IOBA Members Talk Tariffs with The Washington Post

Independent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA) members have been closely monitoring the impacts of the U.S. tariffs since they were first announced. With more than 370 members worldwide, IOBA is ideally suited to understand how these rules affect bookselling businesses, particularly regarding the shipping of books between countries. 

There have been ongoing discussions on our private members-only Discuss list, and shared news stories drew the attention of The Washington Post, resulting in coverage in the newspaper’s Book Club Newsletter by columnist Ron Charles, with two IOBA members being quoted in the piece. 

Richard Erdmann, owner of Mare Booksellers in Dover, New Hampshire, discussed some of the issues:

Richard Erdmann, vice president of the Independent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA), tells me he’s been hearing of problems from members in the U.S. and abroad. Even when dealers correctly label a package as informational material, “the shipping companies are erring on the side of caution and labeling it as something other than just a book” — and tacking on extra charges.

“Books — especially higher-end books — there’s a low margin on those,” he says. “An extra 20 percent onto what you expected to pay for that book can be a killer for trying to acquire inventory. Some of our sellers in the U.S. are extremely worried these tariffs could mean the end of their small businesses.”

Erdmann says his association is concerned that efforts to comply with new U.S. tariff rules could result in E.U. shippers charging ruinous flat fees, such as $80 for a single $10 book.

Sylvia Petras, a current IOBA Board Member-at-Large, added her perspective:

Sylvia Petras, owner of Leaf and Stone Books in Toronto, tried to use the new declaration form, which requires the address, phone number and Zip code of the manufacturer. “That’s really great in the used book market,” she says. She asked her fellow booksellers, “Anyone happen to have the email address, contact name and Tax ID number for one Aldus Manutius?” (Probably not. Ever since the Italian printer died in 1515, he’s been notoriously slow with paperwork.)

The comments above are excerpted with permission, but you can read the full Washington Post article here. IOBA leadership and our members will continue to track and share developments on this and a multitude of other topics through our private Discuss list, and other channels. 

Additional Links:

A statement regarding tariffs and their impact has been released by the Independent Online Booksellers Association. IOBA is a U.S. based, nonprofit, International trade organization benefiting member booksellers. The statement can be read on the IOBA.org website link: https://www.ioba.org/post/an-open-letter-about-book-tariffs

Richard Erdman's IOBA Link is: IOBA Member Directory

Sylvia Petras's IOBA Link is: IOBA Member Directory

From the Incoming IOBA President – Joan White

Hello!

My name is Joan White. My husband, DeWayne (De), and I own White Unicorn Books. We have been IOBA members since 2002. We both have a strong commitment to IOBA and to the standards of IOBA. We have enjoyed the benefits of being a member and being active in the IOBA for many years.

First, my reaction to becoming IOBA President. I was surprised, delighted and terrified! Surprised, because I had never run for an IOBA office. Delighted, because I have ambitious goals in mind for this association I love. Terrified, because there’s a lot of work ahead.

In the time since the end of the election the support I have received is awesome. The Officers, MALs, Committee Chairs and fellow members have put themselves forward and we are on our way to accomplishing some of our goals.

We have a good foundation to work from, and we will continue the efforts started by the previous administration. One of the items I have heard loud and clear is the Board and Committees need better communication with the membership on what is being proposed and accomplished.

The best news is that The Standard has returned!

Another project underway is the restructure of the various IOBA Committee pages on the IOBA web-site (http://www.ioba.org ). Each committee will have their own page, and can report on goals and accomplishments. Hopefully, this will get other members excited about the changes and improvements and they will volunteer to help.

There is a new IOBA committee comin’ to town – so new it is in the process of choosing a name. This will be a ‘meet and greet’ committee, but also a ‘help and assist’ committee. The plan is, just to mention a few things, to welcome new members and ‘show them around’, helping with setting up passwords, navigating around the IOBA web-site, IOBA Discuss, IOBA Tradebooks, applying for a scholarship, and listing their books on the IOBA website. But the committee is not just to assist new members; we plan for it to be a resource for existing members wanting to know more about their benefits and how they can contribute to IOBA.

Under the leadership of our Vice President, Heidi Congalton, we plan a campaign to encourage more applicants to apply for the IOBA scholarships to CABS, YABS and the Rare Book School seminars. Members can truly learn how to better themselves as booksellers and increase profits for their business. There is available an immense wealth of knowledge – just sitting there waiting for you. These scholarships are available to any current IOBA member in good standing, excluding members of the Scholarship Committee and current Officers.

