Chapter 6 Book Fair Preparations

Despite the fact that there are many, many books stored alongside my family in this small house, I hate clutter and try hard to avoid it. In order to keep my kids or their friends from playing with the books I sell, I keep most of them doubled shelved in an armoire with wood doors, on the top shelf of each the bedroom closets, and in a glass fronted barrister-type bookcase in our master bedroom. I am not one who piles up books in corners, on desks, tables, and chairs. That is, until now. Preparing for my first book fair has converted my dining room into the back room of a book store.

I have a half-booth and a glass display case at the upcoming Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair this Saturday. In order to decide how many books fit in the bookcases I ordered, I needed to take them all out and place them on the shelves. Then I began the process of lightly pencilling the price of each book on the front free endpaper and covering dustjackets in mylar protectors. As my husband and Huck assembled shelves, I unloaded from closets, armoires, and book cases, placing the books in their new bookcases. In future, I will price and mylar cover the books as I bring them home. I collected for several years without thought of becoming a bookseller, so I would buy books, bring them home and shelve them. Now, I’ve got hundreds of books to price, but preparing for the book fair will just about get me caught up.

It’s amazing what happens when you double shelve your books. If you do it long enough, you forget what you have. I scouted my own shelves and had a few re-discoveries, which I’ll definitely bring to the fair in Sacramento.

I’m including a few photos you can think of as “before the fair”. I’ll try to take some after the fair so you can see that I’ve put everything back in its proper place when I return home.

Below are the stacks of reference books and notebooks that I use for pricing and research on my dining room table and china hutch. The tiny desk with a computer in the corner is my “office”. I deliberately put my office in this room (which is one big room connected in an L-shape with our family room) so that I could keep an eye and an ear on the kids and our eight-year-old triplet neighbors when they’re all playing here. We have ten kids under the age of twelve on our street, and they always seem to migrate to our house. I like that just fine, most days.

Yes, that’s a bowling pin on our table. Huck turned seven last weekend and we had a bowling party, complete with an old bowling pin for a souvenir. While I’d prefer acorns and small pumpkins, Huck wants the bowling pin to be the autumn centerpiece on the table. I don’t have an eat-in kitchen, so we eat all of our meals in the dining room. That means that at the end of each day, this table must be miraculously cleared off and set for dinner for four. I store all of the reference books back in their bookcases in my room each night. You can’t tell from this photo, but doing so helps me stay organized.

Next, the corner of the dining room where I am stacking miscellaneous supplies I think I will need at a book fair: boxes for transporting books, bubble wrap, clip-on lamps, a cash box, stapler, pens, pencils, invoices, scissors, batteries, calculator, etc.

Finally, the bookshelves. This is not quite how crowded they’ll be at the fair, but I took out most of my books just to see what I have and to select the favorites for the fair. With both kids starting school a couple of weeks ago, this is the first chance I have had to catalogue a lot of these and add them to my website.

Tomorrow: Supplies for a book fair and reference books

Chapter 5 Library Sales and a Book My Kids Will Read

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’d be attending my favorite library sale today. It was the second day of the sale, and pickings were rather slim this time around. I usually attend the first day, but it was opening day of soccer season yesterday and I spent my day at the field.

This sale has been very good to me in the past. There are lots of books, almost always reasonably priced, and I almost always walk away with a few good finds.

Some booksellers I know don’t go to library sales anymore. They are fortunate enough to have most of their stock walk into their shops. I attend this monthly sale because I can see a range of books from old to new and poor to fine. Some good advice I received early on was to handle lots of books, thousands if possible. Doing so allows one to determine what is common and uncommon and to quickly judge condition.

Due to ridiculously high rents where I live, there aren’t many open second-hand book stores in my area anymore, so it is difficult for me to get that experience. There are a few higher-end antiquarian shops, and those are great, but usually they don’t offer books in a range of edition and condition. It’s tough to learn the difference between a “good” and a “very good” or a “better than very good” and “fine” without looking at books in each of these categories. A fine antiquarian shop just won’t have those lesser quality copies. So, to make up for that, I go to the monthly library sale in a town near mine. It’s a university town, and gets lots of donations from retired and deceased professors, wealthy citizens, and people just cleaning off their shelves. There are three rooms with 60,000 books. Each month I attend the sale and each month I learn more about distinguishing edition, condition, and scarcity. Plus, the books are cheap enough that when I make “mistakes”, I haven’t broken the bank. One can also find books that make good candidates for practicing minor repairs.

