John Howell for Books, Los Angeles, CA

What is the name of your business and when was it started?

John Howell for Books started on January 1, 2005.

Where are you located?

Los Angeles, California. We live in a National Historical Landmark Property called the Village Green. If one were traveling West on the 10 Freeway from downtown, one would take the La Brea South Exit. East of Culver City and North of Baldwin Hills. People living Downtown, Hollywood, or points north and east think of the area as “On the way to LAX.”

Size of stock?

Generally speaking, my on-line listings hover in the 950 to 1,100 range. Currently I do not have my own web-site, so 900 are probably tired listings languishing on Amazon, ABE, Alibris, and the like. This of course does not take into account the thousands of books languishing in storage, which anyone in the So Cal area who would like to pick up some raw inventory on the cheap are welcome to inquire about.

When did you join IOBA?

Early 2010. I had known about it for about a year or two before I applied. It has been a very positive experience because for the previous few years I had been pretty much focusing on getting my on-line operations going and running smoothly, but having wider contacts in the trade is very important and productive.

What is your professional background? How did you come to the book business?

I have degrees in History from California State University, Fullerton and UCLA. European Church History and US Colonial History, respectively. When it became apparent in the early 1990s that I would be an ABD (all but the dissertation), I started casting about for work. My first job was with Barnes and Noble. My second job was for an ABAA rare book dealer, writing catalogs. That evolved into an 8-year gig, and when it was over I began buying and selling books on my own account.

Describe your business. For example, do you have any specialties? Employees/partners? Open shop? By appt.?

Basically, I work out of my home, which is a small (under 1,000 square foot apartment converted into a condominium complex in the 1970s) so currently no partners or employees. I have been working with California fine press materials, and miniature books; my first printed catalog, May 2011, included 113 items issued by the Book Club of California. Because this type of material is not a particularly hot seller on the third party venues I have been selling through, I have been doing more book fairs. I will be exhibiting at the LA Printer’s Fair on October 1st and then one week later at the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair on October 8th and 9th.

Tell us about an interesting item you currently have in stock.

Currently I have a presentation copy of Victorien Sardou and Emile de Najac’s Divorcons! Comedie en Trois Actes, Paris, 1883. Sardou was an important writer for the French stage in the late nineteenth century. This play was a send-up of French divorce laws which were then under revision. The copy I have was one of 30 copies printed on Holland paper, but is unique since it is illustrated by hand with watercolors throughout the text. Even the parchment-covered boards are illustrated by hand.

What was your best find as a book dealer? How and where did you come across it?

Perhaps my best find as a book dealer was an edition of William Blake’s Poetical Sketches published in London by the Vale Press in 1899 on vellum. Of a total edition of 210 copies, there were only 8 printed on vellum; the copy I had was bound by the Dove’s Bindery. This was one of a lot of books I purchased from an estate sale in Los Angeles. Also among the books was a first edition of Robert Browning’s The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, London, 1877, with a manuscript letter signed by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I’m still weeding through this collection, but perhaps I have already found the highlights.

What are the best and worst aspects of selling online?

I used to think that the worst aspect of selling online were the commissions paid to online venues like Amazon and ABE, and a concurrent loss of autonomy to the same players. But, it takes time to build up a clientele that one can call one’s own. As I branch out and make more contacts within the trade, I am finding that the 15% to the online venues feels comfortable compared to the 20% expected by colleagues. But one has to keep these things in perspective; since it has long been the case that most book sellers make most of their sales to other book sellers, and one needs to keep churning one’s inventory, the challenge for me right now is merely maintaining the cash flow to sustain myself in the trade.

Biggest challenge currently facing the trade?

I’m not sure I am able to speak for “the trade” as a whole, but I suspect that a challenge all used book sellers are facing has to do with new media, online and electronic texts of varying stripes, and the transition we are in with the world wide web becoming an ever growing part of peoples lives and more and more of the cultural heritage being available electronically. I’m just an observer. I have no idea how and if the ball will ever come to rest. But it’s fun to watch!

DeWayne and Joan White, White Unicorn Books, Dallas, TX

Hi, Folks! We are White Unicorn Books. We are DeWayne (De) and Joan White of Dallas, Texas. We married in 1995 but we had know each other all our lives. De brought a mother and 20,000 books into the marriage. I brought a mother, a couple of sisters, five children, many grandchildren, many, many great grandchildren, and several thousand other relatives De had not seen in a long time. My favorite tale is when we sent out our wedding invitations. We used a picture of us when we were 6 years old. One of my granddaughters said “How did they get the picture to look like both of you?” I said “It is us – that is a picture of us when we were 6 years old.” She said “Yes, but how did they get the picture to look like both of you?”

