Bookseller Digest UK

AbeBooks Events in 2009

As this year draws to a close, the AbeBooks team are looking ahead to 2009 in order to fight off the winter blues and make the new year a successful one for our member booksellers. Currently, we are looking at how to improve our UK events and we hope that you will help us by participating in our Events Survey.

If you are not already aware, we regularly come over to the UK for events, providing booksellers with the chance to find out more about what goes on behind our computer screens. In 2009, we would like to make our AbeBooks organised events more attractive and important to booksellers, and to do this, we would sincerely appreciate your suggestions and opinions. 

Our Events Survey only takes a few minutes to complete, but will enable us to create events which are relevant to you and your interests. Thank you for your support!

Christmas Post Deadlines

The Royal Mail has constructed a useful tool to help its customers calculate the last date to post parcels in time for Christmas. Domestic UK orders sent using first class post must be posted by 20th December to arrive before Christmas. For items sent from the UK to most European destinations, the last posting date is 12th December.

If you suspect that a buyer is making a Christmas order and it will not arrive before the big day, you may wish to request extra charges for a purchase with the justification of "To ensure pre-Christmas delivery". The buyer can then decide whether they wish to receive the item in time for Christmas at an extra cost. Updating your Terms of Sale in your online account details to inform buyers of your last dates for Christmas delivery would also be a way of providing top of the range customer service!

Prompt and safe delivery is of great importance over the Christmas period. Make sure your books are packaged carefully as buyer's expectations can be very high since a large number of orders are destined to be presents.

Another way to ensure safe delivery of an order is to post the items using Tracking. Providing tracking details enables buyers to locate their purchase at any one time and often prevents returns being processed too early.

If you have sent an item by trackable means, you can enter the tracking information when you process an order through your online account (see image). When you enter tracking information, please make sure to include the name of the shipping company and the particular service you have chosen.

From all at AbeBooks, we wish you all the best with your Christmas sales and hope the festive period proves to be successful for you!

Top 10 bestselling books on AbeBooks.co.uk for October 2008

1. The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga
2. Open Mind, Open Heart, by Thomas Keating
3. V For Vendetta, by Alan Moore
4. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, by Bill Martin
5. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
6. Puggles, by Andrew Calbert
7. In the Name of Jesus, by Henri J. Nouwen
8. Dragon Boy, by Dick King-Smith
9. Chickens Come Home To Roost, by L.B. Hilles
10. Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind, by Joyce Meyer

Most Expensive Sales on AbeBooks - October 2008

1. George Bernard Shaw’s typewriter $7,979 (£5217)
   Along the top edge of the machine’s guarantee in faded ink, Shaw had written the words "Bernard Shaw, Ayot St Lawrence, Welwyn Herts". He had also written the date, 9th Feb 1935.


2. Oeuvres Philosophiques Latines & Francaises de feu by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - $6,496 - £4254
   Published in 1765, this first edition is a collection of Leibnitz's philosophical works in French and Latin, and contains the first printing of one of Leibnitz's most important philosophical works, his “Nouveaux essays sur l'entendement humain” (New Essays on Human Understanding), in which he attacks and refutes Locke and his “Essay on Human Understanding.”


3. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway - $6,000 (£3929)
   A first edition, first printing, of this classic novella published in 1952 and signed by Hemingway.


4. The Novels and Tales of Henry James by Henry James - $5,999 (£3927)
   A first edition set of 26 volumes published 1917.


5. A Corpus of Rembrandt paintings. Translated by D.Co - $5,404 (£3541)
   Published in 1982 in three volumes


6. Harry Potter and the Half Blooded Prince by JK Rowling - $5,213 (£3415)
   First printing first issue of the deluxe edition signed by the author


7. The Novels and The Letters by Jane Austen - $4,862 (£3184)
   Published in 1923, based on collation of the early editions by R.W. Chapman. Large paper edition limited to 1000 copies.


8. Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson - $4,500 (£2945)
   First American edition of Jefferson’s only book, with folding table of Indian Tribes. Published in 1788.


9. Sein und Zeit (Being And Time) by Martin Heidegger - $4,450 (£2912)
   This is the special printing of the first appearance of the work generally considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century and is the best known work by the German Philosopher, published 1927.


10. Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflection and Colours of Light by Sir Isaac Newton - $3,929 - (£2570)
    Published in 1730 this fourth edition was published posthumously and is the last edition to be revised by the author. The book contains information about the study of physical optics.

AbeBooks Shipping Tips

As you will know, we recently ran a survey about your shipping solution needs. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those booksellers who took the time to complete the survey. We had a very high response rate and were able to gather some very valuable feedback, which will help us with the development of future shipping solutions.

From some of the comments and suggestion left we were able to see that some booksellers may not be completely aware of the things they can already do with the current shipping matrix. Therefore, we wanted to remind you of how you can use it to manage your shipping.

As many booksellers use different shipping services and have to ship to many different countries, we offer a flexible shipping matrix. The matrix allows you to add or update the information according to the services you use, and the countries that you most often ship to.

Offering accurate rates and speeds for each country will make sure that your listings are more competitive and that buyers return to buy more of your books. You can also avoid refunds from processing too soon by setting more realistic shipping speeds.

Did you know...:

• You can add more countries to your matrix so that you can offer more accurate shipping for each country to which you ship. You will find the standard AbeBooks countries already on the matrix. All other countries would come under the International shipping rates and speeds. However, you also have the option to add more countries to your matrix with the appropriate rates and speeds. We recommend that you add those countries from which you regularly receive orders.