I said pickings were slim today. I got a couple of books about Soviet-era Russia (a personal collecting interest — I went there as an exchange student in college), two fine childrens’ picture books from the 1930s, and a book I think that reluctant readers like my sons Tom and Huck will be thrilled to have:

Cock the Roach

Tomorrow: Preparations for my first book fair

Chapter 4 Tom and Huck

I’ve mentioned before that I have two children, both boys, ages 9 and 7. For privacy purposes, when I’m blogging, I’ll call the older son Tom and the younger one Huck, after two other literary imps. They are good boys, but have a penchant for getting into what I think of as boyish mischief:

You might imagine that as I am a former English teacher and now a bookseller, my children must love books and reading. Ashamedly, I admit that nothing could be further from the truth. I am so envious of another bookseller’s darling photo of his young son comfortably ensconced in a tree reading Heinlein. Tom reads books, but only for homework or only if there is nothing else to do. Huck just started first grade two weeks ago, and can read books, but still struggles to read them independently. Despite frequent library visits, neither boy has yet found the book that creates the spark that becomes love of reading. We live in a part of the United States where the climate is sunny and mild, even in the winter, and the outdoors is the focus for the boys just about every waking moment. They spent most of their summer days not holed up in a corner reading, but instead doing things that scare their mother, like this:

and this:

and this:

They like to build their own games like this one, called “Wagon Train”, and play in the middle of the street with the neighbors every day (don’t worry — it’s a cul-de-sac and has little car traffic). Notice the shoeless, helmetless glee on their little faces as they realize that when the “puller” in the front stops, their wagons will all crash into each other and spill them on the cement:

They like to explore new things and reach new heights:

For reasons unknown to me, they find such pursuits much more adventurous than sitting indoors reading. Now, I am about as girly a girl as they come. I love being a mom, baking, clean clothes, nice hair, and even clean fingernails. I much prefer indoors to out and find few pleasures greater than sticking my nose in a book whenever the opportunity presents itself. I sometimes think that my particular boys were born to me so I would get my nose out of my books and experience life. Still, I worry sometimes about my boys and their limited reading. They are certainly at the levels they should be, academically, but why don’t they have the passion for books that I do? Most importantly, will they ever have that passion? I’d hate to see them miss out on something that brings me so much pleasure and could do the same for them. However, perhaps they could say the same thing about me and their game, “Wagon Train”, which they’d like me to try, but which I’ve no desire to actually play.

However, as a former high school English teacher, I can say that those teenagers I knew who hated reading the most were the ones forced to read for a set amount of time every day at a very young age because their parents thought they should. This reading-because-you-should idea can, if not judiciously applied, take the joy of discovery out of reading. I try to remember that, if I keep books around (and in our house they are all around), eventually Tom and Huck will find the book that sparks the joy of reading. I am trying to remember to introduce books to, rather than to inflict books upon my kids. For me, the magic book that started the onslaught of reading that has yet to abate was in fifth grade. I was ten and read every copy of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series in a month. I even begged my parents to move from California to De Smet, South Dakota, where the real Laura grew up. Fortunately, I quickly discovered that I enjoyed reading about the hardships of pioneer life more than actually living them.

What book was it for you?

Chapter 3 What Other Booksellers Said and Why it Changed My Life

When we left off, I had just posted my letter to the Bilbiophile Email List and gone to bed, wondering if it would be scorned, ignored, or welcomed. When I awoke the next morning, I found about 25 different responses in my box, their answers a range of contradictions.

I got responses such as:

“Do you want to know the best way to make a million dollars in the book business? Start with two million!”

and

“Remember, the average bookseller is backwards looking, lacking in business common sense, and a herd follower.”

and

“Ebay is great. I make a living off of selling books on Ebay.”

and

“I would stay away from Ebay.”

and

“The internet is killing bookselling.”

and

“There are as many ways to make it work as there are booksellers.”

and

“Usually I tell folks to lie down until the feeling goes away….if the feeling DOESN’T go away….well then you’re sunk. Welcome to a life of joy and suffering.”

and, at last, to my relief, a missive that began:

“Welcome, bookseller.” (Bookseller! They think I’m a bookseller!)

