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IOBA: Alibris recently launched a new pricing service for online booksellers that has caused quite a stir. What is the service and why are you doing this? Weatherford: The Alibris Pricing Service is the beginning of a revolution in used bookselling. For the past four centuries, booksellers set the price of their book based on their personal knowledge and on conditions in their local market. In some cases, we charged almost whatever we wanted. The Internet is creating a real m

Q. Who knows where I can find a list of the countries that DO NOT accept global priority mail? I’m getting quite a few international orders these days and it’s always a moment of truth at the counter when I find out the tab is not $7 or $9 but $20 and up. I know from bitter experience there is no global priority to Italy, but what are the other countries? Susan Halas Prints Pacific A. This chart names all the countries that accept GPM: http://pe.usps.gov/text/pub51/51cl.html

According to Holroyd over 40,000 paperbacks are listed, most published before 1970. The book is easy to use, indexed by publisher, author, and some of the better-known cover artists. Author pseudonyms are listed throughout. The oversize soft cover book, an impressive 800 pages long, includes 1000 cover scans. The print is a little small, but that’s probably an elderly quibble considering the book’s overall usefulness and completeness. The author, an experienced and long-time

“Book Miser” is a trade name that I purchased in 1993, when I entered the business. In addition to paying for inventory, a lease and furnishings, a significant amount of money was paid for the intangibles-the trade name and “goodwill,” principally. It didn’t take six months for me to learn that there was no goodwill (rather a fair amount of ill-will) connected with the business, and that the customer lists and ongoing training promised in my purchase contract would never mate

BookWriter Professional is a new application created by Tom Sawyer, co-founder of Interloc and Alibris, serving as Chief Software Engineer from 1993-2001. His past creations include BookMaster, Record Manager, BookMate, Book Prices Realized, and the UIEE data exchange format. Last year, Tom produced the unique BookWriter Web composer, which effectively positions bookseller’s books in search engines. This exclusive IOBA article offers the first public disclosure of BookWriter

This show just keeps getting better and bigger. I’ve been exhibiting here for the past four years, and sporadically attending for a little longer than that, and it’s become one of my favorite bookselling and collecting venues. Not because it’s the most lucrative – but it is often far and away the most interesting. Impresario Gary Lovisi managed again to keep things lively on two fronts – the 35 dealers ranged from relative newcomers to longtime paperback specialists like Chri

The sighs of relief from organizers were palpable. The 2003 Rochester Antiquarian Book Fair was under new management, in a new location, and had a new sponsoring agency. But the fair exceeded expectations, drawing a significantly higher number of patrons than it did in 2002. You could almost hear the fingers uncrossing. The recently formed Rochester Area Booksellers Association had had its hands full. Following the 2002 fair, the Friends of the University of Rochester Library

(Ed. Note: It is appropriate to take a retrospective look at Thomas Lynch’s first non-poetry book, as he is now completing his latest work, a book on Ireland. His collection of essays,The Undertaking-Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, reviewed below, won The Heartland Prize for non-fiction, The American Book Award, and was a Finalist for the National Book Award. It has been translated into seven languages. Ken Fermoyle, who has followed Lynch’s work for some years, will revi