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A Cautionary(?) Tale: Or, There are no Morals in Book Selling

We all get jumpy at times - especially if you have an open shop and you start to see your monthly rent running like a cab meter in your head every time you close your eyes and it’s been a week of customers few and far between, mostly browsing or idly thumbing through the bargain rack. Funny too, because it looks like there are humans outside, wandering about, some look like they might have a few coins in their pockets jingling about, but the cash register collects dust. The same certainly happens online - we have those weeks where the orders just stop and you’re forced into that familiar bookseller position of concocting stories about why this is happening.
Bad Weather
School vacations
Economy looks sketchy/Stock market is down
ABE has disappeared my books
Amazon disappeared my books
My books are terrible
I knew this day would come, everyone just stopped reading at once.
Once we got a book about dead people - how only the dead can see the dead, etc. and became convinced that we and our customers were dead and that explained all the people walking blithely past the shop - they just couldn’t see us. Sometimes the simple explanations are best.
Anyway, I was having one of these months last year - not a week, a whole month of dreaming of drowning in unsalable books, wondering if I should start selling something sensible like Pokemon cards or malt liquor - and it was compounded by the beginning of the housing slump which meant we weren’t getting calls to clean out houses and our stock was starting to feel thin and a little stale. So, I noticed an interesting auction on Ebay - someone was getting out of the book business and selling 20 some odd thousand books cheap, real cheap. I knew they’d mostly be terrible old bookstore stock, but for the price if they were only horrible, it was going to be a win. A win involving back breaking labor, but a win nonetheless.
So we exchanged a few emails with questions about the books - found out they were from a few shops that went under, that the current owner was getting out of the book business to concentrate on Civil War textiles (note to file: There was probably an alarm that should have gone off in here somewhere, but I present my foolishness unadorned for your benefit) sounded like they’d been cherry picked somewhere along the line, but still a nice bunch of dreck, as they go. We decided to go for it - this despite (or because of) the fact that I’d just had my first child and was saddled by fatherhood, lack of sleep, and the pressure to get this business going, pronto.
Every time something is going to go terribly wrong, there are foreshadowing missteps that not only make you cringe when you look back, but also provide ample time to anticipate your undoing. This time we get a call for delivery only it’s the wrong day and they have them on a truck without a lift. We’ll need to pay $200 and they’ll put them on the right truck - and deliver them next week - no problem, what’s another $200, right? This is why they call if hemorrhaging money not spewing money. So the books arrive on 20 some odd pallets at the storage location we’re using, and we start to go through them. It takes about six seconds to realize we’ve been had - then about ten minutes of working up a scenario where it isn’t as bad as we think and salvageable, don’t worry, only to backslide into the realization that:
1) It’s at least as bad as it seemed as first
2) We are now the proud owner of 20,000 useless books
3) It’s apparently (who makes these laws) illegal to set fire to books at storage facilities or to throw them onto the conveniently located railroad tracks.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. What happened is they didn’t send a mixed bunch of mostly terrible books like we’d hoped, but sent boxes upon boxes of remainders. Bad ones. The sort that looked like they were born as remainders - the book equivalent of straight to video. Around 15,000 of the 20 some odd thousand books were 14 titles - the rest were as advertised - dreck with some high points. So what to do? File a Paypal claim - email the seller (maybe it was a mistake), etc. But it wasn’t a mistake - and Paypal, bless their furry little hearts, doesn’t refund shipping costs. This is funny, of course, because 2/3 of the cost of the books was shipping. What’s not funny is that with no loading dock, and no forklift, shipping the books back is going to cost more than the whole thing cost in the first place. You can rent a forklift but between the cost and the all too vivid image of myself operating it and the ensuing damage to the storage facility, nearby cars, loved ones, pets, it seemed like a bad idea.
I contemplate loading them into a U-Haul and delivering them myself to the seller - perhaps covering them in feces and setting them on fire so that when they went to step on them to put them out…I contemplate other things that my mother wouldn’t approve of. I move on…no, I really don’t, I’m stuck there in bileville for quite some time, imagining divine retributions, natural disasters…bad thoughts.
But this isn’t good for me - not to mention that it’s pointless. I got screwed, the wheels keep turning, so we move to the mitigation of disaster phase.
1) Try to put some boxes on Ebay in bulk - one book is in some mild demand and we can move a few boxes for $10-20 a piece. This is not a good use of time.
2) Find someone to take the rest off our hands - as I’m sure most of you know, this is much more difficult than you’d think. Americans love free stuff - unless it’s books or PBS.
3) At least clear out the storage facility so that the nightmare where I’m stuck behind a pile of remainders and someone forgets I’m there and locks me in overnight, ends.
4) Try to find a moral in this.

