BookFinder.com Journal

What do you call a group of booksellers?

It's Friday, so here is something fun.

Sheppard's Confidential, a really great newsletter for booksellers out of the UK, has taken suggestions for a new collective noun for book dealers. (working off the same concept as a murder of crows or troop of gorillas).  They came up with the following:

A whinge of bookdealers (contributed by someone who wishes to remain anonymous!)
A quire of booksellers (C.S. Griffin, DoolinDinghy Books)
A ream of booksellers (C.S. Griffin, DoolinDinghy Books)
A case of bookdealers (Pierce Roche, Dunphail, Moray, Scotland)
A ring of bookdealers (Pierce Roche, Dunphail, Moray, Scotland)
A commission of bookdealers (Pierce Roche, Dunphail, Moray, Scotland)
A mildew of used booksellers? (Ken Brinnick, New Gloucester, ME USA)
A doze of booksellers (John Underwood - judging by the number fall asleep at fairs!)
A shuffle of bookdealers, (Joanne, Proseworthy Collectable Books, Cape Town)
A chapter of bookdealers, (Joanne, Proseworthy Collectable Books, Cape Town)
An eccentricity of bookdealers (Pierce Roche, Dunphail, Moray, Scotland)
A madness of bookdealers (Pierce Roche, Dunphail, Moray, Scotland)
A reduction of bookdealers (Pierce Roche, Dunphail, Moray, Scotland)

At first I was thinking it should be "a shelf of bookdealers" but after reading this "chapter" is definatly the way to go... "a chapter of bookdealers".

Recomended retail price of books

The Bookseller has been reporting that Bloomsbury has removed the recommended retail price from several of its backlist titles, causing a small uproar among indie booksellers who are afraid that in removing the cover price customers will think they are being overcharged by the bookstore.  Because lets face it books can be expensive, and the look even more expensive when the supermarket down the street sells the same book at a deep discount to lure customers in to buy cheese.

Booksellers interviewed in the article explain that the cover price is their last wall of defense when explaining to a customer that their shop is not over charging but that they simply cannot afford to discount as deeply as a chain store because they order less books and receive a smaller discount.  For this I feel for the booksellers.

However I also feel for the publishers.  Books in the mid to backlist can sit for months (years?) before a print run completely sells and publishers say that the costs they face over the lifespan of the edition vary too dramatically to continue posting cover prices.   With inflation projected to increase due to stimulus spending and currency's fluctuating several percent in a month I cannot really blame them for not printing these increasingly variable prices on the jacket covers.

Living in Canada cover prices have been an incredibly sore spot for decades now because we see both the Canadian and US prices listed on our books and it never matches the exchange rate.  At times I have paid  20-30% more than Americans for books even after exchange as been taken into account, and it can be a bitter pill to swallow.  At at time last year the Canadian dollar ended up being worth more than the greenback which forced publishers and retailers to sell books in Canada at the US cover price. These dramatic swings give good reason to eliminate the cover price.

I wonder what percentage of customers realize when an item is being priced as a loss leader, and when it is just a differentiation of markup.

In this whole PR battle it will be interesting to see who ends up facing customer complaints over price, and if any other publishers follow Bloomsburys action.  What do you think?  Let us know if your a bookseller or a customer and tell us if you think this matters?

Notes from all over

I’ve been waiting to do a big dump of links I’ve been enjoying…

Used books up, new books down?

• “Bargain Hunting for Books, and Feeling Sheepish About It” (New York Times)
• “Second-hand book sales up” (London Telepgraph)

Library consortium OCLC changes policies, draws ire:

• “Stealing Your Library: The OCLC Powergrab” (Aaron from Open Library)
• “Why libraries must reject the OCLC Policy (part 1)” (Tim from LibraryThing)
• OCLC policy change overview (Code4Lib)

Bay Area indie bookstores, dead and alive:

• Stacey’s Bookstore in San Francisco shutting down
• But wait, not every Bay Area indie is dying!

Book rental in the news:

• Chegg raises $25 million round from Kleiner, others
• Chegg CEO interview

Yay, reading:

• New NEA study shows US reading rates on the rise
• Britons think reading is sexy

More notes from all over:

• Barnes & Noble does mild cutbacks
• Slate calls BookFinder.com “the Google of dead books”
• Ebook pricing arguments

Posted by Anirvan

Cody's closing for good

Ugh. I just saw this:

“After 52 years, Cody’s Books will shut its doors effective June 20, 2008. The Berkeley bookstore has been a beacon to readers and writers throughout the nation and across the world. Founded by Fred and Pat Cody in 1956, Cody’s has been a Berkeley institution and a pioneer in the book business, helping to establish such innovations as quality paperbacks and in-store author readings. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Cody’s was a landmark of the Free Speech movement and was a home away from home for innumerable authors, poets and readers.”

