Books And Chicken.

There is a famous saying that librarians survive on "Books and Chicken". Because I am already in the library I can get most of my magazines, books, dvds, cds, and videos that I want to watch or use fairly easily.

But, a librarians salary does not let you spend a whole lot on things. This means many public librarians bring their entertainment home from their job. I bring several videos and books home every week from where I work. It is natural that librarians become specialists in the things which they happen to like.

My boss orders most of the videos in the collection. I end up ordering a lot of the graphic novels.

This is probably even more true for booksellers. Most booksellers don't earn huge amounts of money, they are doing their job for the love of books. In New England, it is traditional for many booksellers to have their living quarters directly above their shop. They pay down their mortgage and eventually have a piece of property.

Even with the closing of many small bookstores this can still be said to be true. Instead of selling out of a storefront many booksellers sell directly out of their garage or house on ebay or other online services. This was even true before the internet. Instead of having a web site, many specialty booksellers would have a printed catalog of their books for sale which they would send out to customers. The customer would either meet the person to pick up the book or get the book by mail order. I think of mail order having just moved to the internet.

It used to be to find the price of a book before the internet you would look in small catalogs put out by specialty mail order places, auction catalogs where lots and blocks of books were sold. Also there was something called Bookman's Price Index which is a huge reference work by year which lists the price of a book. Then there were various price guides for books, paperback books, comic books, and other books. The standard price guide to comic books in the United States which is most used is the Overstreet Comic Books Price Guide. We have a copy at our library. You would look through these, approximate the condition and rarity of the item and then price it accordingly.

You might also wander around to other bookstores and see how they were pricing books and check their inventory. Sometimes, the bookseller might even buy something which you thought was mispriced by another bookstore. Booksellers are like a giant grumpy fraternity which can't survive without other booksellers.

Now, there is the internet where you can see comparative prices for books instantly on places like abebooks.com. The prices seem to vary wildly when you are looking for books. But, the variations in prices are not just about the item. People often buy from a particular seller paying a higher price, because they are more accurate in grading their items, have better shipping and handling policies, and better customer service.

There is an ambivalent relationship between librarians and booksellers. Because of this relationship, The Friends of the Library are the ones who hold the book sales to avoid conflict of interest. I have known many librarians who have worked part-time in bookstores on the side to earn extra money or just because they are really obsessed with books. Sometimes, I think it is more likely, they are obsessed with books.

It seems there is a revolving door between publisher, librarian, and bookseller. People who publish library books, especially reference books often hire librarians. Baker & Taylor and Ingram the giant distributors all hire librarians to help libraries select which materials to buy.

Now, the bookseller and librarian are spreading into the internet. Google, Yahoo, and most of the big search engines hire librarians to index and tag their databases. With Google and Microsoft building specialty search engines for books it creates even more of an interconnection.

I am writing this as I search for the Secret History of Moscow which I am almost done reading. I wanted ro read it, but I put it down and can't find it for the moment. I'll find it later today and write a review.

No Barriers for Entry In Small Scale Bookselling.

Secondhand Bookseller on the Quai Voltaire in Paris, France, 1821. In a way, it hasn't changed much.

Someone told me about http://www.bookwise.com/ a network marketing company for books. It was quite interesting. It looks like tupperware for books. There are two ways this would work, you would sell the books as an affiliate, or you would buy the books at a discount and resell them to customers. What is interesting about this scheme is that you are an independent contractor, a contract employee of the company. The contract looks very complicated. There is no storefront involved. I can imagine someone having book parties much like tupperware parties where they invite groups of people over to look at their small selection of books.

I can imagine a small group of ladies getting together to look at the latest Danielle Steel, or Debbie Macomber books. Maybe, they would pick up a small glossy catalog with a few of the latest titles. I wonder if the top seller would get a minivan instead of a pink cadillac like they give for their top sales people at Avon.

Another thing which is coming up is the electronic book kiosk. Apparently http://www.ondemandbooks.com/ is planning on setting up kiosks to print some titles on demand at a variety of libraries. All it requires is a PDF file which is fed into a book production setup. It produces a trade paperback style book at a cost of approximately a penny a page.