Abe is interested in promoting the listings of books offered by members of IOBA, and would like more IOBAns to list there. They will be creating a special landing page that will search IOBA sellers only, a page that will occasionally be prominently featured on their website. To encourage more IOBA members to try AbeBooks, they will waive the monthly fees for 3 months for IOBA members who do not currently list there and have not for at least 6 months.

This should be a win/win/win situation – a win for IOBA in that it will increase sales for IOBA members who list on Abe and increase the visibility of IOBA overall, a win for AbeBooks since it will help them retain and recruit sellers who are committed to a Code of Ethics and to accurate descriptions, careful packing and good customer service, and a win for buyers will be able to buy in confidence from IOBA sellers.

We hope that this will only be the first step in working more closely with AbeBooks, to address the concerns our sellers have about the site and concerns that buyers might have.

And with the many international members that are joining the IOBA we must be aware of our worldwide membership needs. For example, the recent talks with ABEbooks.com described above could possibly be extended to include ABEbooks.uk, ABEbooks.au, etc. We could also pursue agreements with other venues such as Alibris, Antiqbooks and Biblio. An IOBA-specific landing page at the various venues should help drive business to IOBA members.

With the help of all our members we will endeavor to strengthen the commitment to traditional bookseller ethics and standards, while embracing and staying ahead of the various new technologies.

Joan White IOBA President White Unicorn Books Dallas, Texas

Books Are Still Alive and Well

In recent years, the online bookseller forums have been buzzing with the message that books are dead (or dying at least), that e-books will make printed books obsolete, and that no one is reading anyhow! Before giving in to the doomsayers, try a change in perspective – look up from your computer screen and check out some events in the real world.

This spring we attended two book festivals – the long running Los Angeles Times Book Festival on the University of Southern California campus in April (founded in 1996) and the Tucson Book Festival on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Both festivals are free and feature hundreds of events, mostly related to books in some way. These include hundreds of authors appearing in panels, talks and readings … and signing their books. But what makes these festivals so special are the attendees, with over 100,000 in Tucson (only in its fourth year, but attendance has gone up each year) and 150,000 in Los Angeles. When the LA festival moved from UCLA to USC a few years ago, attendance went down a bit, but this year it was back up again. Unlike traditional book fairs, the attendees at these festivals are young – not just thousands of families with their children, but lots and lots of young adults coming to listen to or meet their favorite authors. There was a woman with her 13 year old daughter in Tucson who wanted to thank Diana Gabaldon for the books they both enjoyed reading so much, and the group of teenagers in Los Angeles who wanted to say hello to Victor Villasenor. The lines for Judy Blume, R. L Stine, Cornelia Funke, and Lemony Snicket had hundreds of kids in them. These are wonderful vibrant events, free and full of variety. Even the often-long lines have a positive side to them, as they give you a chance to chat with other booklovers (and booksellers).

Traveling and visiting bookstores can also be rewarding. In the week we spent on the road after Tucson, the two bookstores where we found the most books to buy were both in small towns – one a very small town. Both had new owners, with one in her first weekend as the owner. Both stores had been owned by old-fashioned sellers who believed in packing in as many books as possible, and never getting rid of any. We didn’t have enough time to really check everything out, as books were double-shelved and piled on the floor. But we had fun chatting with the new owners and found enough interesting stuff to make the stops worthwhile.

In between Tucson and Los Angeles, we exhibited at the Sacramento Spring Book Fair. The manager of this fair advertises on television and the local NPR station. As a result, we always have a few people in our booth who are attending their first book fair ever. They often did not even realize that book fairs existed!

Our spring events ended with the Nebula Awards weekend in San Jose. This is a venue mostly for writers, but some events were open to the public, including an evening of reading and questions and answers by two Grand Masters: Gene Wolfe, who was just receiving this honor, and Connie Willis. There was a Kindle at this event – Gene used one for his reading (although as a first-time user, he needed some quick instructions) – but there were also hundreds of real books being signed.

But for just plain fun – and optimism about the future of reading and books – go to a children’s bookstore when an author is appearing. We went to just such an event this spring with Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen, and it was priceless. The authors were very funny, but the children upstaged them with their spontaneous comments from the floor! The adults had as much fun as the children – and the excitement that revolves around book events like this can go a long way to offsetting the doldrums of summer.