I’ve had it with this damned emotional roller coaster:

• Cody’s Books in in Berkeley, California, used to be my favorite bookstore. They shut down their flagship Telegraph store in May 2006. I was very deeply affected.
• They shut down their downtown San Francisco store in 2007, eighteen months after they opened it, leaving the out-of-the-way 4th Street location as the only remaining Cody’s store. I was disappointed, but learned to deal, still making it out to readings when I could.
• This March, I was worried when I started hearing rumors that Cody’s was being forced out of their 4th Street location; they were true, but Cody’s bounced back, moving into a beautiful location in downtown Berkeley. I was delighted; Cody’s was back home again, and all was well with the world.
• And now this, the final closure of the store mere weeks after they moved into their new downtown digs.

I have compassion fatigue. I’m emotionally exhausted, sick and tired of being sick and tired about this bookstore I used to love. Goodbye, Cody’s. I’ll miss you like crazy. Please, no more medical heroics—just shut down with dignity, and let’s hope those wonderful booksellers can find reasonable jobs someplace else.

More:

• “Cody’s, landmark Berkeley bookstore, closes” (San Francisco Chronicle)
• “Cody’s closes, itty bitty book light in heaven goes out” (San Francisco Bay Guardian)
• “Cody’s Books Closes After 52 Years in Berkeley” (Berkeley Daily Planet)

Posted by Anirvan

Visiting Chicago

BookFinder.com is written in the Perl programming language. Charlie and I attended our first Perl conference this week, YAPC::NA 2008 in Chicago. I enjoyed the conference, and we came back with lots of ideas on software development tools and practices, but one of my favorite parts of my short trip to Chicago was sneaking out of the conference early to go visit local bookstores.

I particularly enjoyed stopping in at Women & Children First, one of the best known indie bookstores in town. Women & Children First sells new books, and is located in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood. I’d heard of their reputation for good picks and readings (e.g. they’ve recently hosted events with Jhumpa Lahiri and Barbara Kingsolver). As I expected, their tiny space featured strong collections of Chicago-themed, feminist, and LGBT titles. (I bumped into an old Bay Area acquaintance, now working as a community organizer in Chicago, browsing in the nonfiction section in the back.)

I was taken aback by how kid-focused the store was. While I was there, they were doing a wonderful reading hour for young kids, the best I’ve seen outside of a library; the booksellers had really built a connection with the gaggle of six and seven year olds, reading stories, having them play-act roles, and generally acting more like family than salespeople trying to move product.

The mix clearly works, and boy, do they have fans. While trying to find my way to the store, I asked a few pedestrians for help with directions; every single person I talked to positively beamed while giving me directions. It may be hard out there for local new booksellers, but being able to elicit bright smiles at the very mention of your name is a pretty good indicator that you’re doing something right.

Posted by Anirvan

Rory Root, a good bookseller

I’ve been shopping at Comic Relief, an amazing comic bookstore in Berkeley, since I was ten. I used to make my dad bring me there when we were in town, to pick up back issues of G.I. Joe and other Marvel comics. I came back to UC Berkeley as an undergrad, where I rediscovered Comic Relief, and realized that there was more to comics than superheroes. Comic Relief’s booksellers turned me on to a variety of great comics, including both better-known (e.g. Hernandez brothers, Will Eisner) and local (e.g. Adrian Tomine, Ariel Schrag) artists.

I was walking past Comic Relief, now located across the street from BookFinder.com’s office, when I saw a sign up on the window. Rory Root, the bookseller who used to hang out in the back of the store and always gave me surprisingly good recommendations, died a couple of days back. I hadn’t known much about him before; as I learned, Rory was sort of a big deal among comic booksellers:

“Rory Root, the beloved owner of Berkeley’s revolutionary comic bookstore, Comic Relief and an ardent supporter of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund passed away yesterday at the age of 50. Rory was a dear friend of the Fund and of the comics industry at large. He was an instrumental champion for comics diversity, and advancing the graphic novel format. He was a pioneer for bringing graphic novels to libraries, and an outspoken advocate for the field’s best work.” (CBLDF)

There are over a hundred tributes to my friendly local comic bookseller across the web. Almost all are from hard core comic book fans. I’m not…but Rory, his bookstore, and the library comic collections he helped create managed to activate and sustain my interest in the medium over two decades. That’s what a good bookseller can do.