Of course, book vending machines are not new. Although, I don't have a picture of it, the Japanese have book vending machines in their subways in many places. Maxi Livres in France just started selling books in vending machines for approximately $2.45 in American dollars. They are supposed to have a wide variety of books available.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9005718/

It doesn't take that much to sell books from a vending machine. The University of Iowa has sold both zines and handmade books directly from standard vending machines, The Aramark 111-112 snack machine will do it. This is an article on it.
http://www.futureofthebook.com/stories/storyReader$356

I was looking through the google images on book vending machines. Apparently, they aren't as uncommon as I thought. I saw images of them from Scotland, Sao Paolo, Barcelona, France, and Japan. It must only be a unique phenomena here in the United States.

After digging a little more, I found an example of a company with specifications for a book vending maching in Ireland. I wonder why it has not come here to America. It would be a very nice import. I can imagine it in subways and at the airport. The company is called Novel Idea.
http://www.novel-idea-vending.com/spec.html

If you really think about it, it does not take much to sell books in the real world as well. A table at a flea market isn't that expensive, and if you sell from a table in the street, it costs very little. Vendors on Manhattan's sidewalks are the bane of the local bookstores. They just need a tax id and a vendors license which is much cheaper than rent.

The Manhattan book street vendors also have a reputation for theft. A person can ask some Manhattan street vendors for a new book in a day which if you think about it, is not possible if they are using a regular distributor like Baker and Taylor or Ingram. Please buy from your bookstore, not the street vendors. It saves the bookstore money on broken windows and keeps them in business.

After a while, if the person is good enough at selling, they move from the street to the flea markets and eventually their own store. This usually doesn't happen. Selling books on the streets in Manhattan is a great way to end up nowhere.

Although, I've heard that selling hot dogs or morning coffee and bagels in Manhattan is not a bad way to make money if you are tough enough for it.

Of course, it is even easier on the internet. There are numerous affiliate programs for selling books. You can sell using Amazon.com or Powells.com which I am doing, or any of a number of other affiliate programs.

There are also various places where you can put together a back list of books to sell. For $25.00 a month you can set up an account on ABEbooks for up to 500 books. It is very easy to sell through their site. http://www.abebooks.com/docs/Sell/ . Alibris another service costs about the same amount and also sells music and films.

There are effectively no barriers to entry to start a small book storefront on the internet. If you only have a few books, you can simply put them up on ebay or another auction site to sell.

Advanced Reading Copies.

An Advanced Reading Copy is a stage between the manuscript which the author wrote, and the final publication. It is used to check the quality of the final work before it is published.

Usually an advanced reading copy will be trade paperback in size and have a glossy finished paper cover. In bookstores and libraries they are usually sent with a letter asking about any suggestions for final revision of the book. In big libraries with central branches, they usually have several bookshelves of advanced readers copies. Most of the time they say Advanced Readers Copy not for resale on them. Libraries cannot add them to their collections because of the notice.

Librarians will look over the Advanced Readers Copies to see how many of the book they will buy for a whole library system. Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Public Library, and New York Public Library all have central collection development departments as do most very large city library systems.

Independent booksellers often ignore advanced readers copies, they are busy selling books and often don't have time to read for pleasure. They often have an unread pile of them behind the counter. Sometime, they give them to their assistant to read. Or if the ARC is by a really famous author, they will stick it in a closet somewhere, because it might be worth something to someone some day.

ARCs of famous authors like Steven King are valuable. They are not supposed to sell it because of the notice. This is sometimes ignored. Usually to be considerate, most booksellers wait several years after the book is released until the item is collectible, have the item signed then sell it.

Often after meetings, the librarians will take a few minutes and pick up some of the advanced reading copies to read. They are meant to be distributed to get a first impression of a book before it is published. The more professionals in the book trade who read it and give an impression back to them the happier the publisher is.

If the librarian or bookseller is considerate and the review sheet is still in the ARC, they will send back a review of the Advanced Readers Copy to the publisher with comments like, the sword fight on page 53 read like a fight with a fencing blade not a broadsword, or I didn't like the poem on page 56 it didn't match the tone of the story, or you spelled cope verde wrong three times, it is cape verde. These will most likely be some of the final revisions before publication.

