** disclosure: Proud to say that I am one of the Directors of the WBM. If you have any questions concerning it you can post it in the comments area or email me (link at bottom left)

WORLD BOOK MARKET IN MAJOR EXPANSION OF ITS BOOKSELLER BASE

The World Book Market (WBM) bookseller co-operative is opening its doors to quality booksellers world-wide by way of an expanded Membership plan launched today.

Hitherto confined to life-memberships and bookstore(B&M)-only booksellers, the WBM will now be offering a month-to-month membership option to booksellers with or without physical stores.

The WBM is primarily a software-pooling, bookseller-owned enterprise. It also operates its own multi-lister bookselling site, viewable at www.worldbookmarket.com

Its Members share access to a number of important on-line software bookselling tools, including auto-uploads of data and book pics to other bookselling sites, automated “send catalogue” routines for responding to customers, and a range of other utilities and tools which are free to members.

A powerful multi-search powered bookselling database is also available free to Members, as an additional option.

The WBM bookselling site carries a number of highly useful bookseller-friendly features, over and above the sales which might be generated there.

Members uploading their books to that site are given detailed reports of likely errors in their listings, including a full ISBN verification and logic test.

The site also has a simple but powerful Variable Weight Shipping Matrix, so that a member coding his or her books with actual weights (or a 1-2-3-4-5-6 code system) will have the full and actual shipping costs for each book uploaded to each of up to 6 international destination zones (and domestic costs as well, split into regions for larger countries). All zones and variable weight prices are fully member-definable and editable.

The primary purpose of the WBM listing site is, however, to drive business from buyers directly to each Member’s own website or private business domain, and re-direction by sellers from the site to their own private websites is actively encouraged by the site operator.

For booksellers without a private website, becoming a member of the WBM will automatically create a private website at no extra cost. This automated website will be hosted at the WBM, and will reference the member’s book data at the main site as its driving database engine.

The WBM charges its members a fixed monthly fee for the combined use of the software toolkit and listing rights at the sales site. There is no commission or fee charged upon any sales made at the site, and there is no central card processing facility or fee-charge – each member handles his/her own sales privately.

A group of 20 booksellers in 4 countries has been invited by the existing WBM members to help test the new software engines relevant to the expanded membership.

This process will unfold over October-November, and general membership applications will be accepted from December 1st forwards.

The WBM has a set of minimum quality standards for its members, which will shortly be published. These have been set fairly broadly, but will exclude penny-sellers, data-scrapers, and all odious and even illegal descriptions such as “Binding unknown” and the like.

Further details and commentary, and the ability to record expressions of interest and other comments or questions by and from interested booksellers, may be found at the Open Forum at the WBM at www.worldbookmarket.com/forum