Hi Everyone!
I hope you don’t mind, but for this week’s blog posting,
I’ve decided to rerun an article that I wrote back in
October, 1997, when I was still operating my
bookstore in Vancouver, and just getting started
on the Internet. I’ve copied the article here verbatim
so please, as you read it, keep reminding yourself
that it’s describing a situation–a time capsule moment
if you like–from eleven years ago.
The Romance of Bookselling
I was just musing on the way to work one day: “What
occupation could be more romantic than bookselling?” I am
not talking here of the heartfelt feelings between
soulmates, but rather that which appeals to fancy and
the imagination. How many people in the Western World
fantasize about owning their own bookstore? A very high
percentage I would venture. The realities of life prevent
a great many of these people from fulfilling their dream,
but nevertheless the dream persists.
Almost anyone can go into the book business. A person
may have only a Grade Eight formal education, another
person may be the proud possessor of a P.H.D., and there
are many other levels represented in between. Education
is not the main prerequisite…what one requires instead
is a “love of books” and a “love of reading”. And, I guess
a “thirst for knowledge” could be thrown into the equation,
for, regardless of the level of formal education achieved,
the people in the book business tend to have backgrounds
of voracious reading. And it is from reading books that you
learn of more books; these books you must also read. From
reading books follows the desire to possess the books, and
from possessing a fine library sometimes follows the desire
to help other people possess a fine library as well.
Personally, I’ve been buying and selling books for
twenty-six years. I began on a part-time basis while
working as an advertising copywriter in Toronto in 1971.
At that time, I was buying books mostly for my own interest.
However, it quickly became apparent that I could buy other
books and sell them to people who couldn’t or wouldn’t
take the time to look for their own books. These people
were mostly friends and co-workers and my resale business
was definitely small-scale, but it did help to finance
my own purchases. A few years later, after moving to the
West Coast, and accumulating many more books, I began
producing catalogues of Children’s Books and Detective
Fiction. I advertised in the AB(Bookman’s Weekly) to
acquire customers and continued selling books by mail
for three and a half years. In December, 1981, I bought
an existing bookstore in Vancouver, B.C. and I have had
a retail used bookstore ever since. For the first two
years, I worked as a technical writer for B.C. Gas and
hired personnel for most of the store’s opening hours.
A marriage break-up was my impetus to quit my regular
job and go full-time into the bookselling business.
In my fourteen years of full-time bookselling, I’ve
not once earned the amount of money that I made the last
year of having “a real job”. But then, I’m not in the
business to make a lot of money. Sure, it’d be nice to
start pulling down forty or fifty thousand dollars a
year for myself from selling books. I have to admit
that I’ve probably done a little day-dreaming to that
effect, and I know that there are some booksellers
making that kind of money and more. But, realistically,
I’ll probably always make only a modest income, and,
realistically, most booksellers in North America and
Europe can probably expect the same. However, the
important thing to remember? I, and thousands of others,
achieved a dream, a romantic dream of buying and
selling books for a livelihood, meagre or otherwise.
Today, it’s far easier for booklovers to join the
book business on a part-time basis. Some still go to
the great effort of producing catalogues of books for
sale and trying to build a mailing list of customers
for these catalogues. But, the numbers for this group
of people are quickly declining. The reason, of course,
is the advent of the Internet, the World Wide Web of
shopping possibilities. Literally thousands of book
buyers and collectors who never seriously considered
selling their books can now set up an internet book
business without much difficulty.
To my mind, every book collector is now a potential
bookseller, if only in the narrowest sense of the word.
Selling only a dozen or two books a year on a retail
basis would qualify a person as a bookseller. Previously,
these people would have simply traded or sold back
unwanted books to their regular bookdealers in town.
I, personally, know of two lawyers and a CGA in
Vancouver who buy and sell books part-time, all using
the Internet. Up to a couple of years ago, these people
were content to be book collectors. Now, they are each
partially fullfilling their romantic dream of being
a more intregal part of the bookselling business than
just the receiving conduit. If you spend some time on
the Internet, you will encounter thousands of these
new entrepreneurs. One reason, of course, is that books
are a natural product for sale on the Internet.
Many people ordering books from the Internet used
to order from dealers’ catalogues, even other dealers.
Most people selling on the Internet adhere to a
standardized set of descriptive terms for their books
and so the buyer is still fairly confident that what
he or she is ordering is going to arrive as described.
There are some exceptions, as we all know, but even
these sellers who seem to have difficulty in accurately
describing a book’s condition and edition are, in most
cases, very good about accepting returns and issuing
refunds. If they’re not, they may be crucified by
buyers and sellers alike in very short order.
Shipping of books is not usually too difficult.