If the author liked the review, they may even send a signed copy of the book to you. This is rare, but it has happened to me once with a short review. They will also ask the bookseller to tell them how many copies of the book he or she might want to buy in the future.

Advanced Readers Copies are also handed out at the big book conventions. If you go to Book Expo America, each booth will have copies of their latest forthcoming to be published book in Advanced Readers Edition format. They hand out hundreds of them to generate buzz from the attendees. There are stacks piled up on the floor, on tables, in book racks, and on display stands for people to look at and handle. There are more than most people can even look at in passing. You could take home a hundred pounds of them and still barely scratch the surface.

If you go to author events or readings at a convention like Book Expo America, they will often have the latest ARC of their book at a reading or presentation. You are supposed to take one so you can read the book and tell your friends how great it was.

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The logo in this blog is my new logo for Entrecard which I designed. I hope it looks decent. I had to replace my hit counter last night because it broke.

Here are some more thoughts about entrecard has a very large number of users. However, they don't have a very wide readership. For example, currently in the category of books, there are only 3 members, in the category of writing there are about 14 members, and the category of art there are 12 members, and in the category of education there are 8 members. This is not a whole lot of membership for the arts. While I get a lot of traffic from there, I don't get enough repeat traffic. It would be nice if more artistic people "like you maybe" joined the network.

Sometimes widgets and counters stop working because the code on blogspot gets changed, or the producer of the widget has problems with their server. This is the first time this has happened to me. I am thinking of redesigning the banner at the top of the page. I think it needs to have a little more lightness to it.

Sometimes I sound like a pitch man, but that is what I am doing selling myself and my blog to you.

Small Scale Online Bookselling, Romantic Science Fiction

For a while when the science fiction bookstore which I helped at closed in Manhattan, I tried small scale bookselling online. I used the various books I had collected mostly signed and unusual science fiction to make some money on ebay and abe. Things like signed paperbacks by Isaac Asimov, or signed hardcovers by Greg Bear. I would first put the items for sale on ebay, then if they didn't sell, I would put them on ABE-- Advanced Book Exchange, http://www.abebooks.com/ . I never found Alibris another booksale exchange to be very appealing. It was a very interesting experience.

I could create both a backlist and front list of titles doing this. However, I found that finding new books was not that easy, unless I chose to put an ad in the paper and take all comers, or was willing to buy entire estate sales worth of books. At the time, I was in Brooklyn, so I didn't have a car. A lot of New Yorkers don't drive.

I learned that bookselling really is very much a labor of love. There is not a huge amount of money in it, unless you sell very high quality rare books, or can sell in very large volumes like the Strand bookstore in Manhattan, or Amazon online.

For me unless the book was very valuable, at least $25 for a book, and ideally abve $50 it seemed like a tremendous effort for very little return. With used books, you have to list every book separately, they don't tend to repeat themselves, unlike new books where you can set up one listing and sell them repeatedly. It requires meticulous care and the promise of quality customer service to very picky customers.

I spent quite a bit of time learning to pack and ship the books. This is really important, surprisingly, it is one of the few things that differentiates online used booksellers is their shipping.

Bookselling online is incredibly easy to get into, almost too easy. I think it is one of the factors that drove many of the used bookstores out of business. It was no longer necessary for the pickers, the people who went out to library booksales, church sales, thrift shops and other places to get old books to bring them in to the bookstore, they could just sell them themselves. This created an incredibly competitive environment. Most of the pickers I've met are older people looking to supplement their income with a hobby.

When you can go to something like the http://www.ioba.org/ -- The Independent Online Booksellers Associations and learn all the basics for free, or http://www.bibliomania.net/ it becomes much too easy to enter the field.

Also, it increases theft from bookstores and libraries. Suddenly, there is a very easy way for people to sell material that is stolen. They can take it and put it online. Please don't buy books with library markings online or from used bookstores, the item you are buying could be stolen. Ask about the stores policy about library books. If they are honest, they will tell you "We don't sell books with library markings." This is a really important policy.