1-3 were doable - 4? I’m not sure. While generally an optimist, I must admit that a positive side of this one was becoming hard to identify. Most of the lessons that I could have learned from this - don’t buy bulk lots on Ebay, don’t take on 20,000 books without looking at them - I either had learned already or had proven resistant to. I knew these and had decided after much thought that this was the exception. Ha. Is that a moral? Too early to tell. What complicates matters - and what caused me to revisit my blunder, was that we’ve been going through the last 20 or so boxes of cast offs and ne’er do wells (we whipped through the first 150 or so, but it was as if, despite ourselves, we didn’t want it to end and the last of the boxes festered downstairs, became powerful as we avoided them) and pulled out a scarce signed copy of a Hollywood memoir. Sold it three days later for $800.

If I stop thinking about it now, this will have to pass for a happy ending.

—
Pazzo Books
4268 Washington St.
Roslindale, MA 02131
pazzobooks.com
617-323-2919

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This week I lost my marbles. No. Seriously, I did. And, not just because I went and did this drawing all over again. When I completed it first time round I knew that there was something wrong - the marble. Back then I drew it from my head, when really I'd prefer to have the subject there in front of me. Knowing that I intended to re-draw it I went and bought some marbles. It took me ages to find the perfect blue one, one that looked a little like an eye. After all, the marble is the punch line in this picture; it's the cherry on the cake, so it had to be right. So I selected the perfect one, bought the bag and then proceeded to lose them. Annoying. Very annoying.

This is one reason it's taken so long to complete this drawing - losing my marble. I spent hours on Flickr getting lost in stunning photos of marbles, but to me, the one in my drawing still looks contrived. There are a few other new additions to this picture, since the original; my favourite being the corn plaster. There are other things that became subject matter out of desperation to finish the drawing, like...erm...well I'll let you find them.

Anyway, you know the drill; click on image to enlarge.

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This is Part 3 of Nora’s series on Book Inventory. Nora can be found at Rainy Day Paper Back Exchange Please give her a visit.

Part 1  |  Part 2

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Admit it, nobody wants this book
Eventually there comes a time when you must admit nobody wants this book.  You could offer it as a freebie with purchase and people would say “no, thanks.”  This usually happens with books that the material is so dated or out of style as to be worthless (diet books from the eighties) or everybody that wants one already owns one. (I’m looking at you, two-year- old NY times bestseller!)

So now what?  You have two options.  Use them for something other than their original function as books or give them away.

Get out the knife and get crafting!
If you are of an artistic bent, you can always, GASP turn your books into something other than books.  Or you can specifically offer them as supplies to artists. Some art stores will buy them by the pound for sale as supplies.  Many people will slice up books with nice pictures to use them for decoupage, collage, etc.

Here’s some examples of things people have done with books.  If you’re even semi crafty, this may make a nice sideline for you.
[editor’s note: I’m not sure how long Etsy keeps their items/images, let me know via a comment if these links cease to work well.]

Wondercabinet produces prints on old pages of text, including dictionaries:

Pinky Brown Inc. also draws on old book pages, plus uses some for embroidery!

Dis-card uses old books, maps, and sheet music to make on of a kind greeting cards:

retrograndma uses books as the back for clocks and also hollows out the innards to turn them into purses. (she also does neat stuff with records, if you’re stumped as to what to do with those)

MaxineDear uses old library binding books to make purses and wallets.

