Bookseller Digest UK

Going on Holiday? Put your books on vacation too...

If you are lucky enough to be going on holiday this year, do not forget that you can put your books on vacation at the same time. This will ensure that your books are taken offline when you are away, leaving you to enjoy your holiday.

We recommend that you set the vacation to start 24 hours before you go on holiday and to end 24 hours before you return so that your books will be removed and then re-instated again on time.

Be advised that any outstanding orders will need to be processed before you update your account to vacation status.

To put your books on vacation simply:

• Sign on to your account on www.abebooks.com
• Select [Your Books]
• Select [Manage Vacations]
• Enter your vacation start and end date
• Save the changes

For further information on using the Vacation tool, please visit our Bookseller Help.

Meetings and Book Fairs in Europe

In addition to attending book fairs in London and the UK AbeBooks meeting in April, there were a number of events arranged and book fairs attended across Europe.

Germany - A meeting was arranged for booksellers at the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz. Booksellers who attended had the opportunity to see a reconstruction of Gutenberg's workshop and to use a printing press from that era. Many thanks to Professor Schneider from the University of Mainz who additionally gave a lecture on the origins of the book industry in the 19th century.

France - AbeBooks staff met with booksellers in Paris for a guided tour of the National Library (Bibliothèque nationale de France). 

Spain - Two meetings took place for booksellers; one in Madrid and the other in Barcelona. 

Italy - the first Italian AbeBooks bookseller meeting took place in Turin.

On top of these meetings, we were present at the Olympia Book Fair, the London Book Fair, the Turin Book Fair, the Marché de la Bibilophilie and the Salón del Libro Antiguo in Paris.

  

Marketing on AbeBooks - June

Our Marketing team regularly put together features to promote the books available on AbeBooks and provide further coverage for some of the impressive titles that simply need to be seen to be appreciated. By uploading pictures of your items they are more likely to be included in the articles and pages that appear on the website.

Currently features on AbeBooks.co.uk:

Collectable Kurt Vonnegut
American author (1922-2007), popular for writing novels that featured satire, black comedy and science fiction

Best Short Stories
From Fitzgerald's Benjamin Button to Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, some of the best short stories available on AbeBooks.

Coming through the Rye
AbeBooks reviews the unauthorised sequel that has infuriated J.D. Salinger and links to booksellers offering this title.

Book Carousel:  John Updike

Rare Book Room:

Illuminated Manuscripts
A selection of intricately crafted manuscripts that are available on AbeBooks and some books around this topic.

Book Carousel:
Fabulous Finds for £50, featuring titles from Peter Harrington Antiquarian Bookseller, The Children's Bookshop, Bristow & Garland, Amolib Books, Jonkers Rare Books ABA ILAB, Aurora Books Ltd and Wychwood Books PBFA

Bookseller Survey - June

Last month we asked booksellers whether they consider the fixed book price system* to be a good measure to protect independent booksellers.

In the UK, 52% of participants and in France, 50% of participants, did not agree that this system is a useful means of protection.

However, in Germany, Spain and Italy, where the fixed book price system already exists, booksellers were very much in favour of this measure. 75% of participants in Germany, 67% in Spain and 100% of participants in Italy were of the belief that this system is a good measure to protect independent booksellers.

This month, we invite you to take part in a new survey:

How successful do you find the following channels for selling your books?

*  Fixed book price system - This is a system whereby publishers can set the price at which a book is sold by the bookseller to the general public. The Net Book Agreement, which continued until 1995, was the UK equivalent of this system. For more information, you can visit the website of the International Publishers Association.

Update: Bookseller Rating

On Thursday 18th June we launched an improvement to the Bookseller Rating system that will provide a more accurate rating to booksellers with fewer orders. Previously, booksellers with 3 or fewer orders were automatically given 4 stars regardless of how many of their orders they completed.

Now, with the exception of the ratings for booksellers new to the site, the number of stars a bookseller has will reflect their actual completion rate. Therefore, members with 3 or fewer orders for a rating period will now be able to achieve 5 stars:

For more information on how your completion rate or bookseller star rating is calculated, please visit our Bookseller Help.

Further Details:
Where can I view my bookseller rating?
Which orders are included in the bookseller rating

Create your own Online Webshop

Have you been thinking about purchasing your own website and strengthening the presence of your bookshop on the Internet?  Chrislands is a service that can help you to create an effective online webshop for your books.

Advantages of Chrislands:

• Your own website address: www.yourbookshopname.co.uk
• No need to install software, Chrislands maintains the software and works with your book inventory program
• Inventory regularly uploaded and made searchable on Google.
• Professionally designed website which is constructed in only 5 - 7 days 
• Secure shopping basket and various payment possibilities

Examples of booksellers already using Chrislands websites:

www.anderidabooks.co.uk
www.booksfoundfast.co.uk
www.byblos.uk.com

For further information on Chrislands, you can visit the website or send an email to info@chrislands.com

View your AbeBooks Account Details

You can take a look at your AbeBooks sales, charges and revenue through the Members Menu. A history of your account balance is accessible through following the steps below:

1) Sign on to AbeBooks.com
2) Select [Your Personal Details]
3) Select [Account Details by Statement]

To view your account details for the month of May, you need to select June from the drop-down menu and then click [View]. By doing so, you will be shown your account balance leading up to the beginning of June.