But the best thing I got from all of the responses, some quite detailed, was not just the messages outlining pricing methodologies, customer development, and scouting techniques. The best thing I got was regular contact with lots of other booksellers, including Mr. Z., who ultimately became a mentor as I started my business. If you’re just getting started, it is imperative that you meet and cultivate relationships with other booksellers. If no other booksellers live near you geographically, lists like the Bibliophile Group can be a real lifeline.

All for now. See you in the stacks!

Tomorrow: Tom and Huck

Chapter 2 What We’re Working on This Weekend

I am preparing to exhibit at my first book fair, in Sacramento, CA on September 15. It’s the 2007 Central Valley Antiquarian Book Fair. I’ve attended book fairs and even had the chance to assist another dealer at the San Francisco ABAA Fair last February, but this will be the first where I’m selling my own books. Since I have never done a fair myself, I had to invest in portable bookcases to display my books. I found some nice four-shelf bookcases for a reasonable price and free shipping here.

Soon, there were five portable bookcases sitting in my garage. When I opened the first box, I made the unfortunate discovery that portable only means portable after initial assembly. I will humbly chalk this up to rookie bookseller inexperience. I am not at all handy with a hammer, and I stood in my garage wondering what to do, what to do?

Suddenly, I remembered — I have a handy husband and two helpful sons! I enlisted their help and as of this post, four of the five book cases are assembled. Not a bad day’s work, considering it was opening day of soccer and each of our sons had a 90 minute game. Below you will see the reward for my younger son’s help.

That’s right — the empty box! There is nothing a seven-year-old boy won’t do for an empty box! And how do I know I have the best husband ever? Do you see the existing bookcase in the back of the photo below? These five bookcases are in addition to that existing bookcase and several others. The poor man barely batted an eye, even though books multiply faster than rabbits around here. Thank you, love!

So, if you’re in the Sacramento area next Saturday, and you’d like a free pass, please email me at chris @ bookhuntersholiday . com.

See you at the fair!

The Letter That Changed My Life, Part II

I promised yesterday that today I would post the letter that changed my life, the letter I wrote to the Bibliophile Group Email List. Here it is already 4:30 PM, and I am just now sitting down to blog.

Fridays are what I like to think of as “bless the house” days. I try to clean, do laundry, shop for groceries, and prepare a good dinner to kick off the weekend. (The operative word here is try. It doesn’t happen this way every single week.) While I would much rather work on my books than clean house, I find that our weekends are much more organized and pleasant if I get the big chores out of the way on Friday. So, in that way, I bless our home, making it a happier place to be. (And, I must admit, somewhat selfishly, having gotten these chores out of the way will allow me to have a few hours to stop by my favorite local library sale over the weekend!) Also, I find I have a much more positive attitude towards said cleaning if I think of it as helping to make a happier home for my family and myself. Late Friday: the house is straightened, the laundry is folded, and dinner (tacos) is prepared. Now, for the weekend!

As I mentioned yesterday, I decided I wanted to become an antiquarian bookseller, but being a stay-at-home mom whose best finds were at library sales and on ebay, I didn’t know any booksellers to ask as to how to go about becoming one. I really worried that the other booksellers would sneer at my presumptuousness and then shoo me out of their stores for daring to think I could compete on their level. What I really wanted to do was ask how I could learn to be a bookseller so that by the time my youngest son reached school-age, I could establish a business.

Between 2002 and 2005, I tried to educate myself as much as possible about book collecting. I attended a couple of ABAA book fairs, something I highly recommend doing if you never have. You’ll never see a better collection of books amassed in one location. My mother encouraged me to take a one day seminar on book collecting offered by David Gregor, ABAA bookseller. She even helped pay for it, and was really excited about my plan to be a bookseller. I read any and all books I could find on book collecting and bookselling.

Finally, from the anonymous comfort of my computer, I wrote the following letter to the Bibliophile List in May 2006:

Dear Biblians,

Like all of you, I love books. I have been reading the Bullpen for a few weeks now, as well as several of the interesting and informative blogs that are linked to it, but this is my first actual post.

