Used bookstores are a lot like gardens -- they must be tended daily and grown in 100 ways, year after year. The city I grew up in was legendary for used bookstores, and they sit all but empty now, decades later. The 'modern' people chiming in about how to "search faster" are missing an aspect of the experience that is literal and measureable, as well as partially undefineable simply because the portion of the mind and senses that is exercised is non-linear -- file that under "non-linear thinking"
I have a Powells bookstore bookbag, and know others that do, too. Bookstores were a destination across counties or states. The loss of these local bookstores has 1000 unintended consequences. People see the absence the same way they see the absence of a blooming meadow where there is now only pavement and some litter -- in other words, not at all.
I am literally disheartened by the loss of local bookstores, in any size town.
For me, the most magical thing about the small local bookstores is the people working there.
Just getting into one, chatting with people genuinely and deeply passionate about what it is that they are selling. Having a coffee, talking about a book I read, what aspects I liked, philosophizing about the topic in general and getting recommendations what to read next based on that has beaten at least 10x any 'modern' and automatized approach I have ever seen.
But I think that is a situation where a lot of small shops, whether they sell books, music instruments, clothes, food, etc. are in. If they grow too big, the immense value of personal advice and interaction gets lost and if they are too small the people might not be able to make a living.
On the other hand, I can get any book I want, including long out-of-print books. I remember years looking for a copy of Clarke's "The Deep Range". Now getting a copy is as trivial as pushing a button.
And I have indulged myself, acquiring a small mountain of books :-)
I also browse the books at thrift stores. It's how I've obtained a ton of strange books I never would have discovered otherwise. For example, I found an encyclopedia of electronic circuits I never knew existed. Goodwill is a book gold mine, I wound up getting a nearly complete set of the Star Trek novels (and cheap as dirt, too!).
> The 'modern' people chiming in about how to "search faster" are missing an aspect of the experience that is literal and measureable, as well as partially undefineable simply because the portion of the mind and senses that is exercised is non-linear -- file that under "non-linear thinking"
I don't understand the luddite attitude towards ebooks:
- you can carry them anywhere
- you can search them (more important for technical books)
- you can save important parts as screenshots in some other folder
- they can be significantly more affordable
- even those people in small cities can get them without searching in bookstores
- Poor/middle-class students can easily get pirated copies
- you can copy paste from them.
The resistance to ebooks instead of adaptation is weird.
In fact, because of ubiquity of smartphones, I wish there would be some sort of programming environments for these devices, that nicely reformat code to fit into the smartphone screens or even use some different representation, so that we can get something done on the go. These devices are not just for consuming Netflix content.
A few times I've gone to Portland specifically for the food and for Powells. It's easy for me to lose a weekend browsing and skimming -- and when you need a little rest, there are plenty of areas to hang out and chat with whoever you went with.
It's unfortunate that this is such a rare feature for a city.
When I visited the Pacific North-West in 2015 (I herald from Italy), I made a point of visiting Powell’s Bookstore in Portland (OR) and even chose my hotel (which turned out to be the very hip Ace Hotel) based on proximity to it.
I pointedly decided to buy second-hand copies of several of my favourite books (The Computational Beauty of Nature by Gary William Flake and Surfaces & Essences by Douglas Hofstadter & Emmanuel Sander) from them, despite the absurd logistical hassle of buying them and transcontinentally shipping them home because I wanted storied copies with no pristine air to them.
One thing I appreciate about second-hand bookshops and libraries is that they are not curated for me.
I read a lot of non-fiction, and I find that websites like Amazon and Goodreads do give decent suggestions, but they are books about topics I already know, sharing ideas I am already familiar with, in a style I like. I can feel the customer profit gradient descent maximization breathing down my neck. Looking at you, books with sans-serif titles, white backgrounds, and clever illustrations!
Algorithmic websites prioritize the new and the popular, whereas bookshops and libraries still feature the old and obscure (I realize that libraries have 30 copies of Harry Potter, but you get my point).
So, in my opinion, while these vicious market forces are currently destroying bookshops, I think it'll get to a steady state where bookshops serve a smaller, more loyal and niche audience.
When I was traveling, I'd love me some second-hand bookstores. They were perfect for a few hours to kill. Each one was like a tattoo on a town, unique yet familiar.
