BookFinder.com Journal

The future of rare bookselling in not in question

Reading the blogs and newsletters of the book trade can be a bit depressing at times.  Not a week goes by without someone bemoaning the death of the industry and the absolute futility of it all.  It is no secret that a very large number of booksellers, especially of the rare and collectible ilk, are on the older end of the baby boom; and that many (but not all) seem to think that somewhere along the line everything went terribly wrong in raising the next generation. 

To this I have two comments.  First, doesn't that sounds oh so similar to what the parents of the boomers themselves may have said around the time of the Summer of Love? Second, I think the rare and collectible book trade will be just fine.  For full disclosure I'm 30 years old and am the son of a baby boomer myself, so feel free to take my opinion with as many grains of salt as you see fit.   

Rare books are expensive, even scarce books take a certain amount of patience to find and acquire.  Rome was not built in a day, and neither was a quality book collection.  Young adults and youth today care just as much about the written word and this website could even be the lynchpin of the argument.  BookFinder.com was created in 1997 by a young 19-year-old college student named Anirvan because he was trying to complete his Doonesbury collection.  Just because he didn't pick up a copy of the AB Bookman didn't make him any less of a collector.

This is why I am so happy to see latest series from The Fine Books Blog has where they are interviewing young folks in the book industry.  Here you can read an interview with 22-year-old Ashley Loga who has embarked on a career in the rare book trade after attending the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar.  Her view on the future of the rare book trade pretty much matches mine.

Being only 22, I am perhaps one of the youngest ones currently in the trade.  Personally, I am tired of this defeatist attitude.  I frequently come across people bemoaning the death of the business on the list-serves.  This frustrates me greatly.   Having a defeatist attitude only hinders the business and does not help it grow at all.  Everyone says that people my age do not collect but this is untrue.  I know quite a few people under the age of 30 who collect books and take pride in their collections.  I think this view partially comes from a disconnect with the older age group and the younger age group.  And partially from the fact that people my age do not have the funds to buy books on the higher end of prices.  Book fair advertisements need to not only target the older crowd through newspaper advertisements but also find new ways to target people in their 20s and 30s.  The customers' desires are merely shifting: the business is not dying.

You can read the whole article here. What"s your feeling?

Perceived value of ebooks decreasing?

Reading a Moby Lives article this morning (fantastic blog BTW) and they posted two surveys taken by author Nathan Bransford where he asked people what they thought an ebook should cost if the hardcover retailed at $25.

He ran the first survey on June 14 2010:

And then ran the exact same survey again on February 2, 2011:

The polls are entirely unscientific but it appears that all the $9.99 pricing pushes that have been going on for the past year or two are really leaving their mark. 

Happy 10th Birthday ChrisLands

One of our bookselling partners, ChrisLands, is having a birthday this month. It has been ten years since they opened up shop as tool for independent booksellers to set up their own e-commerce websites (ie: sites which can take credit card details and sell online).  James, the site's creator, just sent us a note mentioning that as part of their celebration they are having a special offer for booksellers

In their 10 years, ChrisLands established themselves as a well-respected member of the online bookselling community.  Well known for understanding the needs of independent booksellers, they continue developing their base product, updating old features, and adding new features based entirely on booksellers’ needs.

As their birthday gift to you and to celebrate 10 years in business, ChrisLands has a special birthday sign-up offer of 50% off the signup fee for new stores from now until June 30^th, 2011. Don’t miss this opportunity to get your own online bookstore.  Visit ChrisLands.com to learn more about the features and benefits of this company and to see examples of great ChrisLands sites.

At BookFinder.com we think it's great because every time a bookseller opens a ChrisLands account it means that there are more interesting books available online for all of us to find when we need or want them, and remember this is another good way to make your books searchable by BookFinder.com if they are not already.

[Now Reading: Indignation by Philip Roth]

What is the value of book?

How much do you think a good story is worth?  I don't mean a book necessarily since books can be collectible and that's not what I am getting at here, but how much do you think a novel length story is worth?

When deciding this you might compare the value of the read vs. other entertainments such as the cost of a movie rental? The price of a video game? The cost of a newspaper or magazine? The drop in fee for a local gym or that knitting class at the community center?  For me the value varies wildly depending on how much I enjoy (or expect to enjoy) the book. 

With that in mind I have been thinking about the current "race to the bottom" debate in e-publishing that has been raging on the blogosphere. For those of you who are unaware it essentially boils down (in an inelegant way) to publishers claiming that self published authors are going to ruin publishing by offering eBooks at rock bottom prices; while the self-published authors are claiming that large publishing houses are bloated profiteers.

From the publishers side: two years ago I posted a rough breakdown of what the costs of printing a book might be for a traditional publisher.  Based on these figures you get closer to understanding the $9.99 price point that publishers seem to be trying to stick with for an ebook.  Shave a little here and there and then knock off the additional costs associated with a physical book and you are close to that figure.  Everyone takes a bit of a hit in total values but I can see where they are coming from.

On the other hand it's now very common to see self published ebooks for sale for as little as $0.99-$2.99. You may also see these self published authors explaining that they are in fact making money at this price.  So why do the publishers need to charge more?

Now that authors can self publish without having to front the serious amounts of cash to physically print their books they are less likely to need a publisher to bankroll the project.  Couple this with the fact that an author can now act as or hire a publicist and designer on a piece meal basis to cover most of the basic marketing needed for a book launch and you can see why some mid and backlist authors choose to self publish.

