8.12.07 -

The seminar is truly over, and all us little chickens have flown away home.* It included a rather astounding diversity of participants. Booksellers, true – new and old. Collectors thinking of becoming booksellers. People running businesses related to the book trade but not actually selling books, for instance, usedbooks101.com. How did I miss this terrific website before? After hearing Michael Ginsberg talk about how many bookstores are not on the internet, and encouraging sellers to scout out other stores, I realized how imprortant this resource could be.

And the FO the FOL. Despite the criticism most sellers can muster about library sales, the numbers of library people that showed up must indicate that their industry is changing. It seems to me that on the one hand, they will be more competitive, listing their own books online instead of having library sales that provide fodder for the rest of us. However, as the esteemed head of school said, there are books everywhere. Perhaps if the FOL people are better educated they can help improve the quality of online bookselling. Then we can all collectively stand and point our fingers at the megalisters. Or, the new term that came up, the scrapers.

And then there were the bookpeople as objects, the Improving the Universe through Profit While Deceiving Your Donors people. I myself, despite what some of you think of me, felt it beneath my dignity to personally upbraid and castigate these decorative youmg dudes. As I say ad nauseam to those within hearing, if I want to run a warehouse operation with employees, I’ll find something easier to pack and ship than books. Widgets, perhaps. They are the wave of the future. Not books. Back to that pesky quote about analog becoming digital becoming free. I’m still chewing on that one and holding up various books against walls, evaluating their potential as objects of beaute.

The faculty at the seminar provide an extraordinary experience that several people commented on, that is, world class booksellers spending a week with newbies as their peers, treating each of us (well, who knows how they treated the Improving the Universe people) with a genuine and sincere interest and completely abandoning any hint of snobbery. This willingness really did make us feel that the arcane degrees of mystery are available to all.

Here’s the bottom line, people. If you are completely and totally happy with your book business, every aspect of it – well, don’t bother to go. If you have the slightest hint of dissatisfaction with what you sell, how you sell it, and the money you make selling it, then hie thee to the nunnery, oops, no, Colorado College. You will not regret going to the seminar, although you might regret the coffee. I went with several objectives. First, I had to see if there is enough unrealized potential in the book business for me to succeed, because, believe me, trying to undercut Joycey in the eraser business is probably not a wise thing, what with her sewing up the voodoo dolls if you get outta line.

Secondly, once you got the book business virus, you got it, and there doesn’t seem to be a cure, so it behooves me to improve what I do. It is clear to me that I don’t want a warehouse and a software program that handles hundreds of thousands of books. Not that that is a bad thing, its just not for me. I have to say, except for the few rare moments when the coffee ran low (and how I missed Kaladi’s, my home coffee shop), I felt deliriously happy about the new worlds opening up. So many new things to know, and so little time.

Every session had some new bit of information, if not boatloads. That is to say, even subjects where I am fairly well-informed were presented in a way that had some new things for me to learn (thanks, Chris!) And what am I saying? Not many of the sessions were covering areas in which I could say I am extremely knowledgeable. That’s the beauty of the seminar. It is true that this is the one place in which one can learn to be a bookseller. It’s more than worth the cost of going. And, except for the few brief moments when I listened to the accountant, and felt the only possible solution to the problems posed by his information was to go home and burn all the books, now, TODAY – its something you absolutely must do if you have even the slightest need.

And its spelled Glaser – Ed Glaser, Ed Glaser, Ed Glaser – (now I’m hearing strains of “Ed Sullivan, Ed Sullivan, we’re gonna be on Ed Sullivan”) running through my head. Mea culpa, mea culpa – I can only plead exhaustion for making such a grievous error as mispelling the name of someone so terrific. What, Mrs. Wordperson make a spelling error? It offends the gods!

*Note – chickens are incapable of sustained flight.