Refabulous makes wallets and business card holders

IKCdesign turns old books into checkbook covers

Chaos Into Art uses old books to make blank journals

Paperfaerie turns paperback books into sculptures

urbana hollows out books to turn them into stash boxes and safes

PistolesPress turns books into 3-D silhouette sculptures (Go look, its easier than describing)

lineanongrata I’m not even sure how to describe what she makes, other than art with book innards

Vestal Designs used them to install a bar!

And while I couldn’t find pictures, Brunswick Bound books in Australia apparently made their front counter out books!

Danny Seo turned a book into a birdhouse

Urban Outfitters offers a wound paper vase made out of magazine pages and book covers

Still need ideas?  You can spend hours and hours and hours looking at what artists have done to books at the International Society of Altered Book Artists website
http://www.alteredbookartists.com

But I hurt myself with the glue gun…
So maybe crafts aren’t for you and you don’t know any artists.  There’s still lots of options besides throwing the books in the trash.

You can sell them to a house dresser.  House dressers (or house stagers) basically dress up new houses with furniture and some items to make it look like a home rather than a big empty box.  They love books for this, especially encyclopedias!

The local high school or college art program may appreciate a donation of books that they can use to try out some of the examples listed at the start of this post.

Some train or bus stations have a “free” rack at them where you can leave books.

If you’d rather have them be read as books, here’s some places that may take books:
Thrift Stores such as Goodwill and Salvation Army
Your local library show
Church rummage sale
Nursing Home or hospice
Daycare center or after school program
Battered women’s shelter or homeless shelter
Hospital or VA hospital
Freecycle.org will hook you up with individuals that want your books for free

Remember, if you give your books away, somehow MARK them so that you don’t take them back in a fit of forgetfulness.  You can make it obvious by stamping the book with something like “no return” or use a more subtle method.  For example, you could leave a small pencil X in close to the binding on page 5 of each book you offload.  It doesn’t seriously deface the book and its not obvious it’s a reject either… but you know where to look to make sure you aren’t getting a reject back!

And of course, if you’re going to offload books for free, spend a tiny little bit of money on one last thing: print some business cards and slip them into the books as bookmarks before they leave.  Maybe a booklover will see it and come find you…

Rainy Day Paperback Exchange
Bethel, CT
gently used books for kids and adults
http://www.rainydaypaperback.com

Related Posts: Part 1 |  Part 2 | Have you Plannogrammed Lately

Inventory

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Part 2 of our 3 Part series on Inventory Management by Nora of Rainy Day Paperback Exchange.

What to do with an under-performing section
Just plain moving it or remodeling it didn’t work, so now you need to bite the bullet and get rid of some books. But how do you actually get rid of them?

Trim it down!
Some sections tend to attract junk books that come to your shop to die. Ideally, don’t take these books in the first place. However, sometimes you’ll end up with stuff sitting around and you’re not sure why it didn’t sell.

After a certain point, this becomes visual noise and actually distracts buyers from finding the books they want. It’s like annoying pop up ads and banners. There’s so much clutter surrounding what they want that buyers give up and go elsewhere.

A good way to weed out books that are pure visual clutter is to date them when they come in. Once they reach their expiration date, heave-ho!

But, I can’t throw out perfectly good books!
It’s especially hard to let go of books if you paid money for them. But sometimes you need to admit it was a bad investment. You wouldn’t keep a stock that had been in the tank for years. But before you send them to the local library sale, you can try these things.

Decrease the price
Stick it on the bargain rack. Some people love bargains and will snap it up BECAUSE it is a bargain when they’d never normally visit that section.

Offloading it at discount on Ebay may also work. Bulk listings are a good way to get rid of boxes of spare books. This may not recoup your investment, but it gets you something.

Increase the price
What? It didn’t sell where it was and now you want me to INCREASE the price?
Yes. Items with higher prices are priced higher because they are rarer and more desirable. The high price in and of itself says: “I am desirable.” Much like people buy designer clothes because of the price, increasing the price and putting it with higher priced, desirable items may make it sell. It becomes a luxury item because it is expensive.

Send it on a nice vacation
If you have a storage area, take it out of the store for a few months. Then bring it back when there’s space in that section. It’s still the same old book, but because it’s had time to fade out of people’s memories, it looks new and exciting.

