IOBA Standard summer issue
I just got around to checking out the summer 2005 issue of the IOBA Standard, a wonderful magazine rooted in our online bookselling community.
Among the contents, I particularly recommend Richard Weatherford’s “Lessons Learned - Life in the Book Business”, which describes how any why he moved into antiquarian bookselling, and the role of high-end bookselling in the current market. As he writes:
As we say, “rare books are getting scarcer and scarcer.” When demand is greater than supply, the seller sets the price and usually gets it. That is why selling scarce books is so attractive. People can spend a great deal of time buying, cataloging, shipping, and accounting for cheap books, all for very little profit. Scarce books demand more research, careful cataloging, and secure packaging for shipping, yet frequently are quite profitable because the seller who handles them has a customer who wants or needs a copy and is willing to pay for it because she or he can not find it anyplace else.
Dick is, of course, the founder of Interloc, and one of the pioneers of our young online bookselling industry. I’ve always enjoyed his perspective on the industry. Also of interest is his keynote speech at the 2002 summer Colorado Book Seminar, where he discusses his career and changes in the world of used bookselling in some length.
[Now Reading: The Plot Against America by Philip Roth]