- Carol

8.9.07 -

i confess i started the latest range war. yes, the book seminar today was chock full of great presentations and fabulously helpful information, particularly for the internet-selling-impaired. we began by hearing from kevin johnson, who gave up a career with the CIA but not the period eyeglasses, in order to become a fabulously successful bookseller, one who makes ten million per year. this is to give us hope about our future in the biz. all you have to be able to do is buy thousands of fabulous books, cozy up to famous booksellers and buy their spare buildings at a low cost, and then sell them books out of it. this is probably all made possible by advanced surveillance skills.

fast forward to the afternoon, from whence cometh the feud between the jets and the sharks. we all know the cattlemen hate the sheep men, and vice versa. during the open forum, someone mentioned problems with FOL sales. it turns out the crowd is heavily salted with FOL officials. i did know this, having cornered the president of the national FOL organization (“Friend of Friend of Libraries”) immediately upon her arrival at the seminar, possibly before she was even registered, when I shared with her a piece of my mind that i could not spare. specifically, i mentioned my unhappiness with book listings that say, in their entirety, “Your purchase benefits the blah blah city library.” you’ve seen ‘em. no mention of an actual book, vulgar as that appears to be. or its condition or description or RFID number or something else useful. nope, just the argumentum ad misericordiam, give us money for our library.

an admirable request, surely, but. in the big wide world of bookselling, those of us who actually pick up a book and describe the book (“as object”) surely resent losing sales to – you know – them. she wisely promised to inform her constituency of this minor quibble. so this afternoon, when others began to mention difficulties with FOL sales, i arose from my pre-five-o-clock caffeine stupor (how can i be a real bookseller if i am longing for latte instead of scotch and soda?) and pointed out that FOL sales seem to resent the necessary presence of dealers, what with their uncouth buying of multiple numbers of books, and what not. the methods by which these dealers buy their books fills the FOL people with fury. “scanners,” they hiss. they have invented elaborate schemes by which these shameless dealers are reigned in.

they don’t seem to realize a few home truths. dealers are their best customers. dealers buy the most numbers of their books. little aunt tilly, who comes to the FOL sale just to find another copy of the methodist church cookbook, will not buy another fifty boxes of books. actually, the truth is more venal than related to protocol. FOL sales personnel resent the concept of selling a dealer a book at a low price, when that book is filled with potential profit. they wait by the door, little glass animals in hand, for the same people who check out the books for free to arrive and buy hundreds of them. “i have to ask you,” said an earnest FOL manager, “would you pay $25 for a book that is worth $50 at a FOL sale?”

of course, i said no. “but,” he persisted, “if it is worth fifty, surely you would?” i laughed my best scornful bookseller laugh and said “no.” i further explained that there would be very, very few books at a FOL sale that would be worth that sort of investment. perhaps only one. or only none. he persisted, offering up varieties of valuable dream books, such as “old ones, from the late 1800s for example.” ah, i sighed to myself. the canard of the valuable old book. the conversation went on in this vein for a while, until i left behind the visions of fifty dollar gems dancing in his head.

of course i love libraries. yes, ed glasner, they are indeed the incubators of future book buyers. perhaps even readers. but the evolution of FOL groups into professional bookseller clones merely points up the validity of all we are learning at the seminar. the need to specialize, the need to gain all the knowledge possible in your field – is that possible in a situation where 80% of the books are going straight to the dumpster? where the books are measured by the bale? and all this in the hands of volunteers?

i can’t continue to think about “all analog media wants to be digital, all digital media wants to be free” with the same brain that is contemplating little FOL groups in every hamlet across amerika busily erasing “mint” from their book descriptions and writing in “first edition, first printing, second state, fourth issue THUS.”

look for little postcards in your mailbox about books i am searching for, and send me back a postcard with a pencilled notation as soon as you have me a quote. meanwhile, i made nice with the deeply offended library lady who rendered teary-eyed by my bookseller brutality – i swear, i didn’t mean any of it!

-Carol

8.8.07 -

you sell books. to sell these books you list these books. you innocently go from day to day, using your little database, blissfully unaware of all its pathetic limitations, its lack of knowledge of the book world. you craft your listings and send them on their way into the big, wicked world of the internet. you sell these books, list more, and consider yourself a book dealer.

you are wrong, wrong, wrong.

you have never listed a book correctly. you have no idea what bibliographic information is, and you wouldn’t recognize it if it were staring you in the face. you should immolate yourself on a pile of POD books if you hear that terry belanger is even in your time zone. you need to burn, yes burn i say, any computer that has even a nanobyte of your data. you need to take the measly few decent books you have, and burn the rest with your idea of your former sniveling bookselling self, and start again.

veterans of today’s book seminar session are here to inform you that a minimum of two weeks, ten hours per day, spent poring over reference books and writing cataloging information, is what you need to plan on. then you can perhaps list mass market paperbacks. even a few hardback books, if you are an apt student.

no, heck, you would screw it up and note a book club edition as a first edition, first printing, first state. and you would be horribly, eternally wrong. better to rise up from your computer now, and go forth into the world, and cast aside any ideas you have had of being a bookseller. try to use your powers for good. pull espresso for real booksellers. wash the floors in a real bookstore with your tears and your hair and try not to splash the books. go back to university and get ten degrees, learning all major european languages as well.

then write another damn book description.