It is amazing the variety and kind of library thieves there are. One of the most common refrains we here is, "I paid my taxes for these books, I should be able to take these books home and keep them."

The concept of returning or borrowing books is unacceptable to many people. We have to keep all the windows locked where we work, or they will go out the window. People mangle the books so they can take them home. Videos and dvds are even harder to keep from being stolen. The most common sign of a book thief is a combination of razor blades and string... No library is immune from this kind of behavior. There are stories of people going around to various libraries around the country and filling whole houses full of stolen books. I've read about this multiple times. This is a nice little article on map thievery, almost as common as book thievery.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2209582,00.html

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Romance books are one of the most read type of books on the market. They account for most of the paperbacks that get printed. Something that is important to know is that mostly women read novels.

A good source for information and reviews on romance books is http://www.romantictimes.com/

One of my favorite cross genre writers is Elizabeth Lowell http://www.elizabethlowell.com/ She writes romantic suspense, historical romances, romances, mysteries, science fiction, and even has a screenplay. She is a best selling author. She wrote one of my favorite books, a science fiction romance called Name of A Shadow which was nominated for the Hugo Award.

Another science fiction writer who wrote a classic romantic science fiction book is Tanith Lee,

The Silver Metal Lover. This was followed up by Metallic Love, a story of near perfect robots who are used as entertainers and escorts who escape their designers in the end.

I am adding Romantic Times to the list of places for book reviews.

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I added a bestselling book widget and a comic book widget from widget bucks. I have also been posting on bumpzee.com and fuelmyblog.com to generate some more interest. The bumpzee widget is very large and cumbersome, I think. If they had something smaller, I might add it to my site.

It is rather interesting who is searching for and looking at my web site. There were two sites which I found rather interesting. One was Plaxo, an online address book site, and another was Zuula, a new metasearch engine.

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I looked through the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2007 and chose two of them to put on hold. The first is Ha Jin A Free Life, the second is Pierre Bayard How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read -- a truly wonderful title. I do not read every book I reserve. I usually examine the first two chapters, the cover, and the blurb to see if I want to read the book. Not everything is worth reading.

A Book And Its Cover, A Trip to A Bookstore

A lot of people think "You cannot judge a book by its cover." This can be a very misleading statement. Many people collect books just for their covers. Most science fiction and pulp art comes from book and magazine covers. Many people collect hardcover and paperback books just for their cover art. Kelly Freas, J. Allen St. John, Donato Giancola, and Michael Whelan are a few of the artists who people buy just for the cover art. Also some people buy old pulp magazines just for the cover art as well, things like The Spider Master of Men, Famous Detective, the Shadow, Astounding and other magazines are often purcheased just to have the cover art.

A books cover is the most valuable part of a book for a collector. This is because it is the most ephemeral part of the book and the hardest part to preserve. Most very old books have long since lost their covers. It follows that people wrap the covers in plastic to protect them. There is an odd corollary. It seems that bookstores and collectible shops can charge a premium for things wrapped in plastic. This is true for both comic books, magazines, and even paperbacks.

If you find a book that is not wrapped in plastic, it is usually much cheaper.

The cover of a book is also the first thing which a person sees when they are going to buy a book. Usually, they have to select the book from a large variety of other books. This makes it very important for the cover to stand out from a bunch of other books. This means if you are attempting to sell a book take a minute and see how your book stands out from five or ten other books at five feet, at ten feet, and at twenty feet. You really want your titles to be visible in the bookstore and display window. If you can see a books cover in the window of a bookstore while you are driving by in a busy city, then you know your cover is visible.

Up close you should be able to read the title clearly and the author clearly of the book. There should be some blank space to put a label on the spine for libraries, also there should be a place where you can put a sale sticker on the cover without disrupting the cover art. The spine should have the title of the book and the author easily readable from the side. If the spine title is not very readable people will have trouble finding it in libraries and bookstores.

Something that bothers collectors and booksellers is false aging marks or pictures that include wrinkles and stains on the cover to make the book look old. Collectors want their books to look absolutely clean. Dealers want their books to appear new so they can sell them as new.