We started our bookstore in November, 2001. Because of 9/11 I took an early retirement and decided to start trying to sell the duplicates in De’s collection of 40 years – with his permission, of course. We had about 20,000 books to start. I thought that would last, like forever. I had no idea how fast you can go through books.

De has a fine collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy. So my first exposure to book history is in the SF&F field and I must say I fell in love with them immediately. The art work is so exciting. No other genre has such exciting art work. I soon learned that the dust jacket or the paperback covers are worth nearly as much as the book. Frank Frazetta, Virgil Finlay, Frank Utpatel, Jeff Jones, Michael Mariano, Stephen Fabian, Darrell Sweet, Paul Bacon and, of course, The Brothers Hildebrandt are but a few of my favorites.

We like to think of ourselves as one of the types of used book stores we visited and corresponded with when we were younger. In that day and time, there really was no question about who was responsible for the book(s) after it left the dealer and before it got to the customer. The dealer was – period! Insurance? If the book were really hard to replace, the dealer might insure the book. But the customer? Never. Well, I should never say never. If the customer wanted the book insured, he would generally mention it in the letter – yes, this was before the days of the Internet, but we started young. The dealer and customer might split the cost or the dealer might decide to insure it anyway as a service to the customer.

In the “old” days, sometimes a customer was disappointed in the book after they received it. Again, no questions by the dealer, the dealer took it back and refunded the customers money. If the dealer was at fault, say he had inadvertently mis-described the book, he also paid postage both ways. Otherwise the customer paid postage both ways. In fact, some books were just sent on approval. Now isn’t that a strange concept.

We joined the IOBA pretty darn soon after it started. It is a great organization. We have been committee members for a number of years. We proudly display the IOBA logo on our site and in our email tags.

When we first started our greatest asset was De’s computer experience. I had down the basics – like typing, and getting around on the web – but he has written computer code for many a year. So when he retired in 2005 he started really helping with all the computer stuff. Like creating a web-site, adding pages and pages, teaching me all the bells and whistles of BookTrakker, etc., etc., etc.

We now have 4 storage units full of books and approximately 9,000 currently on line. Our only problem is getting more books listed. My sister was doing a superb job of listing books and we were really moving along but she cannot list anymore and we are falling far behind in that department.

Like most on-line booksellers we have to really watch sitting at the computer for long periods of time. It is amazing that suddenly the day is gone and we have been there all day long. So we have bought the Wii games. That way we can break for a game or two of bowling or tennis every few hours. Its not as much exercise as the ‘real’ thing but it really is a very good exercise program and lots of fun so the exercise does not seem like work.

When you get some time, come on over and cruise around our web-site. Look over on the left side bar or at our Mini Site Map: whiteunicornbooks.com

If you like what you see, lets us know. You might even encourage De to start writing again, and add even more pages.

DeWayne and Joan White, White Unicorn Books info@WhiteUnicornBooks.com White Unicorn 323 South Montclair Avenue Dallas, TX 75208

Terry Gibbs, Gibbs Books, Williamsville, NY

I started as a book dealer quite by accident back in the 1980s. As a collector of photography and other interesting item from Automobiles (Thunderbirds) to you name it I’ve have collected it. I have always had a passion for photography starting at an early age taking photos of what I thought was a good shot ( then finding out later it wasn’t) I don’t stand behind the camera anymore. I’ve been a collector of photography and art starting full force around 1988.

Now getting back to book dealing, I needed to fine more information on what and who I was collecting so I started buying reference books on the arts. One day I got a call from a photographer that wanted to sell off all his books and cameras, I walked into over three hundred books some technical most monographic high end editions, that day I bought all the guy had. The best way to buy book collections is to make the offer and buy it all at one time good and bad together. After that I was getting calls from other photographers, artist, lawyers for deceased book collector/dealer estates and retiring university professors. This feed my photographic and Art Collections fine but soon I had doubles edition and books that I didn’t need so I started selling books.

Then in 1997 I went on-line as a book dealer selling out of print and new photography and art books. Back then all you had to do was list it and it sold with in days, now with so many sellers and listing sites you have to be good at what you do and very patient to sell at the right price.

Something about myself , I’m a master carpenter by trade and owner of a wholesale hardware company that specializes in windows parts and insulated window glass that we sell to Housing Authorities, Commercial & Apartment companies, State and Federal properties. I no longer physically build building only doing consulting in the building energy (windows) field. I’m married to Marci my wife of 37 years. Marci is a professional photographer and artist we have one son.

I’m always available for question on photography if I can help please email me at Terry@GibbsBooks.com and please go to my web site at : www.GibbsBooks.com and take a look . If you are an photographic artist please send over your work I like to show other people’s photo art work.

Terry Gibbs

info@GibbsBooks.com T.A.Gibbs Books PO  Box 102 Williamsville, NY 14231-0102