Unless you’re fortunate enough to get a gigantic order–
let’s say all your books in a particular subject area–
then you won’t have much difficulty getting a few
orders to the local Post Office and sending them on
their merry way. If you did have a gigantic order,
I’m sure you wouldn’t mind the extra trouble to ship,
even to Timbuktu! Cost is not prohibitive for
shipping books and is usually cheerfully borne by the
buyer. On expensive items, the seller can often
absorb the cost. American booksellers have an edge on
their Canadian counterparts here. For one thing, the
cheaper surface mail rates in the United States are
about a third less than in Canada. Secondly, Canada
charges Goods and Service Tax(GST) on incoming packages
(usually with a twenty dollar or more declared value).
The Customs people assess the GST amount to be
collected, then the Post Office gets an additional
$5.00 for collecting the GST…that can get really
irritating and cost-prohibitive on single book orders!
For this reason, when ordering books from out of the
country, Canadian bookdealers, and even collectors,
should make sure that they inform the seller not to
overstate the value of the book(s) on their declaration
form.
Once a bookseller has obtained access to the
Internet–an Internet Service Provider charges about
thirty dollars a month in our area–he or she can set
up a Web Site fairly inexpensively and list various
categories of books on there for sale. The secret of
any degree of success here lies in how well the
bookseller establishes links to other sites (i.e.
lists of retail and antiquarian booksellers) and relates
as well to the number of Search Engines the bookseller
has registered with. If no one can find you, they sure
can’t buy from you. Updating the site on a regular and
frequent basis is also important.
By far, the most popular and most productive way
to sell books on the Internet would seem to be through
the various Book Matching Services. I deal with “Advanced
Book Exchange” (ABE), but there are several others,
including “Interloc”, “Bibliofind” and “Bibliocity”.
The idea here is to upload the titles and other
information about your books into the Data Base of the
Service and the Service matches your books with the
wants of people who are searching the Services for
those particular books. Once advised of the details and
availability of the book, the customer can go ahead
and order the book directly from you. The rates charged
for this service by the various companies is nominal,
especially if you are listing large quantities of books
with them.
Like most things in life, what you put into your
Internet business, in terms of time and effort,
determines what you get out of it. After nine months,
I still only maintain about five hundred titles in
ABE’s Data Base. This amount of participation nets me
a couple of sales a week, or about two thousand dollars
in sales over about nine months. Add approximately
another five hundred dollars from other types of Internet
sales for a total of twenty-five hundred dollars.
Condidering the cost of the books, the cost of operating
on the Net, as well as the many hours I’ve invested,
I’d have to say that so far the experiment has been
financially unsuccessful. However, the most important
thing to consider, I think, is that I’ve had the
experience, and I can see a definite upside potential
for this selling tool if and when I’m ready to spend
more time and list a couple more thousand books for sale.
I know of two other booksellers, neither of whom
have a storefront business, who maintain about three
thousand titles for sale on ABE. They both say that
from these listings, they get two or three sales a day.
I know another bookseller who operates a large store
and pays someone to just list books for sale on ABE
and handle all work pertaining to these sales. He told
me in August, 1997 that his Internet sales alone for
June and July were seventy-two hundred and seventy-
eight hundred dollars. Mind you, he maintains about
six thousand titles for sale on ABE. As I said though,
this tends to show the upside potential of Internet
selling. You may want to jump in and try it yourself.
Having said all this and given a cautious
endorsement of Internet Bookselling, I have to ask:
“Is there really much romance in that?” My opinion
is “No”. For me, the Internet is just another tool
for selling books and I’m willing to put a finite
amount of time into it to perhaps attain as much
as twenty per cent of my overall sales from that
source. But I run a five-day-a-week open bookshop
that also requires a lot of time and from which
I reap a great deal of enjoyment. It is indeed a
romantic way of life and I look forward to coming
to work every day. Wednesdays I scout other stores
for books and make housecalls to look at and
possibly buy private libraries. That’s even more
fun than being in the store!
For those people who have started selling
books on the Internet part-time, I do hope that
you go all the way some day and open your own store.
If you’re enthusiastic about books then you won’t
attain the ultimate “Book High” without having
your own open bookshop. There’s nothing to compare
with the self-satisfaction you’ll feel when you
unlock your front door and enter your warm, cosy,
book-lined shop every day and prepare to open
for business. You’ll soon develop your own regular
routine: you turn on the lights, get out your
“float”(the money for your cash drawer), turn on
the computer, go “on-line” to collect your E-mail,
and while that’s getting downloaded, you can
go through your regular(”snail”) mail. There might
be a couple of cheques…that’s always nice. If
so, you’ll have to plan to pack and ship those
books today. There might be a couple of dealer
catalogues…you’ll have to set aside a little
time to read through those in case there’s something
you can order for a customer, or even for
yourself. Just because you sell books now doesn’t
mean that you can’t still take some home for
yourself! Your computer’s telling you that you
have “new mail” so you can quickly run through
the “subject lines” to see if you have any orders.
If so, while you’re still on-line, you can
answer the requests to confirm that the books
are available and that you’ll hold them pending
receipt of the customer’s cheque for X dollars.
Now, get off-line and put out your “OPEN” sign.
You’re ready for business.