• You can increase or decrease the shipping rates according to the shipping services you use (both standard and priority). AbeBooks has a default shipping rate that all booksellers are welcome to use. However, those rates can be changed at any time to be more accurate to the services you offer.

• Not only can you change the rates, you can also change the speeds according to the shipping service you use. You know best what delivery times your shipping services offer - update your shipping matrix to reflect those too. 

NOTE: Any changes to the Shipping Matrix will be updated on your account immediately, but may take longer to appear online in your inventory - make sure you allow a few days for the changes to go through.

When processing an order, every bookseller has the chance to reduce or increase the shipping if they have an item which is smaller, larger, more valuable than the average order, and the default shipping therefore either too high or low. 

This function is available at the order processing stage of an order. For more information visit our online help pages:

How do I increase or reduce shipping charges for an order?

Chelsea Book Fair 2008

November's ABA Chelsea Book Fair has been and gone already and, despite initial worries, this year's attendance was in fact marginally higher than last year. It was the turn of the Chelsea Arts Club to be invited to attend, with an exhibition entitled "The Chelsea Arts Club Then and Now". It focused on the club's literary and artistic members from the twentieth century, giving the public an extra incentive to visit Chelsea town hall on a wintry afternoon. Exhibitors and private sellers appeared to receive substantial sales and to be in good spirits, suggesting that the current financial gloom may not have had too much of an effect on booksellers so far.

Victoria Chater and myself, from the AbeBooks Sales and Account Management team, were there to speak to AbeBooks' member booksellers on the Friday afternoon of the fair. We would like to thank those booksellers who provided us with photos and allowed us to interview them briefly in order to feature their bookshops on the website.

If you would be interested in creating a profile for your bookshop on the AbeBooks.co.uk website, please contact us for more information at booksellers@abebooks.com

AbeBooks Media Coverage - November 2008

There has been some very positive media coverage for AbeBooks recently.

The Daily Express featured an article written by Alan Titchmarsh, famous English broadcaster, novelist, gardening expert and very keen reader. In the article - about Dream Gardens - Titchmarsh enthuses about the old gardening classics, "...think travellers' tales sprinkled with added greenery" and what great gifts those classical gardening books would make for Christmas to help "while away those long winter nights". 

He recommends visiting AbeBooks for those "old faves" that were written years ago, but which you can still get reprints or second hand copies of, over the internet or in secondhand bookshops.

Jackie Kay - Scottish poet, was interviewed in the Sunday Telegraph about her top 5 favourite websites - AbeBooks made it to number 2 on her list. "This is great for finding unusual or rare books, second-hand; efficient, too."

Richard Davies, AbeBooks' own Press and Publicity Manager, and author of AbeBooks Blog Reading Copy, as interviewed by Mariella Fostrop for the BBC on the subject of whether books can be seen as a better long-term investment than perhaps stocks and shares. Click the 16 November 2008 link to listen to that interview.

Charity Book Auction - UPDATE!

The auction has now been closed and no more bids will be accepted.

     ****************************************************************

Bidding has started for the annual AbeBooks Charity Book Auction.

AbeBooks teamed up with Penguin again this year who have provided a wonderful set of 6 leather-bound modern classic novels, created by Bill Amberg - one of the world’s top designers of leather goods.

Amberg selected six of his favourite modern novels and bound them in soft, brown calf leather. The books are The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, A Room with a View by EM Forster, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote. Each book has an integrated leather bookmark and is boxed with a belly-band. The collection comes complete with a Bill Amberg-designed leather carrying case and the initials of the winning bidder will be stamped on to the luggage tag. Each book is signed by Amberg.

There are 9 Lots to bid for, including a signed copy of the following titles:

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz,
• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan,
• Sweetheart by Chelsea Cain
  
• Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

The auction will close on November 25th at 6pm GMT - all proceeds go to Charity.

Click Here to view the full details on the Charity Book Auction and all the available Lots. 

Create a Virtual Storefront and Promote Your Books

Promote Your Books More This Christmas!

If you have not already done so, make sure that you set up an AbeBooks virtual Storefront so that you can encourage your buyers to purchase more books from you.

The Storefront feature is a free tool, that we offer all AbeBooks booksellers, as a means of helping them to further promote their AbeBooks inventory. Offer your buyers a website link so that they can find your books, and make future purchases, more easily. 

With the Storefront feature, you can enter a description of your business - do you have a shop or are you online only, how long have you been in the book trade, do you offer any other services (book binding, book valuation etc). Explain what your terms of sale are and provide your full contact details, with a link to browse or search your inventory directly. If buyers have the feeling that you know exactly what you are doing thet will be more confident to buy from you in the future. Click here to find out how to create your free Storefront.  

Buyers using the Bookstore search facility will be directed to your Storefront first - update your old homepage to include a new and professional webpage and you will improve buyer confidence in your services even more.

AbeBooks Tip: Add the link to your Storefront to any buyer communication you might send - you can add it for example to your signature block when responding to buyer queries, or perhaps to the back of a business card, bookmark or catalogue.

Scheduled Maintenance

One of AbeBooks credit card processing services will be performing scheduled maintenance on November 10th, between 01:00 a.m. to 03:00 a.m. GMT.

Please be advised that during this time, no credit card transactions will be authorised.

Should you have any outstanding orders, please ensure that you process them either before the maintenance begins on November 10th at 01:00 a.m. GMT, or after it has been completed on November 10th at 03:00 a.m. GMT

We apologise for any inconvenience and thank you kindly for your patience.