Carol

8.6.07 –

its only day two and already capitalization is dispensable. a full, intense day of class ended with a short break for a lively dinner with five other lady seminarians, and then back to it for a class on book anatomy and physiology. the day classes focused on writing painfully accurate book descriptions. after opinions provided from different teachers, all of whom have variations in how they catalogue books, students were allowed to handle beautiful books, and were told to write a description. oh woe, oh agony, students were grappling with books everywhere. luckily, instructors were available to help.

of course, before we got to write about the book, we had a fabulous lecture about the creation of books as physical objects. the odd pieces of paper we were given turned out to be facsimile pages of old books, and with an awful lot of assistance, we origamied them into signatures. if you don’t know what a signature is, get outta the book business. or, rather, go to the book seminar. terry belanger, of the rare book school in charlottesville, va, is a softspoken but astoundingly knowlegeable teacher of anything book related.

in the afternoon we returned to the subject of technology and bookselling, and were treated to some instruction on the how and why of producing images of books. you can’t call them pictures, anymore. nada. its a new world, baby, and you are imaging your book. and a very important thing, too, because if you differentiate which of your customers are interested in buying the book as an object, as opposed to those buying your book for use, well, you gotta KNOW you need an image.

huh? yeah, right – well, it just proves you gotta go to the book seminar. its not even necessary that you be a book seller. it seems every other person here is a FOL person or collector or theologian or – well, something other than a plain old book seller. more later. all the saluting has made me weary.

7.31.07 – first thoughts

The call came through when I was on the plains. I cut short my pow-wow with the Cherokees, and headed back to the rockies. Don’t know why they picked the Springs. I know of sweeter springs closer to my home grounds, but boot camp must mean not arguing with the sergeant. Book learnin’? I guess I have to admit to comin’ up a bit short in that department, and I’m willing to throw my rope their way for a week. Plus some book wimmen comin’ in from Looziana and other parts west need some help spotting the trail, so I’m on it. The more the merrier, I say. Besides, the book wagon is a thirsty one and I can use some help with filling her up.

Books! A couple of piles attached themselves to me here, so my saddle bags are sagging. If we need some books to look at while we’re there, I can help with that. Meanwhile, smoke is blowing towards the west. Time to ride. Gentleman Jim is off in some other parts entirely, so I’m on my own. And besides, if I get back in time, I can hob-nob with my fellow wizards at the Book Fair. I’m expecting bear baiting, magicians, hurdy-gurdy music, polkas by night, and special book beer. I better not be disappointed, but my flask is full just in case. I can pull my hat down, kick up my horse, and be there in no time.

- carol

8.5.07 – day one

The first order of business at the book seminar is to sync up computers to the college’s system. My computer and a number of others have failed to make the grade at this first assignment. Many would-be seminarians are suffering from internet withdrawal.

Time is short due to the nature of shared computer. The opening function featured Marty Manley, CEO of Alibris. He spoke of the future of bookselling, and made a formal announcement henceforth to be known as “Manley’s Law 2007″ – I’ll leave you to ponder this – “All analog media wants to become digital. All digital media wants to become free.”

- carol

huh? it may have sounded profound at the time, but that ain’t t-shirt material Marty. ed.

Last weekend was held the 23rd annual Printers Row Book Fair in downtown Chicago. “Printers Row” is historically Chicago’s area in which big commercial printing businesses and paper wholesalers set up; they are long gone, replaced by condos, hotels, restaurants, and other higher-margin businesses.

This Fair, principally sponsored by the City of Chicago and CHICAGO TRIBUNE (which provides extensive coverage and advertising and prints a pullout guide in the paper the week prior), features 20-foot square tents set up for several blocks on Dearborn Street (from Congress to Polk), with more tents extending either way on Polk Street. Here is a layout of the Fair.