Large cities, small hamlets, the used bookstore in each were all the same stacks of yellowing books haphazarded. The smell, oh the smell, exactly the same musky deep scent. The pacing feet or strolling dogs outside the door drop away, leaving an alike meander and comforting scootch past stacks.
But the books, the little things in the windows, the person behind the counter, the dog or cat, the hippie and the retiree, the fliers and aged comic strips, each of those things was utterly unique to the place. Those little bit of character just sing out the place they are in. The stacks of surf boards on Bondi Beach, the brownies in Newhaven, the beer glasses in Denver, it's those little things that made those used bookstores an absolute joy to wander into for an hour and slow down.
This is one of the reason I like used bookstores and thriftshops. I like having a good surprise from time to time and find something totally unexpected. Buying used is also good for the environment
I absolutely agree with this. It's one reason why I love to browse libraries and bookshops, even big-box ones. I browse multiple sections and can just about always find something new that seems interesting that I wouldn't have found earlier. It's also part of what I miss about having access to a quality university library. The amount of high quality non-fiction, across a wide range of subjects, was just astounding and I used to spend hours there just browsing and skimming through books.
I agree, but I can also see a future of smaller web-based bookshops with specialised algorithms based on more uncommon, specialized parameters. Think "books about philosophy that used to be popular in the '70s".
My wife asks our teenage sons to send her Spotify links to music they like, so Spotify will start recommending songs she has already heard, or songs that sound a lot like all the songs she already listens to.
The big second-hand bookseller in my town has a huge collection and several locations in multiple metro areas. Yet they have no way to search for a specific title!
I was shocked. If you have no idea of your current inventory and sales history, how do you know how much to pay for people's books? Their books are about $0.50 a title -- I would gladly pay that price for a book I would otherwise get from the library if I knew it was available. They would be able to do a serious business selling required titles to local college students. And they could have a robust online presence through 3rd party sellers like Amazon and Ebay.
Yes, some beloved used bookstores are falling victim to "market forces". But if those same market forces inject some modernity into these businesses that badly need it, I'd be very grateful.
All books in the last ~50 years have a barcode already printed on them, and an ISBN printed inside. Any phone camera can read these. If you assume 15 seconds per book at pace, 40 books per shelf, 6 shelves per bookcase, and 30 bookcases in the average store, complete digitization of a collection should take only ...
Edit: Responding comment is quite right, original calculation mistaken. It's 4AM here. 40 × 6 × 30 = 7200 books × 15 seconds ÷ 60 ÷ 60 = 30 hours, so <4 days assuming 8 hour days. Or 1 day if you can speed up to 5 seconds per book.
There’s https://bookshop.org for injecting modernity into supporting independent bookstores. It doesn’t help specifically for used book stores however.
Browsing a used bookstore (or any other bookstore) when I have some time to kill is still fun. [And my local library has a booksale every year.] But with the exception of maybe looking through cookbooks or art books or something like that, it's not really how I buy or even browse books any longer.
In the "bad old days" when new books were mostly sold at list price and there really wan't a whole lot of independent information about books out there, it often made a lot of sense to buy used books at half off based on serendipitous browsing of the shelves. But that's not really true any longer.
I used to go into Harvard Square on a Saturday afternoon every month or two in no small part to browse books and CDs at a variety of stores (many of which are long gone). I haven't done that in years.
I believe you’ve stopped doing that but the experience was more fun. Now you have search and recommendations and it’s definitely a better value, book reviews can give a good hint if a book is crap or not what you expect before you buy it.
What could well be the very last truly independent bookshop in London, will be gone soon. And I don’t mean Henry Pordes on Charing Cross Road, which I love, but Anthony Hall in Twickenham. He owns his entire building outright, and even though he is a specialist book dealer, has always maintained a small bookshop as a luxury addition to his main office, if you like. At one point, all nine rooms of the building were filled with books, but he’s in his 80s and is selling up. Most of his business is on the internet, as he says now. No need for the bookshop.
From personal experience, what has made me rarely go to second-hand bookshops (or bookshops of any kind) is they typically have a really bad selection. The amount of trash printed is insane, and not only do people tend to keep the gems, but they also tend to suck them out of second hand bookshops, so only really useless books are left.
I actually really appreciate second-hand books. It sounds weird, but it makes it feel like there's more life to a book knowing others have read that exact copy. I also find it interesting and often helpful reading notes or underlined/highlighted parts of the book.
