By Michael Stillman
Abebooks recent released the results of a survey they conducted of almost 2,000 of their booksellers. While their findings did not particularly surprise us, they did confirm a lot of our own anecdotal impressions about who is selling books today, and particularly, who is selling online. We then went to the source, AbeBooks, to see what their reaction was to the results.
Youth may be served, but youth is not doing the serving. Abe found that 79% of its sellers are aged 45 and over. This places the bookselling profession in the same category with Wal-Mart greeters...
By Bruce McKinney
Book collecting is not what it was. It has been a complex field broken down into sections subdivided into layers, the world of books divided into fiction and non-fiction, div...
By Michael Stillman
It was a spat that caught most internet observers off guard, a battle between "do no evil" search giant Google and massive online commerce site eBay. Surprisingly, it was the...
By Bruce McKinney
Bloomsbury, the English auction house that specializes in works on paper, has announced it's opening in New York in September. It will be located at 6 West 48th Street betwee...
By Karen Wright
The words "burning books" (even if they are bad books and might deserve it) bring chills to my spine; shades of Fahrenheit 451, the bookseller's nightmare! I won't pretend that ...
By Bruce McKinney
This past month Jeffrey Thomas of San Francisco, an independent rare book dealer since 1981 and in the trade from 1974, passed away after an eleven month battle with illness. ...
By Michael Stillman
Just released is a new book for desert (and other) gardeners, The Bloomin' Desert, by Juniper Rose. "Juniper Rose" is actually Karen Wright, who could accurately be described...
By Bruce McKinney
This month I want to discuss two ways to improve your eBay experience. eBay and Google lie on one side of the tectonic shift; traditional bookselling, listing sites and book ...
By Michael Stillman
Final restitution figures for convicted map thief E. Forbes Smiley were raised from an earlier estimate of $1.9 million to $2.3 million. The higher amount was ordered after a...
Twelve new booksellers' catalogues are reviewed in Section Two this month. Material from world's fairs and exhibitions are offered by Marc Selvaggio. African Travels are covered by Trophy Room Book...