Online only
If it’s worth listing online but its just cluttering up your store, consider just having it in your online inventory. Wrap it up real nice and stick it in a plastic storage bin where nobody has to see it.

Have a customer appreciation sale
Got an e-mail list? Have a special sale just on the books you want to go away. Tell people this is their last chance to get these gems before they go away forever. Either flag them somehow in your online inventory or if you don’t have a way to do so, export them from your database and dump it into a document that you can attach to the mail.

Make sure to give people a deadline for buying them. It gives a sense of urgency. If they don’t buy right now, they’ll never get a chance!
If you do this, make sure you genuinely get the books out of there by the end of the sale. Fake sales annoy people. Stuff them somewhere else for a week or two for your customers that go “oh, I really meant to get X, but I forgot, you don’t still have it, do you?” They’ll love you for that. After that, really genuinely get them out of there.

Trade!
Your “competition” is not necessarily your competition. I’m lucky, I have three other dealers within two blocks of me. None of us carry overlapping stock. If you have other local dealers with different specialties, they may be interested in the contents of your under-performing sections. Odds are they have an under-performing section too… and it just may well be one you’re constantly trying to get more stock for. I recently gave the history specialist down the street a box of history books gratis because he could probably sell them. He’ll bring me a box of cheesy romances next time someone dumps a box of ‘em on him. He can’t get his customers to touch them, while mine will gobble them up. We both win.

Related Posts: Part 1 of the Series | How Many Worthless Books in your Inventory?

Brick and Mortar thoughts, Inventory, Inventory Management, pricing books

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Here is the Top 10 US out of print books as compiled by Bookfinder. These books will make you some money. Once a Runner for example regularly sells for over $200. Not bad for a book that is less than ten years old. You’ll also notice at number 8, Alice Starmore. Many books by her will do very well for you!

We also look at eBay sales daily and record final values. This list matches right on with what we’ve seen. We add about three titles per day, to our scouting book . You do that and after a year you have a nice record of a thousand books that will make you money. Now bring that with you next time you pop into a bookshop and you’ll have a nice tool to help you pick out some under-priced gems.

1. Once a Runner (1978) by John L. Parker, Jr.
   The cult classic distance running novel; the long-awaited sequel, Again to Carthage, was released in November
2. Football Scouting Methods (1962) by Steve Belichick
   Legendary college football scout’s playbook, used by coaches and players to develop winning game plans
3. Sex (1992) by Madonna
   The pop icon’s controversial book of erotic photos
4. Promise Me Tomorrow (1984) by Nora Roberts
   An early novel that the bestselling romance novelist refuses to reprint, describing it as “mediocre”
5. The Lion’s Paw (1946) by Robb White
   A children’s adventure story about two orphans who travel around Florida in a boat
6. The Principles of Knitting (1988) by June Hemmons Hiatt
   An indispensable resource on hand knitting
7. Raven: The Untold Story of the Reverend Jim Jones and His People (1982) by Tim Reiterman
   Chronicles the inner workings which allowed the Peoples Temple to flourish
8. Aran Knitting (1997) by Alice Starmore
   History and how-to about the Irish knitting technique
9. One Way Up (1964) by John F. Straubel
   The story of of helicopters and vertically rising aircraft
10. Dear and Glorious Physician (1959) by Taylor Caldwell
    A novel based on the life of Saint Luke

ebay, Inventory, News, out of print

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Here is Part 1 of a 3 Part series on Inventory Management. A great piece from Nora at Rainy Day Paper Back Exchange. It will get you thinking about optimizing your shop. It never hurts to do little a tweak here and there. We have sold many books right after moving them from one spot to another. Your regular customers can develop a ‘blinder effect’ after a while. This article should provoke you into at least thinking about placement if not actually moving a few things. Let us know if you’ve had success doing anything similar via the comments area.

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Part 1

What to do with under-performing sections?

You’ve figured out that a section is really taking up far too much space compared to what it contributes to your bottom line. But what do you do to rehabilitate the section?

Move it!
Sometimes it’s the location that’s doomed a section. Consider who normally buys those books and look over the section with a careful eye. Once you take a careful look at a section you may see the problem.