I recently purchased a few books from thriftbooks.com and noticed they shipped from different locations....I'm not sure if they're run as a marketplace where individual sellers can post books, or if they have multiple warehouses.
Nope. There are several reasons why individual secondhand bookshops are on the way out, but Oxfam is not a particularly significant one.
I am honestly puzzled by the author citing the Oxfam shop on St Giles as an exemplar, because it's a poor shop full of tat and tired old guidebooks to Greece in the 1960s. Even the Oxfam bookshop 15 miles up the road in little Chipping Norton has more interesting stock. But it's interesting that he cites an Oxford example, because independent retail in Oxford generally has been on the decline for 20+ years, and I suspect the woes of the secondhand bookshops in Oxford are the same as those of small retailers generally.
Abebooks and Amazon, eBay etc. are a more significant cause. You can now order the rare book you want from a dealer somewhere in the countryside without them needing to pay for retail premises. One of my favourite secondhand bookshops, Sedgeberrow Books in Pershore, has recently gone that way - the shop has closed but the operation lives on as an Abebooks dealer. Pershore still has a secondhand bookshop, which is a lovely relic that doesn't even take debit/credit cards. Many of the survivals seem to fit that mould: intentionally arcane dealers who've chosen not to move with the times.
Setting aside the damage done by the advent on internet which helps with search and deliveries, i feel that there's a change in the attitude of people today. I used to walk into the bookshops near my home and university, walk around and browse, the people who worked there were passionate and would recommend titles to you. One of them even helped connect people to book-clubs, i miss those connections. It doesn't seem that people want to spend that kind of time. Browsing UBS, checking titles and finding those with notes marked in pencil and messages for the next reader across books is an experience i would like my children to have.
In my hometown I've seen about half of the used book stores disappear within the last 10 years. There are a few still hanging on, but with rising rents and fewer people reading it seems like their days are also numbered. Which is a shame because to me aimlessly perusing through old stacks of books is very enjoyable and somehow comforting. I love the rush you get when you come across some rare book you've spent years looking for, or when you find some new book you didn't know you wanted. Going on Amazon and ordering the exact book you want is easy and convenient, but I don't think it can replicate that feeling of discovery.
In the late-90's, early 2000's, my high school weekend job was doing computer work for a local bookstore starting to sell online. On the tech side, it was interesting to see online marketplaces taking off, how ordinary people use computers, the sorry state of single-purpose software meant for a small group of paying customers. I also got to learn a lot about books, which ones are more likely to be valuable, which ones have no values (I have no problems throwing books away), and where to find books online.
Now the book business... The best used book marketplace at the time was Abebooks. There's been some consolidation, and they got bought by--who else--Amazon, but I ordered something from them recently, and as far as I could tell, it wasn't just Amazon sellers. Amazon and Ebay looked like huge markets to tap, we we never had much luck on either. Ebay, especially around 2000, was more auction-oriented, and those work great for mid-price, in-demand products. For books, to hit the price range for making a good listing make sense, it would have to be rare, but how many people are in the market for a first edition of "The Jungle." The smaller marketplaces made more sense because that's where the buyers were. It was a hard business, even then. The bookstore closed its storefront and moved everything into a second home because the rent/mortgage was cheaper. The other thing that became clear is that "rare" books weren't as rare as people thought once they started surfacing online, so prices dropped. I have no idea how Amazon sellers selling copies of old, but popular books for $2 can turn a profit. The only reason the owner ran this store was she had a passion for books.
It is true, a lot or collectible items lost most of their uniqness derived value when vast amounts filled the inventory of digital stores and demand for them proved much lower than expected
If you like second-hand bookshops, visit Hay-on-Wye. I'd recommend crossing the Atlantic to see it even. It's in south Wales, and it's a whole village of second-hand bookshops. Many are huge, some are tiny and very specialist (horror, detective fiction, etc.) Every year I spend three or four days there browsing and reading, and doing some walking in the mountains as well.
I've had Hay-on-Wye on my radar for a while (I'm Dutch, so it is a doable holiday destination by train and bus). The surrounding area looks interesting as well, and the mountains certainly appeal to me. You make it sound worthwhile. How are the prices? London's second-hand bookshops seem to be notoriously overpriced (not surprisingly due to rent and costs).
For now the only things holding me back are the fallout of Brexit and Corona.