I don’t think there’s one day now that goes
by wherein I don’t have books to price that I
bought the day before, or the day before that.
There seems to always be a backlog now. But that’s
fine; I think that’s one sign of a healthy
bookstore. After you’ve had a bookstore for a
few years, you’ll have certain people, bookscouts,
who’ll bring books to you every week, as well as
all the other people who saw your Yellow Page ad
or were recommended to bring certain books to
you by other dealers. This is especially true if
you specialize in one or two subjects.
The thrill of your day will be when someone
comes into your store who has never been there
before. Perhaps they’ve overlooked you until
now or they are from out of town. They say what
a wonderful store you have and comment on what
an interesting selection of books that you have;
then, if they’re really sincere, they pay you
the best compliment of all: they buy a book.
This deserves more conversation, and you might
spend several more minutes talking with them
about various books. They leave but promise to
come back.
Over the next couple of hours, a few of
your regular customers come into the store,
some to pick out something new and discuss
the weather and last night’s hockey game or
baseball game. A couple of your regulars have
come in because you called them to pick up
a book or two that you have found for them.
They fondle the books unashamedly and thank
you profusely. You love this part of the
business. One or two friends come by and
you close down for half an hour and join
them for lunch at the pub around the corner,
leaving a note on the door saying where you
are and when you’ll be back. One of your
customers may come and find you there, chide
you about being away from your post and
join you for a coffee. Yes, it can be such
an idyllic life.
About mid-afternoon, there’s a call from
someone who is the Executor for an estate.
There’s an entire room full of books and the
out-of-town relatives don’t know what to do
with them. Can you come and look at them,
and perhaps take them away? It’s the kind of
call that you live for now. With a few questions,
you determine from the caller that there
would seem to be some worthwhile books and
you set an appointment time to call and look
at them. How about this evening after I close
the store? Perfect. No sense wasting time,
especially when your blood is already pumping
faster in anticipation.
Making “House Calls” is the most exciting
part of being in the used book trade. Nine
times out of ten you’re going to be disappointed,
but that tenth call often makes it all worthwhile.
You go into the room and you give the shelves
a quick once-over. The hard-cover spines of many
books that you recognize leap into your vision,
as well as many books that you don’t recognize
instantly but nevertheless have the look of
quality. It’s your “Book High” of the month.
Enjoy it. You tell the Executor that the Library
looks promising; there are definitely some books
here that you would like to buy. “Give me an
hour and I’ll tell you what we have.”
If it’s a collection of books that contains
a great number of books that you know you won’t
want to put on your store’s shelves for one
reason or another, then you should separate as
you go through the books and make your offer on
only the books you can use. If, after a quick
initial inspection, you think you can use most
of the books, then you can go through them as
quickly as possible, doing an overall estimate
as you go and come up with a collective assessment
on which to base your offer. As you go from shelf
to shelf you’ll see individual books that you
automatically associate with particular customers
and you look forward to contacting these people to
tell them of your latest find for them. Soon
you’re writing the cheque and bringing in fourteen
or fifteen boxes from your vehicle to start
packing up. In the book business, it’s advisable
to have a van or a station-wagon for these
situations. Perhaps for this particular buy,
you’re going to have to make two trips. You’ll
be eating your dinner late tonight, but it’s
going to be worth it!
The next day brings the second-best part
of this exercise: you get to unpack the boxes
one by one and price the books, setting aside
the volumes that need a little repair or special
research. This is a very enjoyable part of the
book business and I confess that I tend to
linger over it, especially enjoying the feel
and look of certain wonderful books and marvelling
that I actually have them there in my hands.
This is also a dangerous time, when you might
begin making a too-large pile of books to take
home. “Come on”, you scold yourself, “you can’t
take all the good ones home. You have to sell
some of these books to stay in business!” I force
myself to be very selective.
Because most booksellers like myself don’t
have a lot of money to tie up in stock for long,
we rely on steady cash flow to keep going. Thus,
every major buy(to me that would be any purchase
over five hundred dollars), becomes an immediate
game of “get-back-the-money-as-soon-as-possible”.
I price the books that fall within my specialty
areas, Children’s/Illustrated Books and Aviation/
Military/Naval and I get out my file cards for
my customers in these areas and inform them that
I have new stock, come in and see it. If you’re
as fortunate as I am, then several customers
will respond within the next few days and you
will get most or all of your investment back
right away. Then, the rest of your great new
stock is on your shelves for nothing and it will
provide your profits over the next weeks or months.
Sometime during the day, often shortly
before closing time, I’ll sit in my store and
look around at the thousands of books packed
row on row and just reflect on how lucky I am
to have such a store, such a business, such a
life. It’s a good life and I love it. Am I a
romantic or what?
Please feel free to make a comment about
bookselling, perhaps even your experience as
a bookseller, or your desire to become one.
When you have a little time, please check my
website at : www.stillmanbooks.com
Remember, the only book purchase you’ll
ever regret is the one you didn’t make.
Talk soon.