About 190 dealers, publishers, and book-related businesses rent 6-foot tables under these jaunty tents and and 8-foot sidewalk tables without cover.

Numerous other events are part of the Fair, including dozens of author readings and signings, a “kid’s alley,” musical performances including the ever-popular and obligatory Chicago-style electric blues, cooking demonstrations, etc. C-SPAN always films parts of the Fair and airs at least one show about it.

Simultaneously the Chicago Blues Festival was held a few blocks away, an enormous free event considered by many to be the best of its kind in the world. There were also diverse arts festivals and other such things going on throughout the city.

Official estimates are that there are 100,000 attendees at the Book Fair annually, which has always seemed high to me, but having looked up and down the street for two days, seeing hundreds of different people each time, I think it may be a decent guess (see my photo of the crowd).

The Fair has come a long way since its early days, and this is partially due to the sponsorship of the TRIBUNE and various other businesses such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, Ghirardelli, Jewel-Osco grocers, and Radio Disney. Naturally, this has led to grumbling in certain quarters that the original spirit of the Fair has been co-opted by big bloodsucking corporate interests, but there is no denying that it is becoming a bigger event as time goes on.

This was about the 11th time I have sold at the Fair and I think it was my best ever. I normally take material of quite moderate value, often thousands of $4 books, as I am always worried about pilferage, rain, and other damage, but you can find books and paper items for sale well into four-figures at the Fair. I have lots of repeat customers, many of them students. Vendors will find this a good place to get rid of mistakes, stuff that is too much trouble or too cheap to ship, and those pesky books that pile up as box-lot leavings. Or material in areas they have decided they don’t want to carry anymore.

This year I had scads of classics in literature, philosophy, drama, history, poetry, etc., as well as a slew of DK kids’ books bought in a closeout.

Anything and everything sells at Printers Row. Fiction/non-fiction, paperbacks, rare first editions, prints, arty matted magazine pages, postcards, posters, old newspapers, bookmarks, ephemera of every kind, VHS tapes, whatever. I met a fellow named Peter Nepstad who had a table selling his computer game mystery based on the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and he seemed quite pleased with his results.

Fortunately for me, you don’t have to worry about whether you have an orderly display. I have sold stuff that I never in a thousand years would have counted on to go, especially to the specific people who bought it. One buyer I remember vividly was a guy who looked homeless, but he bought an old scholarly scientific book on the genetics of twins. I have had folks who looked like impoverished single moms or Hell’s Angels joyfully buy bags full of Shakespeare and Plato. All this in a happy book-party atmosphere, with restaurants serving cafe-style on the sidewalk, beer carts set up, and Edwardo’s pizza selling single slices of its marvelous deep-dish pizza for $3.

The weather was absolutely unsurpassed, which was the case last year as well; in previous years there has been some rain, but as the Fair is now held about a week later into the summer, this may have something to do with it.

I heard anecdotal evidence that one large dealer grossed $40,000; whether that is true or puffery I cannot say, but I certainly was flat-out busy for the full 8 hours a day selling like mad.

If you want to be considered for a table at next year’s event, email Maggie Wartik of the TRIBUNE to be put on the list. You will want to return the application either by FAX or overnight mail on the same day you receive it, as the Fair gets oversubscribed more and more each year. Please email me at if you have any questions.

The last of three postings of photos of the Tijuana bookfair went up to the Tijuana Bible blog this morning.

Yesterday was the last day of the fair. There were more new books and fewer used books than in the few past years I have attended and attendence seemed a bit off. Overall tourism is down by 30% this year in Tijuana and it appeared to hurt the book fair.

The drop in tourism is ascribed here to alarmist announcements by the US State Department about the dangers of travel to Mexico. Nonetheless undesirable elements from the United States continue to come. Donald Trump is building a 400 unit condo with accompanying shopping and entertainment features in Playas de Tijuana just a few kilometers south of us.

The fair was fun though. As always (as you can see from the photos) lots of children were in attendence. Our ecology group from Playas, Las Gaviotas, had a small booth for 2 days. I picked up a couple of nice pieces on Baja history and 6 books on bullfighting, two of which had very beautiful calf bindings over their intact wrappers.