Some thoughts on displays. It is good to mix up the size of different books from regular to size to quarto. Putting larger books in the back makes sense. Also laying down some larger books to break up the pattern of the display is a good idea. Colored cloth or felt which is the opposite color of the books being displayed provides an excellent background. Also mixing media, adding in videos and audiobooks can make a dispaly more interesting.

These are just a few thoughts on cover art. People really do judge a book by its cover. They then usually read the inside blurb on the cover flaps which summarizes the book. This is often done as part of the first stage of editing. Sometimes the books blurbs don't exactly match the contents, because they are written too early in the editing process. Also, the photo of the author is usually retouched to make the author look better. I usually take the recommendation sentences with a grain of salt, they are usually marketing statements.

It is not until they have looked at the cover and the inside flaps that they look at the inside of the book. Most people like to read the first chapter of a book before they decide to buy the book. However, some of the more old fashioned bookstores won't let them. You can look, but you can't read. This makes the cover even more important. Also, some people are too rushed, so first impressions count.

Anyways, I am enjoying the Bonehunters by Steven Erickson. I am still reading it. My favorite part so far is when Leoman of the Flails leads the Malazan army into a fire trap with burning oil, collapsing buildings, and berserk warriors. The fire trap turns into a firestorm and some of the heros of the novel have to escape underground through the warrens to get out. Lots of action.

I am going to go to a bookstore today and look at books. Exciting for me, maybe not so exciting for you, but still probably an interesting experience.

I thought about visiting Macy's because they are giving away Shrek dolls with every $35 dollar purchase. Maybe I'll get some underwear and socks... Ah, the appeal of mass media.

Anyways, today, I went to the mall, had a bite to eat, then went to the local Barnes and Noble, like many places we do not have a local independent bookstores. The chains and the giant web merchants have killed most of them. I bought one paperback, A Feast for Crows, book four of the Song of Ice and Fire Series. This series is #1 on the Internet Top 100 SF/Fantasy list. http://gurge.com/amd/top100. The first three books of the series are really excelent. I look forward to reading the fourth.

I also took some notes and placed holds at the library on Heavens Net is Wide by Lian Hearn, Odyssey by Jack McDevitt, the graphic novel, part of Stephen King's Gunslinger series, the Gunslinger Born. Most of the time I don't buy a lot of books when I visit bookstores.

Librarianship, Bookselling, and Publishing

The library of the Nautilus with a picture of Captain Nemo.

Creating The Customer Driven Library Building on the Bookstore Model by Jeannette Woodward is about how to improve libraries by understanding how retail bookstores work. The central tenet of this book is that the best way to improve libraries is through better customer service. The book claims that many of the customer service practices of bookstores can be adapted by libraries. Jeanette Woodward says that libraries need to look at their bottom lines and see how statistics and qualitative surveys on what library patrons want can be used to improve service in libraries. Serving the patron and the community become the central goal of the library.

There are detailed sections on how to display materials, improve signage, and generate positive publicity. It challenges the traditional idea that the librarian knows best and claims that what the patron wants is more important. If the library patron doesn't get what they want, they go elsewhere, usually to the local bookstore. Things like how to run a cafe in a library setting, adjust hours so they meet patrons needs, and use staffing so that technology is used effectively are written about.

It claims that the library patron needs to feel safe, have fast service, feel good about their visit, and be informed about what happens in their library. This should be written into the mission of the library.

This is an excellent book that tackles many thorny issues in the public library. It is well worth reading for both librarians and booksellers.

This post is particularly about the relationship between libraries, bookstores, and publishing. One of the review links I have posted is to Bookweb, the newsletter of the American Bookselling Association. Bookweb has quite a few news articles as well as information on what the best books are for selling in the independent bookstore.

The ABA, American Booksellers Association, also sponsors, Bookexpo America, the trade show for American publishing. This show occurs every other year in New York City at the Jacob Javits center. It will be in New York in 2009. I try to go every year it is in New York city, http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/ . The price is incredibly cheap $75.00 in US dollars three days. Close to the same time as the Bookexpo, there is the Day of Dialog between librarians and publishers. You have to register several months in advance to get tickets for the Day of Dialog. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6457224.html . I easily pay for the cost of the event in the amount of free sample books which I end up sending back to where I am working, about sixty pounds of free new books.

