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The Membership Committee is seeking those who are interested in developing our member categories, and our screening of new members. This years membership drive will start on May 1, 2001. If you have any ideas to help it become a success please join us. Membership will also be looking for new benefits, services and programs. Please join and share your ideas. Thank you for your consideration, Sally Hollingsworth Vice President Interim Membership Chair Finance Committee Report T

Table of Contents From the President Book Selling on the Internet: Record Keeping Customer Service An Informal & Historical Intro to Book Cases A Conversation with Dick Weatherford of Alibris The Pros and Cons of Using Abbreviations So You Want a Website Digital Photography for Booksellers

Reminders In Life About ten years ago, now, in December, I sat with my parents watching the CNN coverage of the Granada military action. This is significant only because at the time I was a ten year veteran in the military, working Special Operations, and those units were my own, those guys in BDUs running around, the gunship crews, they were all friends of mine and I was sitting home recovering from successful surgery to remove an ovarian tumor instead of working on the miss

In the US, if IRS comes calling, you can never have too many business records. I would think that this same rule would apply to all countries. When Allen and I were audited a number of years ago, our accountant’s advice was to drown them in paper. In other words, have documentation for anything they had a question about. Her words saved us $45,000. We were flagged for audit because we closed our open shop and began to operate from our home. In order to be able to have room to

Standard abbreviations have always been used by booksellers to describe out-of-print books. The question is, do we continue using the same standard abbreviations on the internet? The internet has certainly changed the way we do business, and as the internet drives prices to unrealistic highs in some cases, and reaches the general public, it may be useful to have a reference one can turn to to minimize the risk of error. In addition to raising prices, some prices are now lower

The first question should be “do you need a website at all?” And the answer, truthfully, is no. You can get along quite well without one. Will it help you sell books? Yes. Especially if you have a very specialized inventory. But you’ll have to weigh the costs carefully. Not just the monetary costs, but the amount of time you’ll spend building it (or communicating with your designer), and the time spent maintaining it. There are a number of ways to set up a website. You can us

Excellent customer service is the biggest and least expensive favor you can do yourself and your business. To stay viable, any business depends on both new customers and on repeat customers. As big as the Internet is, you will keep running into the same people/customers over and over. The old adage that “the customer is always right” isn’t correct, of course, but it should be your guiding light in dealing with your customers. Even if you have a situation where you must disagr

by Jim Rock, Parnassus on the Net Artist’s rendering of the Ark of the Covenant Early portable case for your basic binding-contract in book or scroll form.1 Owners, authors, couriers, and caretakers have endeavored to encase documents containing the written word in protective and decorative cases almost since the advent of writing itself. In the period since the invention of the movable metal type printing press in the 15th century and even earlier in post Roman Empire Europe