I am a former high school English teacher who aspires to become a bookseller. My first job when I was a teenager was as a clerk in a bookstore. During college, I worked in my university’s library, doing card catalog entries (card catalogs — I guess I am showing my age). I also interned for a book publisher. After college, I thought I wanted to be a book editor, and went to work for another small local publisher. I HATED office work, so much so that I returned to school and got a teaching credential in English. I love teaching high school, but I took a long-term leave of absence when I had my two sons. There was no way to grade 150 papers a week at home with a baby and a toddler around. I love teaching, but have had the best few years of my life being home with my kids. My youngest child will enter kindergarten this August, and, as I anticipate a bit more time on my hands, I think selling books may be the best career for me.

I started collecting books when I was teaching Dante’s Divine Comedy to my senior class. I happened upon the ca.1880 Cassell folio edition with the amazing Dore engravings, and I was hooked. I started purchasing all kinds of illustrated editions of Dante to share with my students. Seeing these older, illustrated editions helped the kids to connect with the text so much more than their mass-produced Penguin paperbacks. They could also see the way Dante’s work has been interpreted by different artists over time.

Being a teacher with a somewhat limited income, I had to really hunt around to find books — library sales, garage sales, estate sales, online auctions, book fairs, and a few brick and mortar dealers as well. As I collected, I read as much as I could about book collecting. I have really enjoyed hunting around for books, and do so as a hobby whenever I have free time. I’ve bought books of all sorts and subjects that I find interesting. I find I can learn more about judging condition, understanding different publishers, bookbinders, time periods, and authors if I do so. I think I need to have personally handled thousands of books to be a knowledgeable bookseller.

My modest home has very little storage, and I have filled two closets (double shelved on each shelf), one armoire, and three book cases with books of all sorts. I saved up my money and went to the ABAA convention in Los Angeles this year (an education in itself), and about two years ago I took a book collecting seminar from David Gregor (Gregor Books, Seattle WA). I have tried to educate myself further by reading bookseller blogs and subscribing to this mailing list. I subscribe to “Firsts” and “Fine Books and Collections”, too. Once, I even made my husband take me on vacation to our nearest “booktown”, Nevada City/Grass Valley (about a 4 hour drive from my house). Of course, I know this does not replace the many years of experience most of you have had, but we all have to start somewhere.

If I do pursue bookselling, I will probably have to start as an on-line bookseller. Rents in my area are very high ( for example $2200/mo. for 497 sq. ft. near the downtown of my little suburb). If I can work up enough of a business in a few years, then I would like to have a brick and mortar shop where I can see real people every day, but I am not sure that’s realistic when lots of the venerable, established shops are closing or have come close to it.

I am trying to research as much as I can about bookselling before I decide whether or not to make this foray when the kids go to school in the fall. I do NOT want to be someone who sells books and doesn’t understand pricing, condition, cataloging, etc. I have done my best to learn about these things over the past few years, and I would certainly plan to use this list as a resource when questions arise. Finally, having been a high school teacher for several years, I am already used to quirky customers, long hours, and a pittance for a wage.

What are your thoughts? (I have already taken under advisement someone’s comment a couple of weeks ago that the best way to make a million dollars selling books is to start with two million.) If you could do it over, would you do become a bookseller again? Am I realistic to think I can make a go of it? (I plan to start with an inventory of 300 or so books.)

Sorry this is such a long post. I just wanted to make it clear that I have pursued some kind of bookish career since I started working, and I am approaching this possible career move with serious intent. Thanks in advance for any advice/input you can give.

Best,
Chris

So, with a click of the “Send” button, I sent my missive out into the ether, fulling expecting to be flamed, ridiculed, and told that if I had to ask, it wasn’t going to be the right job for me. Worse, my letter might be completely ignored. I went to bed that night feeling a combination of anxiety and excitement. In the morning, I had over 25 different responses waiting in my email Inbox.

Tomorrow: What they said and why it changed my life.

See you in the stacks!