I am making the suggestion that now a publishers greatest value is not to the average author but to the reader.  Publishers do help separate the wheat from the chaff. By helping readers find quality writers they can save them from that feeling of wanting those last few hours back.

I am willing to pay a bit more to know that the novel I am about to read is at least going to be well written and hopefully interesting but exactly how much more I am willing to pay for that is what publishers need to figure out.  I kind of wish I could tell them.

City of Boston to sell entire contents of print shop

I just found out via Boing Boing that the city of Boston has shut down it's 78 year old print shop in a cost cutting effort and is now auctioning off its equipment in 200 lots.  The auction is being held on Feb 24 at 11AM estern and will be simultaneously conducted in the factory at 174 North St. as well as digitally.

There is all sorts of great old printing gear so I suggest any pamphleteers, zinesters, and print shops take a gander at the wares on offer.  In the Boston Globe they described an old-fashioned platen press with a hand lever and foot pedal and a Linotype machines that stand 6 1/2 feet tall as two of the pieces.

[Now Reading: Old Mans War by John Scalzi]

 

Are Books Only A Commodity?

There was a really interesting article in Slate this week.  In it a used bookseller explains how he uses a barcode scanner to assess the value of books, and how he really doesn’t feel very good about it despite making a decent living. 

I've had just one confrontation while doing my job, with an elderly man in a suburb. We were in the library's book-sale room when I overheard him telling his friend that the two of them were surrounded by a-------—that is, the people scanning. "It's a business," I said, but I felt all locked up and couldn't bear to turn and say it to his face. "This is a library!" he spat. "You don't work here—you don't work at the library!" He told me that he had 10,000 books in his house, and that he'd read them all. A dozen other people kept scanning silently. Later on, in the parking lot, I got some empathy from my comrades, but they quickly started to speak about their work with the same hunching defensiveness I had put on with my challenger.

The bibliophile bookseller, and the various other species of pickers and flippers of secondhand merchandise, would never be reproached like this and could never be made to feel bad in this way. Record geeks are, obviously, crazy music fans. The dealer in used designer clothes or antique housewares, when he considers a piece, can evaluate its craftsmanship and beauty with the same gaze he uses to appraise it. But the aesthetic value of a book—its literary merit—doesn't have anything to do with its physical condition.

It's very interesting to me to see how the business of culture plays out. If someone were selling bags of potatoes, digital PDAs, or blank t-shirts and was using a scanner to determine the going price for each item no one would pay them any attention but because that is just how business is run.  But anything that could have cultural significance seems to be subject to a different set of rules.

For many years I was quite involved in my cities local music scene, I helped put together concerts and got to know many local promoters.  There seemed to be this feeling that when someone got particularly successful or only operated in genres which were widely popular they were somehow evil or were stealing from the community in some way.  It was almost as if a promoter would use a loss as a badge of honour, or a way to say "see I still care about the music too."

Are books a commodity like a sack of potatoes or are books a culturally valuable vessel worth more than the sum of their parts?  The answer is that it is both.  The kind of books which this seller is offering would have no place on the shelves of an ILAB bookstore, and the volume seller wouldn’t have the time to properly describe a rare out-of-print cookbook so that an enthusiast would find use in the listing.  Broad based margin sellers and niche specialists can both survive.  Both serve a purpose and we shouldn’t look down at either of them.

 

Year over year decline in Swords and Magic on fantasy book covers

Orbit Books reports a 25% decrease in Swords and a 20% decrease in "Glowy Magic" on fantasy book covers.  I think this spells danger for the genre! 

This is the best book news story of the week, I don't care that it's only Monday, nothing will top this.

Free Book Repair Training Manual

I just found this and thought that some beginner booksellers or collectors might find this of use.  The Alaska State Library published a manual on book repair.  It is an e-book and can be downloaded for free from the Alaska State Library site.  It also appears that you may print it out for your own use as well as long as you are not selling it.

Hopefully this can be useful to some of our readers.

Google Book Settlement on hold

It's been hard to keep up with what's happening with the Google Book's settlement, but US Department of Justice recommending against the deal might have been the straw that breaks the camel's back. There is now a new deal in the works.

How to repair old books

I was reading though For The Love Of Books (the Blog for Biblio) the other day and they had a great article on cleaning and repairing ex-library books.  Which, as they mention, is a great skill to have when you find books that are neat or interesting but don't necessarily have a great monetary value.  The day I find an ex-library Hemingway first I’m taking it straight to a specialist but in the mean time I shall pay heed to these valuable tips:

Never forget that the more effective the cleaner, the more abrasive it can be, and the wearier the book, the more it must be spared abrasive cleaning methods. Start with the usual soft cloth, then move on as needed to the Artgum eraser and other famous brand names in the field.

If you're determined to remove a library pocket, you can try such products as un-du Label and Tape Remover, followed by a minute or two of low heat from a hairdryer. The multipurpose Document Cleaning Pad can help in removing residue.

Rehabilitate enough library books, and you'll become intimately acquainted with rubber cement. To cope with its removal, try a long-lasting crepe rubber eraser called Pik-Up, which works on many other adhesives, too.

Then they go on to describe some products and tricks for restoring dust jackets...

If you want more information on book care AbeBooks has an interview with Brodart Book Supplies and Littera Scripta also has a pretty good summary on book care.

If any of our readers have done any book restorations themselves and have before and after photos I would be most interested in seeing what an armature restoration job can accomplish.

(edit) - The book Helen suggested, in her comment below, is Book Repair for Booksellers by J. Godsey, in case any of you were looking for it.

[Now reading: Enders Game by Orson Scott Card]