December 16, 2008

German market news

I’m pretty interested in German used and rare bookselling market. It has one of the most developed ecosystem outside of the Anglophone market, and looking at what’s happening offers a great set of data points to understand where our industry’s at. I was excited to came across a number of great stories covering the space in boersenblatt.net, a German book trade magazine. Here are some of the pieces I found.

(All of these articles are in German. To translate them, use Google’s handy 1-click translate bookmarklet. For English, you can drag this link to your browser toolbar —> View in English. Then click the button whenever you want to see a page in English.)

ZVAB:

AbeBooks:

eBay:

Smaller marketplaces and services:

Market-wide news:

Law:

Posted by Anirvan

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April 16, 2007

ChooseBooks advertisements

The folks at ChooseBooks.com are throwing some money into print marketing. Possibly the #4 traditional American used book marketplace, and a subsidiary of German market leader ZVAB, ChooseBooks has been venturing into the exciting world of full-page magazine advertising.

Some of the ads are decent, e.g. this advertisement on page 403 of the January 2007 issue of PMLA (PDF, 1.4MB). Though the ad’s “It’s Your Choice! Professional Booksellers at Your Service!” tagline seems a bit hyperactive, it’s still reasonably tasteful and informative.

This full page ad on page 19 of the March 26, 2007 issue of The Nation (JPEG, 367k), on the other hand, reads like a parody of a Teaching Company advertorial:

Choose Books!

After all, “Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.” Barbara Tuchman

Do you buy Used, Rare, Antiquarian or Out-of-Print Books? Most likely you do, and have, in the past, visited used bookstores. Without a doubt, you are familiar with wonderful look of leather bound volumes carefully arranged on shelves or stacks of books scattered everywhere. And yes, you feel exhilaration of a search and a thrill of a find when you stumble upon that long sought book that you remember from childhood.

It gets worse. I know Michael Tokman, the founder of ChooseBooks. Michael’s a smart guy. I know for a fact that in real life, he doesn’t Speak In Capitals, or use confusing, disjointed logic:

And who better to speak about their services than Michael Tokman, one of the people responsible for bringing this wonderful resource to the book buying public: “We share your love for Used, Rare, Antiquarian and Out-of-Print Books, as well as Autographs, Maps and Ephemera Items. Not only that, but geographical diversity of our booksellers resulted in the unique inventory, rich in books from various countries and in many languages.”

I have a lot of respect for the ChooseBooks.com/ZVAB team. I hope this was a one-time test ad, delivered in a rush on a day when the copyeditor was out sick; they can do so much better.

[Now reading The Secret Police and the Revolution: The Fall of the German Democratic Republic by Edward N. Peterson]

Posted by Anirvan

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October 08, 2006

Frankfurt Book Fair

Charlie, Giovanni, and I spent the past few days at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest book fair in the world. We met up with friends from Abebooks Europe, ZVAB, Antbo, ProLibri, A1Books, Eurobuch, and LibraryThing; we've been in correspondence with many of these folks for years (some relationships date back almost a decade), but we rarely get a chance to meet face to face.

Some notes from friends

The fair was huge, with 7000+ exhibitors spread out over six buildings, and hundreds of authors and speakers. This year's guest of honor was India, and there was a huge contingent of Indian publishers and authors present; I enjoyed getting a chance to see readings by authors like Amitav Ghosh, Alka Saraogi, and Shashi Tharoor, but was most excited to see Bengali author-activist and Magsaysay Award winner Mahasweta Devi in a rare international appearance. I missed seeing Zadie Smith, Vikram Seth, and Jeff Smith, but one only has so much time.

[Now Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman] Posted by Anirvan

Posted by BookFinder.com at 06:06 AM |

June 09, 2005

ZVAB updates

Some interesting bits from a press release from Mediantis, the parent company of German listings service ZVAB.

What we already know: ZVAB's integration of ChooseBooks is in progress. Though we heard that booksellers dealt with some initial hiccups, many (all?) ChooseBooks dealers seem to have their books showing up on ZVAB now. It's not clear to me what'll happen with with the ChooseBooks platform; I imagine it may be replaced with a new ZVAB-powered backend at some point in time in the future.

What we didn't know: Apparently, ZVAB was in negotiations to acquire two unnamed listings services, one in the US, another in the UK. Both failed, according to the release. Negotiations with one of the two apparently ended over disagreements over price. The other apparently shut down without continuing discussions; I'd guess that this is referring to London-based Bibliology, long-time BookFinder.com partners who shut down their main business in May, but continue to provide hosting to individual booksellers.

[Now Reading: 253 by Geoff Ryman]

Posted by Anirvan

Posted by BookFinder.com at 04:01 PM |

November 16, 2004

Mediantis buys ChooseBooks

It shouldn't come as a surprise to readers that Mediantis (the parent company of ZVAB), has now formally announced that it's acquiring ChooseIt, the developers of ChooseBooks, for somewhere in the low six digits (in US dollars).

The press release (in German) reports that ChooseBooks' nine million mostly English-language books from 1,700 booksellers will bulk up ZVAB's database of about ten million mostly German books.

The back story: ChooseBooks decides to suspend operations (Oct. 8), ChooseBooks announces negotiations with new partners (Oct. 18), and Mediantis announces they're acquiring an unnamed American listings service (Oct. 26).

You heard it here first.

Update (Dec. 1): I believe we were the first in the English language press to break this story. ChooseBooks has now released an English translation of the Mediantis press release.

Posted by Anirvan

Posted by BookFinder.com at 06:20 PM |

October 26, 2004

German Mediantis buys American service

German media conglomerate Mediantis AG announced that it's agreed to acquire an unnamed American used book listings service with 2000 booksellers and over a million titles. Mediantis is the parent company of ZVAB, and has a significant presence in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Posted by Anirvan

Posted by BookFinder.com at 10:17 PM |

October 18, 2004

Choosebooks not to shut down

After all the hullabaloo about ChooseBooks' imminent shutdown, it looks like owner Michael Tokman may have gotten his listings site a second lease of life. An email to booksellers announces that negotiations with new partners are proceeding, and the site will not be shutting down on October 22, as originally planned.

Posted by Anirvan

Posted by BookFinder.com at 11:43 PM |

October 08, 2004

Choosebooks to shut down

ChooseBooks is shutting down. Sales will stop on October 10, and the site will go dark on October 22.

In an email sent to booksellers, founder Michael Tokman cited many of the same pressures that have been affecting other smaller listings services: issues with growth, scalability, and changes in the marketplace.

According to the ChooseBooks seller directory, they have 1,749 booksellers and over 8 million items listed for sale. BookFinder.com's been working with Michael and the rest of the ChooseBooks team since mid-2002. They're really good people, and we wish them the best as they look to the future.

Posted by Anirvan

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