For example, putting the books on parenting and childbirth at knee height won’t work. Pregnant ladies can’t see their feet, let alone that shelf. Sometimes it’s something you’d never think of, but smack your head when you hear someone say it out loud. To use the same example, if the parenting books are somewhere mom can’t get her stroller to, women with little children won’t buy those books.

If there’s no obvious reason, consider moving it next to a section that IS selling. The high traffic in that area may be enough to get a bad section out of its rut (see the blog article on planograms for more on this). Try and come up with a logical pairing. If your logical pairing didn’t work, try something completely illogical! We moved True Crime many times, placing it (logically) next to Mystery, Thriller, and Biography at points but finally found it sold when placed next to Science Fiction. We still have no idea why.

Move PART of the section
A little shuffling may be just what was needed because where you shelved it wasn’t where your customers thought it should be. This is easiest to do with nonfiction sections. Don’t overload a high performing section with books from a poor section. Just move some of the most valuable books.

For example, say you have a book about the psychology of serial killers. You could easily put it in psychology or true crime. If it gets real specific with examples, it might even fit in biography. Try moving some of the higher priced items to a different section and see if they move there. Don’t forget to put a new date on them to indicate when they’ve overstayed their welcome there!

Remodel it!
If the section happens to be somewhere that gets natural light, walk into it several different times during the day and check the light level. It may be unbearably bright or thrown entirely into shadow for part of the day. Installing a curtain or a spotlight that can be adjusted during the day may be all that’s needed.

Also stand there for a few moments, preferably while there’s customers in the store. If it’s a tight space, browsers may be giving up because they keep getting bumped by other customers trying to get by. People generally will put up with being jostled once. Twice and they’ll move unless they REALLY want it. Consider moving “grab and go” stuff to that spot instead. Serial romances and Cliff Notes are good examples. Customers’ll glance at it quickly and decide in maybe 5 seconds whether they’re buying or not, so they won’t get jostled or block the aisle.

You can also consider moving around some of your fixtures to create a little more aisle space or to reroute the foot traffic away from that section. Less foot traffic seems like it should lead to less sales, but giving people time to browse items undisturbed may actually lead to more sales. Putting the high priced items that people will examine in detail far off the main foot traffic may actually make them sell better. Those willing to drop $500 on a book will still find the section, but won’t get run over by a baby stroller while contemplating their purchase.

Also consider whether there’s adequate places to put things down. This is especially true to sections browsed by women with small children (such as the kids section). If mom’s got a toddler in one arm, she’s only got one arm free to browse with. If she has nowhere to put her purchases down while she continues shopping, she’ll only buy one or two books.

Look for Part 2 & 3 later this week

Rainy Day Paperback Exchange
Bethel, CT
gently used books for kids and adults
http://www.rainydaypaperback.com

related posts: Using a Plannogram | Killing a Section

Brick and Mortar thoughts, Inventory, product placement

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Tubes of stuff (click on image to enlarge).

It's when you find yourself drawing hemorrhoid cream that you know that you need to ask yourself some questions. What am I doing with my life? Is this normal behaviour? How did it come to this?

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Are you a buyer or a seller on eBay? I’m guessing that since your visiting a blog on book selling you may be a seller. I’ve been selling for a while on eBay and have seen prices sink lower and lower while fees continue to climb, so much so that I’ve made the decision to close our eBay Store. The numbers just could not justify keeping it running. I still monitor the site almost daily as it’s far and away the best source for real time information and will continue to sell the odd book here and there. I sell now with the idea that I’m taking a 50% loss in exchange for a fast buck. The thing we need to keep in mind is that buying at 50% off can be a pretty sweet deal for items that you know will sell in your shop. It’s kind of a golden rule isn’t it? When prices are low, be a buyer not a seller. If you look around enough and know what your patrons want you will find bargains on eBay, lots of them. Tomorrow we’ll give you a review of a tool that makes hunting for deals on eBay a lot easier. HINT: It will run 50 simultaneous searches for you every few minutes and only give you the results you ask for.

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A new post by contributor William Smith of Hang Fire Books

The Unkindest Cut

In preparation for an upcoming move, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks (with more to follow) going over every item in my inventory and pruning the dead weight. This has been a painful but instructive process.