Quite a few librarians attend the event in addition to booksellers and publishers. Most of the librarians are either collection development or reference librarians. I usually meet several different people who I have worked with at one point or another when I go there. It takes about a day and half to just walk around all the booths in the Jacob Javits Center. There is every kind of book, comic book, ebook, and book related material there.

Last time I was at this thing in 2007, I got to here a panel by publishers on science fiction in the library setting, as well as pick up a few free books like Armageddon Reef by David Weber, and the graphic novel, Invincible for myself. During the Day of Dialog, George R.R. Martin, the science fiction writer, was one of the invited speakers.

In April 2008, I will be going to the New York Comic Con, http://www.nycomiccon.com/ which offers free admission to professionals, librarians are considered professionals so I get to go free. Last time I was there, there were professional discussion panels on anime, manga, and graphic novels in the library setting. What is different about the New York Comic Con from other comic conventions is that the main purpose of the convention is to meet and talk with all the different comic book publishers like Fantagraphics, DC, Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, and others.

I am a big fan of comics lit, that is things like Maus by Art Spiegelman, the comic book adaptation of the Ring of the Nibelung by P. Craig Russell, the Cartoon History of the Universe by Larry Gonick, a biography of Kafka by R. Crumb, and many other works. I don't read a whole lot of superhero comics.

I collect what are called "ground level" comics, things that are not quite underground comics, and not quite mainstream comics. People like Vaughn Bode, P. Craig Russell, and Richard Corben. My focus in collecting is mainly science fiction, fantasy, and horror comics.

Another convention I will attend is the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art Festival on June 7 and June 8 in the Puck Building in Manhattan. This convention once again is very affordable to attend. Once again, this convention is not like most other comic book conventions, it focuses almost entirely on independent comic book publishers. There are tables from people like Fantagraphics, Soft Skull Press, Last Gasp, Drawn and Quarterly and illustrators like Craig Thompson. Last time I was at the festival in 2005, I got to meet Sara Turner of Make Like a Tree Comics. She has a really excellent free science fiction web comic caled File 49 http://mlatcomics.com/file49_index.html . This really satisfies my fanboy urges.

I haven't had a chance to visit MOCCA-- Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art in New York, but I recently looked at their listing of comic books on the internet. http://www.librarything.com/profile/moccany . They also have a catalog. http://www.librarything.com/catalog/moccany . Maybe, on my next vacation I will get a chance to visit.

I have plenty of thoughts on the more low brow aspect of the librarians and booksellers. One of these things is the public library fundraising booksale which usually comes with cupcakes, cookies, and coffee which is done by the "Friends of the Library." At almost every such event, you will see pickers, or bookscouts who are trying to find special books to sell either on ebay, or to their local bookstore. Most are older gentlemen or ladies who have experience with this kind of thing. It is a hobby for them which brings in some extra money. For the most part they are curmudgeons with a slightly grumpy hands off my stuff attitude. They also attend church rummage sales, flea markets, used bookshops, second hand goods stores and other such venues.

Anyways, this is a piece of my post for the day.

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Another link which I am posting is http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/ this is a news aggregator for the alternative energy industry. If you are interested in alternative energy, this gives very up to the minute news.

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I really haven't thought of anything new to post about improving my site statistics. I'll come up with some more later today.

Alright, I posted a few comments by myself to myself in the comments section. Right now, I am not worried about comment spam and link dropping. Please comment-- remember no porn, no truly gratuitous violence, no super hateful spews, flaming and different opinions are welcome. I like a little debate. It makes the world go around. If you want to put in a link to your blog please do. I will gladly post a comment in return on your blog. Thanks. Talking to myself. Wow.

Anyways, there is so much that is so easy to miss. I just updated my complete profile. It is so easy to miss stuff on this site.

While I was looking at Google Groups help for blogs, I found several blog review style groups in Google, Blogger Review, Blogger Help Group, and Blogger General Discussion where you are supposed to post your URL and ask for comments. I then looked for some web sites that reviewed blogs, there is Bloggeries Blog, and The Weblog Review so far.