To view a more detailed description of your sales during a given time, you should select [Sales Details for Statement Period] or if you wish to see a weekly summary of your revenue and charges, you can click on [Weekly Summaries for Statement Period]. Each sales sheet is available in printable format and downloadable as a text file.

For further information on viewing your account details, visit our Bookseller Help.

Olympia Antiquarian Book Fair 2009

On arriving at the Olympia Book Fair on Friday 6th June, we were greeted by a long queue of people waiting to enter. There were 151 exhibitors participating from across the globe and Udo Göllmann and I had the pleasure of speaking to a selection of them.

Though there was a steady stream of visitors, booksellers were fairly reserved about their sales. All in all, the pinch of the recession seems to be being felt, but not too strongly. Books are still being bought and sold, and there really were some beautiful creations on sale. 

We hope that the fair was a success for all of the booksellers there. Should you wish to read more about the Olympia Book Fair, you can visit the website here.

Independent Booksellers Week 2009

The second Independent Booksellers Week takes places from 15th - 22nd June 2009. The event has been arranged by the Booksellers Association and intended to help to promote independent bookshops across the UK within their local communities through organising book related events.

This year there are over 200 bookshops taking part. Visitors to many of the bookshops will be able to vote for one of the ten shortlisted titles for the Independent Booksellers' Book Prize 2009, which will be announced in September.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith  
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer 
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill
Spilling the Beans by Clarissa Dickson-Wright
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

You can find more details about the events taking place close to you through the search facility on the official website. We hope all of the AbeBooks members taking part in the week have an enjoyable time and make the most of this event to promote their bookshop in their local community.

AbeBooks Top 10 Most Expensive Sales for May 2009

1. Della Magnificenza ed Architettura de'Romaniand Osservazioni sopra la Lettre de M. Mariette by Giovanni Battista Piranesi  £10,438  ($17,000)
Piranesi (1720-1778) was famous for his etchings of ancient Roman ruins and prisons.  This work (published in 1765) translates to Roman Antiquities of the Time of the First Republic and the First Emperors and contains etchings of the structures built in this period.

2. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Through The Looking Glass, and And What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll  £8,827  ($14,377)
First London editions in two volumes (1866 & 1872).  Illustrated by John Tenniel and bound in red morocco with a slipcase.

3. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens  £4,268  ($6,950)
First edition from London (1859) from the original seven monthly serial parts that were bound by Birdsall & Son of Northampton. Illustrations by H.K. Brown.

4. Selected Poems by Ezra Pound  £3,717  ($6,050)
First edition, limited to 100 copies and signed by Ezra Pound and hand-numbered (this was No.3). The poems in this collection were selected and edited by T.S Eliot in 1928

5. Sartoris by William Faulkner  £3,688  ($6,000)
First edition of Faulkner’s third book, and the inaugural effort in his Yoknapatawpha cycle.  Published in 1929, includes the rare Aurthur Hawkins-designed dustjacket

6. Tugboat Annie by Norman Reilly Raine  £3,381  ($5,500)
First edition of the book, published in 1934 with dustjacket, based on the Oscar-winning film.

7. Philosophia Moysaica. In Qua Sapientia & Scientia Creationis & Creaturarum Sacra Vereque Christiana (ut Pote Cujus Basis Sive Funamentum Est Unicus Ille Lapis Angularis Iesus Christus) by Robert Fludd  £2,398  ($3,900)
First edition from 1638.  Flood was a scientist, philosopher, and doctor.  This was the last of his major works and acted as a summation of his philosophies, it was published the year after his death.

8. Tobler / Lommatzsch: Altfranzosisches Worterbuch  £2,336  ($3,800)
German edition of a dictionary of the French Language from the 12th to 14th centuries.  Published in 2002 in 11 volumes (plus CDs and DVDs).  This project is considered to be one of the greatest collections of the French language and it took the editors over 75 years to complete.

9. The Historic American Merchant Marine Survey (HAMMS): Works Progress Administration, Federal Project No. 6 by Historic American Merchant Marine Survey  £2,152  ($3,500)
Published in 1983, first edition, in seven volumes.  Contains over 1,000 scale drawings of wooden ships from the 1936-37 HAMMS survey.

10. Wildflowers of Great Britain by George W. Johnson and Robert Hogg  £1,996  ($3,245)
Compiled in 11 volumes containing 924 coloured plates and originally published in 1863.  Johnson was a master gardener who penned numerous works on the subject and founded the Journal of Horticulture, which published this work.