First I ran a report of all unsold books added a year or more ago. Then I marked-for-death nearly everything priced at <$10. Now I’m going through the stacks and pulling those titles plus anything else that looks like a clunker.

So far I’ve dropped about 400-500 books and–if the pattern follows­I’ll have reduced my inventory by a full third by the time I’m finished. This proves an observation I heard from a more experienced bookseller that “You sell 1/3 of what you list within 6 mos, another 1/3 within a year and the last 1/3…never.”

I’ve had many of these books since I “went pro” nearly 3 years ago, and looking back on them with my accumulated experience, it’s tough to see why I bothered….Actually I know why: early on I was building my inventory fast because ABE wants booksellers to have at least a few hundred items for sale (and I was dying to get more than two sales in a day). Then, after a megaton, unsorted buy, I had hundreds of okay/mediocre books that I listed just because I didn’t want them to go to waste.

Some days I wish I could have that time back but the pricing and listing experience was invaluable. It’s just as important to know why a book is common as it is to memorize your flashpoints…and at least I wasn’t making any costly mistakes.

So a few weeks from know my stock will be lean and mean, cut to (but hopefully not through) the bone. I will definitely be uneasy, having lost a good piece of my security blanket, but I will have had the edifying experience of loading all of my mistakes into the back of a van and dropping them at the Salvation Army.

Editor’s note: I am presently doing something quite similar. I have 90 banker’s boxes full of books that I purchased and listed in my earlier days. Earlier this week I began the process of eliminating, by coincidence, all books worth less than about $10.00. A few of the pocket books will end up on my shelves but many are heading to the thrift shop down the street with only the nicer books being shelved in our new newly added room.

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I NEVER expected to post this. I was starting a drawing the other day and my hand was quite shaky. So I did a little 'warming up' exercise which turned into this drawing. I often feel the pressure to make my next drawing 'better' than the last. I know this is pressure that I put on myself. I also know that I love this drawing and that if I saw it on somebody else's blog I would be gushing about it in my comments. So I am going to post it. Now.

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Click on image to view.

Yes, this probably does look familiar. One of my favourite drawings that I did in my Moleskine, way back whenever, was this spice rack drawing. I've wanted to rework it onto paper and frame it for some time and so Tim's birthday (see last post) gave me a good excuse to do just that. Something to spice up his life - his forty year old life! I like it, although it just lacks some of the spontaneity of the original and, of course, that gorgeous cream colour Moleskine paper.

View my sepia set on Flickr HERE.

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Posted by Tom Nealon of Pazzo Books

Dana’s great story about the Baum that got away reminded me of mistakes in
book selling. I traded stocks for a few years, and the most common mistake
is to get married to your screw-ups.  You bought something at 20 that you
were SURE was a winner.  It languishes, sits around for a long time, some
bad news comes out, etc., but instead of selling it and moving on with
your life, you get it into your head that you have to make something out
of it.  If it just gets back to 20, I’ll sell it and come out even…

It’s easy to let a similar thing happen in book selling - it’s not just
the ones that got away, it’s the dogs you paid too much for and now feel
you have to come out even on.  They’re the worst too - they sit in your
inventory mocking you, a constant reminder of your error.  But don’t
worry!  You’ll make a million more if you’re lucky - book selling is just
like life that way, every day a new opportunity to humiliate yourself.
It’s what you do with those opportunities that matters.  Always remember
the opportunity cost of sitting on questionable books - they represent
money you could buy good stock with - stock you wouldn’t be able to buy
otherwise.  It easy to figure out the cost of buying books, it’s the ones
you didn’t buy that are more difficult to figure (this is also what Dana’s
post reminded me of.  Sell some dead inventory and go on a book buying
tour!)

So cut ‘em loose - drop the price, put them on Ebay - turn them into cash
that you can buy better stock with, and, hopefully, you can learn
something along the way (maybe make a few more, slightly smaller mistakes
- it’s the circle of life.).  If you don’t get rid of those dogs - if you
obsess over getting even on bad buys, you’ll end up with an inventory full
of mistakes and who wants to live like that?

