter what the condition.

When selling at an SF convention, take advantage of the face-to-face situation. Talk to the customers, find out what authors or books they’ve read and liked. Using your knowledge of the genre, recommend other books or authors – ideally, ones that you just happen to have in stock. Of course, I will make recommendations of titles that I do not have in stock, even to the point of directing them to another dealer in the room that I know has a copy. These customers come back to the con year after year after year, and something like that will stick in their memory. I have one customer who was really pleased with some books I picked out for him several years ago. He now comes back every year, trusting me to make recommendations on what he should buy next based on what I know about his reading likes and dislikes. He spent nearly $200 this year alone.

Speaking of the repeat customers, you should periodically “freshen up” your inventory. Part of this will happen naturally as you add new stock to replace that which has sold. My experience has been approximately 15 to 20 percent turn rate on my stock for one convention. But as part of your inventory catalog you should note when a particular book was added, and consider removing certain books after some arbitrary number of years without selling. I bought a couple of big SF collections this past year, so pulled nearly 50 percent of the bottom end of my old inventory and replaced it with all new stock – and my gross revenue went up by nearly the same percentage compared to the previous year. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the books that I pulled… box lots on eBay, garage sale with ads on Craigslist, trade in for store credit at a local used bookstore?

Another tip – know your inventory. One customer wanted to buy a $3 paperback, which I noticed was the first book in a trilogy. I showed her a trade paperback omnibus edition that had all three books, which she bought for $10. Another customer was wearing a Pink Floyd concert shirt, and I showed him a hardback book on the history of the band (one of the many non-genre books that I like to stock – see below) that he bought for $20.

Which leads to my biggest secret for success in selling books at a science fiction convention: bring lots of interesting non-genre books, or “specials” as I refer to them.

The non-genre books that I like to stock can cover any number of subjects. For many fans, costuming is a big component of the science fiction convention experience, and books about vintage clothing and jewelry, hair styles, hat making, military uniforms, and makeup and costuming for the stage all sell well. I’ve sold coffee table books on the history of Halloween costumes, on the world’s most elaborate tree houses, on 1960’s concert posters and rock album covers, on Japanese woodblock prints, on roadside Americana, on European and Oriental arms and armor, on Dr Seuss’s war time cartoons, and blue prints of homes from classic TV series. Collections of Pogo, Dick Tracy, Little Nemo, Tin Tin, and Betty Boop all sell. With the sub-genre interest in Steampunk (google it, if this is not a familiar term) almost anything related to Victoriana could sell. Non-genre writings from well-known authors like CS Lewis or JRR Tolkien are also in demand.

Describing how to pick what non-genre books will be of interest is difficult. It really comes down to a gut feeling – if it interests me and I am a science fiction fan, then I assume it will interest other SF fans. I would not bother with a glossy picture book on Porsche sports cars, but if I found a similar book on the history of the Delorean (think Back to the Future) for a couple dollars, I might try it. The beauty of books like these is that even if there are six other book dealers in the room with you, the odds of any of them having those particular non-genre books is vanishingly small. And because these types of books are so interesting and have such great visual appeal, they can move to my antique mall space after the con is over and work the whole year round.

To make setting up and tearing down more efficient, I’ve come up with a simple system. Paperbacks are stored in alphabetical order in flat plastic tubs, and set up is as simple as placing the tubs in order on the tables and pulling the lids off. Hardbacks and trade paperbacks are stored in alphabetical order in long boxes, just as they would appear on the shelves. Ideally, for setup the books come straight out of the boxes and on to the IKEA book shelves, with everything then in order and ready to go. Tear down is just the reverse, and just as easy. You’ll also notice in the picture below that I put a lot of the large format “specials” (described above) in face-out display, using the paperback bins. Face-out display is absolutely critical in maximizing sales: for one thing, it capitalizes on the work that the publisher put in to designing an attractive or compelling cover. Face out covers will catch the eye of someone passing by, and draw them in to look more closely.

My reasons for selling at Balticon are varied. To begin with, I make a very good profit for a weekend of work. Of course, there is time spent over the year prepping for the con. Some of this is time spent scouting, which I would still be doing as part of my online business. I do have to clean, price, catalog and organize the stock. There was a one-time initial outlay for the IKEA shelving and the plastic bins that I use. And storing the part of the inventory that I don’t use at the antique mall or online (see below) does take up some room for most of the year.

Selling at Balticon complements my online and antique mall selling. Balticon and the antique mall provide a nice outlet for good books I encounter while scouting, that are too low value to list online. The antique mall is a good place to put some of the books that I also sell at Balticon (the interesting non-genre “specials” I talk about above), so that they work for the whole year and not just one weekend. And I can list my high end SF books online, and pull them to bring to Balticon.

SF conventions will usually have at least one major Guest of Honor (GOH), typically a big name author. Balticon has both an author and an artist GOH, and there are always other well-known authors and artists who show up for the fun. The GOH is announced well in advance, which gives you time to stock up on the author’s works. These will of course sell very well at the con, and you can also get books signed. This has obvious implications in terms of adding value to your stock, and to books in your personal collection if you so choose.

And when all is said and done … I really enjoy selling at the cons. I’ve been a big SF fan all my life, and I really enjoy meeting and talking with other fans and the pros. I supplied a blurb for Bud Webster’s book on SF convention selling (The Joy of Booking, Merry Blacksmith Press, ISBN 0615523439) in which I said “… he has found a way to take something he would do anyway – press a book into someone’s hand and force them to read it – and make a little money doing it.” This neatly sums up how I feel about selling at Balticon. I don’t make a fortune. But it consistently generates a nice profit, has helped to grow my business, and is a lot of fun.

Timothy Doyle Bayside Books of Maryland, IOBA 6285 Oakland Mills Rd Sykesville, MD, 21784