The fair is for two weeks around the end of May each year. Hope to see you here next year. Two more years and I can exhibit!
–

– Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson

Ephemera was much in evidence, including maps, prints, and pamphlets. Americana and regional works and children’s books also were abundant, but hypermodern fiction was hard to find. Of the booths I was able to visit, three that stood out (either for interesting books or sheer friendliness), were Volume I Books (nice to meet you Aimee), Magina Books, and Booklegger’s Used Books.

While most booths were a pleasure to go through, a few annoyances did crop up, such as the dealer selling first editions in unmarked facsimile jackets. Sure, there was a card in the book noting the DJ was a facsimile, but will it be there the next time the book is sold?
Deceptive practices also drive me crazy – is it really customer friendly to sell a book as a first printing, only to have the customer disappointedly find out later it’s in a second state DJ? (This was not a case of oversight, the dealer said she knew it was a second state when I pointed it out, but still had no interest in adding that to the writeup.)

On the plus side, the fair featured some engaging specialty booths. It was a pleasure to talk with Jon Buller, of Bessenberg Bindery, who said he is one of Michigan’s last custom binders, and who showed off some gorgeous one-of-a-kind bindings, most in tooled leather with silver and gold insets, as he is currently experimenting with metalworking. Andrew Halldorson of Sleepy Hollow Bookshop, who specializes in DJ/paper restoration, brought illustrations and examples of “before” and “after” jacket restorations, while First Folio Rare Books offered an excellent display of fore-edge paintings. These type of specialists and displays certainly broaden the appeal of book fairs – my guests for the day (okay, my parents), novice fairgoers, really enjoyed learning about these more esoteric aspects of the trade.

After the show, we headed over to Hollander’s, the decorative paper specialists, as I had to see the paper for myself. Wow! A salesperson told us they had over 1,000 different papers, and the stunning, many colored & textured display was quite convincing. Would paper collecting be too strange a hobby?

Event triptych

I did take a walk through the rest of the joint. And it was filled with untouchable pretty prettys. To give you an idea of the tenor – I peeked into a booth where a large Victorian box covered with seashells caught my eye. The occupants were standing outside the booth looking in, so I said “I once made a box like that for my Mom, but I used macaroni.” Well you would have thought I had just shat on their carpet. I dunno about those folks but I thought it was a damn clever joke for end of the day.

Bookfair backsides – my god we are a hefty people

I made my obligatory glad handing with the 7 or 8 dealers I knew there. Luckily no one to whom I owed money. Then tried to chat up a couple new ones – not fooling myself, I can see the gears turning behind their eyes “who IS this peculiar person?”

Johnnycake Books, Salisbury, CT.
I was oh so tempted to go a little wild with the cookbooks. These were lovely.
Best condition I have ever seen in vintage cookbooks

I did manage to keep my purchases down to only cash on hand. I didn’t even take the chance of pissing money away on frivolous things like food. I brought a couple of cheese and pickle sandwiches to eat in the car. (borrowed of course, the car not the sandwiches – Mama still needs a head gasket) The Bayside makes its SERIOUS money on food and parking – $12 bucks to get into the parking lot and $50 to get out . . . . it IS Dorchester after all.

John Brooks Dodge Collections, Bedford, MA.
Nearly every book fair is 50% ephemera these days, the stuff sells better IRL than on the net I am sure.
These Valentine’s cards are gorgeous

Bookworm & Silverfish, Wytheville, VA.
Quite a number of vendors from out of town.
Here Patrick is showing off some spectacular full color US War Dept posters

Paper Art, Newburyport.
You KNEW I had to look inside this flip file.
That’s where I found my Muerto. He looked so lonely.

Choosebooks.com These guys weren’t taking any chances.
they were handing out packing tape, post it notes, shopping bags, hair pins, sexual favors – very slick, very hungry.

Griffon’s Medieval Manuscripts, St Pete, Florida.
Nice folks with some very pretty stuff under glass.

From the customer point of view I thought it was a damn nice fair, and I hope it grows like Topsy. I’d like to hear that it was monetarily successful. Ian @ Lux Mentis has already started posting his impressions and Don Lindgren is 7 ways of giddy about the impeding birth of his new Rabelais Bookshop due to land in Portland, ME sometime in April.