Chapter 1 The Letter That Changed My Life

Do you know about the Bibliophile Mailing List? If you are a book collector or bookseller or aspiring to be either, I highly recommend joining it. The first two weeks are free, and then it is $30/year to subscribe. One can ask questions, posit opinions, and even list books for sale commission free! Even better, the inner workings of some parts of the book business, from what database software to use to which online listing services are the lesser of evils, are discussed often and in great detail. You can check it for yourself here.

I stumbled upon the list in early 2006 and mostly just read all of the posts every day, learning as I read along. I had by this time read all of Nicholas Basbanes fabulous books about books, book collecting, and libraries. I was regularly attending local library sales and exulting over my “finds” at said sales. I was beginning to branch out and buy books at auction. Completely book drunk, I purchased more and more books, even those that were good books outside of the areas in which I was interested in collecting. I began to wonder if I might sell these books for a profit. I don’t know what hubris allowed me to think this. I did not yet personally know even one bookseller. I was a little bit intimidated and afraid to walk into an antiquarian shop. They’re so quiet. Would it be ok to browse? Would I have to buy anything if I spent a lot of time with the owner? How much would I have to spend? What if the owner was “curmudgeonly”, as some book shop owners are rumored to be, and threw me out for my presuming I could find and sell books like him?

One day it dawned on me that I could ask the booksellers on the Bibliophile Group list . I could do so somewhat anonymously, without worrying about being thrown out of anyone’s shop for the arrogance of thinking I could, just like that, become an antiquarian bookseller. So that’s what I did.

Tomorrow: The Letter

Introduction

Well, hello there. I am an antiquarian bookseller, just getting established in the business. This blog is a repository for my thoughts and observations along the way. My business, Book Hunter’s Holiday, takes its name from the title of a memoir by one of the greatest booksellers of the 20th Century — the good Doctor A.S.W. Rosenbach. He is an inspiration to me.

Here’s all you need to know about me to understand the perspective that will be offered on this blog:

After resigning from my job as an English teacher to stay home and raise my two sons, I was lonely for books. Books have been a constant in my life since I can remember, and, being a mother to two little boys under the age of two often didn’t allow time for reading anything more than the front page of the local newspaper. When my youngest son (now seven) turned two, a friend recommended I read Nicholas Basbanes’s history of book collecting, A Gentle Madness. Mesmerized by the topic, I sped through the thick tome, drowning in a downpour of words. So ended what I have come to regard as the Great Reading Drought of 1998-2002. Little did I realize then that what I read would open a floodgate of opportunity.

Although I’ve had bookish jobs since about age 15 – for a local bookstore, in a university library, for a book publisher, and, after college, as a high school English teacher — my response to Basbanes’s book was, “Why didn’t I know about this before?” Although I am ashamed to admit that I knew very little about antiquarian books or bookselling, I am certain that had I been more aware of the world of antiquarian books, I’d have started my career in that field immediately upon receiving my undergraduate degree.

I began avidly collecting books in 2002 (though I was collecting books while teaching without being aware that that was what I was doing) with an eye towards turning this hobby into a business when my youngest child entered first grade. In addition to simply collecting books, I read as much as I could on book collecting and bookselling. I attended any book fair within a 200-mile radius of my home. I was fortunate enough to find a local ABAA bookseller who was willing to take on the task of being my mentor, and I even got the great experience of working for him at the 2007 ABAA Fair in San Francisco. Only a few weeks ago, I attended the Colorado Antiquarian Book Market Seminar at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.

This fall, my youngest son enters first grade. For the first time in ten years, a significant chunk of time can be freed up each day to focus on establishing my business in a professional manner. I have a business license, a resale number, and a website. I am exhibiting at my first book fair in September and expect to publish my first print catalogue in the coming months.

I am just a beginner, but I consider myself a bookseller. I have been an English teacher and a Mother, and though I would consider myself successful at both, I am a master at neither. Those titles, however, were conferred on me the day I earned my teaching credential and the day my eldest child was born, when I knew little about the level of expertise required by either job. I have (thankfully) improved from the early days of both jobs, but recognize I still need to learn a great deal more. Nevertheless, I thought of myself as a teacher and as a mother from day one, never as “trying to be a teacher” or “trying to be a mother”. Likewise, though I am just beginning, I consider myself a bookseller — a beginning bookseller who aspires to be an antiquarian bookseller.

Hope to see you in the stacks!