Month: December 2009

The books of the future will be made of sugar, wheat, and weed!

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“Dead tree edition” is an often used internetism to refer to hard copy editions of publications that are increasingly available online.  It’s obviously meant to be a dig at how old and uncool printed material is… but “dead tree editions” largely refer only to 20th century books.  Antiquarian books largely aren’t printed on “dead trees”.  And the books of the future may still be printed on paper… but there won’t be any trees involved.

Paper may look all the same once its bound in a “dead tree edition” but it often involves no trees at all.  Sometimes you’ll find information on the title page telling you what type of paper was used in the printing.  This is pretty rare, but you’ll trip across it every now and then from specialty presses.

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Being Competitive From Afar…

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As you may have seen in my previous post, I live in Perth Western Australia. A very far away place to be.

The internet has provided a more even playing field in the world of internet retail. I can now sell to someone in Springer New Mexico, or Toulouse France or Cheltenham in the United Kingdom and it’s almost like having my own store in those very countries.

The biggest problem I face now, as a seller in Australia (and I am not alone here) is the postage costs. It can cost almost the price of a very small car just to post a book to the other side of Australia, let alone the other side of the world.

For example, to send a book in Australia that weighs over 500grams (approximately 17 ounces) costs AUS$9.90. To send a book under 500grams has varying prices ranging from AUS$1.10 through to AUS$5.70. You can just about double these prices for international postage AND you can also wait up to 3 months for that book to be delivered, depending on which postage option you’ve chosen.

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The NYT bestsellers aren't my bestsellers

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The bestsellers on the used market aren’t necessarily the best sellers you see on the New York Times list or on Amazon’s hot list.  Often they bear no relation to each other.  However, statistics on the used market can be devilishly difficult to come by.  And of course, it’s all relative too.  The bestsellers in a small New England town where I am may be totally different than what sells in a shop in the heart of London.  But “what’s your bestseller?” is a question I get asked a lot by people considering getting into the book business.

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3 Years, 3 Stores

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Northside1

Well, Gottwals Books has been open almost 3 years.  We started with almost zero knowledge of opening a book store.  We had roughly 7500 titles in stock, and half of our shelving was bought at the department store.  We didn’t know how to accept trades, so we didn’t do it at all.  We had the walls covered with old framed images and our shelves had miniature gnomes, all hoping to be sold.
To anyone who has ever been inside a used bookstore, we must have looked a bit puny.  We had 1500 square feet of space, but our inventory only covered half of it.  A smaller space might have looked packed, but our space looked lean.
One year later, after the nail salon next door vacated (by God’s grace), we tore into the wall.  Our space became 2700 square feet and would eventually hold 50000 books.
One year after that, we got the keys to a brand new store.  Our Byron location is nearly 3600 square feet and has been successful since the beginning.  No room to expand anymore at the two locations, but I think we’re comfortable with our current sizes.

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