ALL ARTICLES

We have fascinating articles on determining the worth of particular books from Vic Zoschak, on the psychology behind acquiring whatever it is you collect (including books) by Maria Bustillos, and on professionalism – which pertains to everyone in any business, as well as those of us in the book trade, by Julie Fauble. In addition, Jean McKenna is now supplying us with a Q&A section on issues pertaining to our businesses and book matters–feel free to contact Jean with question

Table of Contents President’s Report Which Listing Service is Right for You? Online Fraud Prevention Descriptions that Sell Auction descriptions for fun and profit Bookselling on the Internet: On Writing Descriptions Committee Reports

Each day the newspaper, television news anchors, and our own industry email lists are full of events that impact our industry, our income, and our lives. Our business world is changing so fast that trends are impossible to predict from history. How do we survive, much less thrive? Virtually all IOBA members are small businesses, dependent on commerce with unseen customers, most of whom we have never met. We depend on these strangers to pay us in advance for books, depending u

In the beginning, there was AB Bookman’s Weekly. For years the bookselling and buying community awaited its weekly arrival and flipped through the pages of Books for Sale and Books Wanted advertisements and sent off quote cards and phoned or mailed in their orders. Many a bookseller’s eyesight was ruined by poring over the tiny print by the flickering candle light. And then Interloc came along and the world started to change. Interloc was an automated tool for booksellers t

This compilation of four articles was reprinted from: Sell It!, edited and published by Paul Lang Online Fraud Prevention (Part 1) Just How Serious is Online Fraud? by Paul Lang As promised, this month I’m going to be focusing on online fraud.However, whereas most articles on this subject deal with merchants defrauding customers, I intend focusing on the problem of customersdefrauding merchants, particularly through the fraudulent use of credit cards online. Later in the ser

Stop Writing Descriptions and Write Ads Here’s a suggestion for all booksellers. Search for some of your own books on your listing site of choice. Look at your book in a field of 15 or 20 others and ask yourself some questions. • Does your listing stand out? • Would you want to buy your copy? • Would you even notice your copy? This page of book listings is a page of advertisements, and those other 15 or 20 books are your competition. You will sell more books if your ad stan

Truth is beauty, saith the poet. In order to profit as a bookseller (and indeed, as a human being) it is well to take this precept to heart. For truth inevitably leads us not only to beauty but also, as we will attempt to show in the following paragraphs, to peace and prosperity. In this article we will give a number of ways to improve your book descriptions, most specifically with reference to online auctions of books, in order to whet the appetite (and tempt open the pocket

The Importance of Dust Jackets Dust jackets (or dustwrappers) were used occasionally from the middle of the 19th century. They became more common in the last few decades of that century and books from that period in jackets are collected regardless of the printing/edition or subject matter. Of course, a rare or scarce collectible book in a jacket increases the book’s value by multiples. The point is that as we move into the 21st century the older jackets have become much more