Bookselling

Facsimile Dust Jackets–Good Idea for Used Bookshops?

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  There are thousands of old books out there minus their original dust jackets. Some are first editions, some are not. There are a few talented people who work at restoring the original book covers, front, back, and flaps. Why should used bookshops be interested? A book that is in fairly decent condition and found … Read more

Superb Look at Digital Book World Conference

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Acclaimed award winning author, S. J. Rozan has written a summation of the issues discussed at the second conference held about the rapid takeover of the publishing industry by digital technology. Her factual reporting gives a clear picture of the goals and reality of e-publishing. Her personal thoughts are bracketed, separated to keep from confusing … Read more

Fabtastic! Sisters In Crime Rally Members: Buy From Independent Bookstores!

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Sisters In Crime: “Our Mission: To promote the professional development and advancement of women crime writers to achieve equality in the industry.”  The group and crime fiction author Dana Stabenow have issued the cry–Buy Indie, Pass it On. They ask their members to buy just one book on one day,  from an independent bookstore in their neighborhood. The … Read more

I Married a Dead Man–The Book I Sold Zillions Of

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I would start: Picture This! Yes, that emphatically, with exclamation point stressed, palms out, as if to stop traffic. I did. More than once. Some poor unsuspecting individual would ask the innocent question, “what would you recommend,” and that’s all  the encouragement I’d need. ‘I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille’. Lights, camera, action, … Read more

Up, down, & sideways- shelving your books

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When you’re opening a bookstore, probably the last thing on your mind is how to shelve your books.  You just get some cases and put them on, right?    Wrong.  Particularly if you’re building your own cases, you want to determine HOW you’re going to display your books first.  Otherwise you’ll get stuck with a shelving system that doesn’t work for you or your customers and costs you time and money to redo.


The key part to consider is what KIND of books will you be selling.   If it’s almost all paperback, you’ll want to use a different system than if you’ll be carrying only hardcovers.

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Book burning on Feb. 10th 2009 due to CPSIA

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Book in FlamesThe Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA H.R. 4040) has a good goal: protect kids from dangerous imports tainted with lead. Bravo! Unfortunately it goes about doing so in such a way that it’ll drive up costs across the board, drive many manufacturers and retailers out of business, and not really make kids any safer.

So what does CPSIA do? It mandates lead testing for ALL items intended for children under 13 or PERCEIVED as being for those under age 13. So items commonly regarded as “kids stuff” even if it is intended for adults, such as many comics, collectible books, high end popups, etc, still falls under the statute even though they’re aimed at adult collectors.

It requires UNIT testing. The final product must be tested from each batch. It doesn’t matter if all the components going into it are certified and have been tested as having no lead, it still must be tested for lead.

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