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Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with The Art of Books, I am a paying customer of theirs.

The Art of Books (AOB) is an online bookseller’s inventory management system.

Different sellers with differing needs will find their own way of using the system. Here’s how I use it.

For the time being I use Abe’s free database, Homebase, to enter and manage my inventory. I will be switching to a much more powerful database shortly but for now (and for most sellers) Homebase works fine. I strongly feel that whatever management system you use it is vital to keep a local copy of your database and back it up regularly. Once or twice a day I upload changes to AOB and they subsequently disperse this to my venues. I currently sell on Abe/Alibris/Choosebooks/Biblio/Amazon.ca/eBay as well as my own website and the World Book Market network (these are handled separately). Once I receive a sale notice from a particular venue, I process the order then update the status on AOB. They then update the venue and send an email to the customer (or not depending on your selection). I can completely customize the email with my information including store policies, shipping expectations, newsletter info and our website address. This all adds up to a seriously efficient system.

One other nice feature is the ability to adjust prices per venue. I can say all my books on Amazon get a price reduction of 15% and raise my prices on Abe 20%.

The eBay setup on AOB I must say can be daunting if you have no programming experience. They have standard templates which do the job but if you want any kind of customization you have to get into a bit of coding. Personally I love it. I have created my own template (there are a few available on their forum) and also have a script setup so that only books worth more than $30.00 get listed.

One thing that was apparent from the start is the level of support and involvement of the owner. They rank up there with the best. Every question I have asked was taken care of quickly. On one occasion I noticed a small issue with my eBay listings. I logged onto their live chat and mentioned the problem. While I waited they looked over something, found the issue and corrected it immediately. That was impressive.

One other tool available is the AOB Road Tools. Many of you may be familiar with Scout Pal, road tools is a slimmed down version. While I’m out book hunting I can quickly check up a few prices using my PDA. I don’t make a habit of this as I prefer to use instincts when it comes to buying but once and a while it helps. The nice part is that it is absolutely free with your account.

The price of AOB makes it an attractive proposition as well. You only pay $10.00 per month plus 1% of revenue over $1000 per month. If your monthly revenue is $1 500 then your bill will be $15.00.

Any comments are appreciated and if you use Fillz or another management system and would like to see it reviewed here then drop me a line at [email protected]

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Phew! I feel like I've been drawing this for the whole week...er...actually I have been drawing it for a week. I feel like I've been away for ages. It's the longest I've left it between posts since starting this blog and I'm blaming this drawing for that. I've been lost in it. That'll teach me for leaving things until the last minute. It's a project that I have been working on for...well, I won't tell you what it's for at the moment. That's where you come in.

Since joining Everyday Matters drawing group I have received some gorgeous gifts from members of the blogging and Flickr communities including a brilliant drawing of a Morris Minor from France, a very cute paper purse (which I still haven't made a good drawing of) from Suzanne, some prints of Damien Jones' amazing work and a fabulous zine from Ryan. So I thought it's time for me to give something back.

So here's a little competition; the first person to guess the theme of this drawing (and yes there is a theme to it!) correctly will win a piece of artwork by me. I'm not sure how difficult it may be but the clues are there - I think. Have a try if you'd like!

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We're doing inventory. It's the first time I've ever been a part of a library doing inventory. It is not like it's done in retail. Everything is as normal - i.e. general collection still circulates and shelving is still being done, and no one is keeping books from moving anywhere.

They're doing inventory different this year than in the past in that we are working from reports (i.e. lists) and checking off the items as we find them on the shelf. Don't worry - we got it covered for if an item not on the list pops up. I've been assigned 3 bays. So that's 90 shelves. I managed to get through 12 shelves today. That's about 7.5 pages of 65 pages of my list. I haven't worn a watch lately so I'm not quite sure how long it took me to go through those 12 shelves. I would approximate 4 hours or so...I'm thinking it's gonna take me two work weeks to get through it all. And then I have to recheck for missing items every once in awhile. So far I only actually have 2 or 3 that could be missing; I have to look if they're checked out.

The tediousness brings me back to my cataloguing days...ah nostalgia.

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