More on Rory:

• Rory Root, 1958-2008
• About Rory

Posted by Anirvan

Cody's retrenches downtown

Cody’s Books, my favorite new bookstore in Berkeley, has been going through a series of painful transitions over the past few years—closing their original Telegraph Avenue store, closing their new San Francisco store, and now, being forced out of their one remaining store by rising rents.

Thankfully, something good may have come out of all this, as Cody’s retrenches in a new, smaller, location in a heavily-trafficked part of downtown Berkeley. Charlie and I have been really enjoying having Cody’s back in the neighborhood. He and a group of our friends were at Cody’s Friday night to see a friend of ours read from his (excellent) new book. It almost feels like old times, when we still had the original Cody’s back on Telegraph.

John King, the urban design writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, writes about the Cody’s move, and neighborhood bookstores in general:

“The newest Cody’s is wrapped in glass, an inviting space with maple shelving and a buffed concrete floor left bare except at the entrance, where the blue rug hides the logo of prior tenant Eddie Bauer….’We’ve had to give up on the idea that we can stock every book that we love,” says Mytinger, 60, who joined the staff of Cody’s in 1982. ‘That model doesn’t work anymore. It isn’t viable.’ The hope is that this year’s model—lean but not mean—will evolve into something that attracts people willing to buy books in person rather than simply adding to their online shopping carts.” (more…)

Posted by Anirvan

Cody's Books moving downtown

We’re delighted that Cody’s Books, our favorite Berkeley new bookstore, is moving to the middle of the city’s downtown arts/business district:

• San Francisco Chronicle story
• Cody’s note to customers

After the widely publicized closing of their flagship Telegraph Avenue store, and the recent closing of their San Francisco branch, they’ve been living out of the single store in the 4th Street high-end shopping area, nestled between Restoration Hardware and a variety of expensive boutique stores — a far cry from their grittier Telegraph Avenue roots.

We do have mixed feelings about the move. Unfortunately, it’ll entail shifting to a significantly smaller space, and dropping some of the categories that we’ve known and loved; I’m disappointed, for example, that they’ll be cutting the computer section; Cody’s used to have one of the best technical book inventories in the area, outside of Silicon Valley and San Francisco proper. On the other hand, we’re also looking forward to having the store (with its great readings series) be much closer to the center of town, and blocks away from our office.

This move also consolidates our downtown’s reputation as a book district, home to Cody’s Books, Pegasus Books, The Other Change of Hobbit, Comic Relief, Half Price Books, Eastwind Books of Berkeley, and Berkeley Public Library’s central branch, all packed into six downtown blocks.

[Now reading The New Kings of Nonfiction edited by Ira Glass]

Posted by Anirvan

WSJ on community bookstore rescues

The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting story on the phenomenon of communities “rescuing” local independent bookstores in trouble, via membership programs, loans, or selling shares to the public. Per the Journal, the rescues make for a dramatic story, but some are more effective than others.

Posted by Anirvan

Bookish in Berkeley

San Francisco may be the center of Northern California book culture, but we seem to make do in Berkeley, here on the other side of the bay:

• The University of California Press recently held one of their excellent sidewalk sales, offering damaged and overstock paperback titles for just $5 each. Charlie and I ended up walking the two two blocks back to the office lugging almost two dozen UC Press books between the two of us; he goes for history, I go for sociology. (Wendy held out—she’s been trying to avoid temptation as she valiantly struggles to hold down the size of her bookshelves.)

• Last night, I saw Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk read from a collection of essays, newly translated into English. I first discovered Pamuk after seeing local Berkeley booksellers handselling his works; I’d been meaning to ask friends if they wanted to go to the reading, but forgot to ask. I was pleasantly surprised to see old and new friends at the event, part of the community of avid local readers—perhaps one of the pleasures of living in a somewhat smaller city.

• Our neighborhood keeps getting more bookish. The Other Change of Hobbit, an excellent science fiction and fantasy bookstore that lists on AbeBooks, is located right across the street from our office; they just celebrated their 30th anniversary. Eastwind Books of Berkeley, an Asian-American bookstore that lists on Biblio.com, opened up in our neighborhood back in 1996. The central branch of the Berkeley Public Library reopened in 2002, just three blocks away from us, and we had a nicely-designed Half Price Books open up across the street last year. I just heard that the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, also a block away, launched its own Berkeley Rep book club.

I’m disappointed about the closure of Cody’s Books on Telegraph Avenue, but Berkeley’s still book country.

[Now Reading: Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War by William Saletan]

Posted by Anirvan