My wife and I visited London three years ago and popped into bookshops wherever we could find one (Word on the Water, the London book barge was nice), but the best haul we had was on a day trip to the Isle of Wight where we rode the train to the end of the line and hiked to Ventnor where a festival was going on. In a churchyard an old man had a vintage bus he brought to England from Paris for the sole reason that he fell in love with it (the bus, not Paris), so he bought it when it was too old for its public transport role and restored it. It was filled with second-hand books for the occasion (for a charity I think it was), and we came away with a dozen books and a lovely chat.
Lots of second hand bookshops are combined with coffee shops. When consumers become comfortable going to coffee shops again, those places will likely return. Meanwhile, current owner/operators will lose.
Most new books are not that expensive compared to how much time people put into reading them and the value they derive, and libraries provide a free alternative. I think the middle is just getting squeezed.
In the UK, I've helped run some of the ninja bookshop crawls. There are usually guided routes that take you through independent bookshops - they are always interesting and great for discovering bookshops and the cities themselves.
Independent and second hand shops have really benefitted from these events and they usually offer discounts and gift bags for crawlers
That's a wonderful initiative - I'm really intrigued by that, and might sign up for one of the subscriptions. Thank you for posting.
(Could you have words with your site designer, though? I honestly haven't seen Safari struggle with a site like that for months, even including the worst excesses of UK local newspaper sites or the Independent.)
A couple of years ago one of our local shops closed down, and in the end, they threw away tons of books - as in metric tons. They had a couple of weeks where people could basically just come in and take whatever they wanted, but still, tons of leftovers.
I have fond memories of those shops, but, they had their quirks. Inventory systems were typically non-existent, and some of those shops were a mess.
But you know, even those things had their charm. Reminds me of the older mom'n pop stores and shops that didn't have the 100% cleanliness or neatness of modern big-box stores, where everything has been designed and optimized to perfection, and just looks...sterile. The modern stuff is excellent when your only goal is to go in, find your stuff, and get out - as fast as possible. But it's not that great when you just want to exploring/treasure hunting.
The old and unorganized stuff was great for that - treasure hunting. You didn't get the flippers or re-sellers that would swoop in 9AM on a daily basis to get the most valuable stuff, because their inventory trackers had notified them that store XYZ just got in rare item ABC.
Well, for whatever it's worth, PaperbackSwap [0] has become my go-to place for getting rid of books and (often) finding ones I want to read.
Just cleaned out a bookcase and put up a bunch that people want... glad to get them to good homes (where they might actually be read, rather than collecting dust on my shelves).
At the beginning of the year I spent about 10 days in 40 bookshops around Taiwan and one of the things I noticed is that a lot of bookshops (both first- and second-hand) are stepping up their game in a few ways to stay alive. Some of the things I noticed included:
- Well-curated collections to make people actually want to be there
- Some bookshops collect entrance fees since they don't necessarily expect to sell books. In return, you often get nice couches to read all you want, air conditioning, Wi-Fi, sometimes free tea, and sometimes you can discount your entrance fee against the cost of any books you buy.
- Some bookshops offer themed experiences in the shop itself. One I went to had the entire bookshop very dark except for the books and reading areas themselves, with the idea being that you only see yourself and the books, and not other people.
Of course, yet others seemed to be struggling, in the face of Eslite and other massive bookstores that have started to capture the young crowds.
The nearest thing I know of in the US to the Oxfam shops are the Carpe Librum pop-up stores in Washington, DC. They will operate for a few weeks--occasionally a few years--in a building that is awaiting redevelopment. All books/tapes/cds are donated, all staff is volunteer. Working near one is a standing temptation to purchase piles of books. I guess that the Friends of the Library shops one sees at Montgomery County libraries are comparable. Neither has much reduced my urge to shop in the remaining second-hand bookshops.
"[Graham Greene] and he remains one of the few serious literary figures who also understood the glamour and romance of the bookselling trade." Take that, Larry McMurtry! At least one other moderately known author had a used bookstore in Washington, DC, years ago. And Nancy Mitford worked for Heywood Hill in London for a while.
Yet the japanese second hand book/game/CD/DVD/hadware company Book Off is as successfull as ever, with stores pretty much everywhere in Japan and starting to expand overseas: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_Off
Its really an amazing rxperience there - clean orderly stores with bright illumination jam packed by books at lidiculously low prices & you can find total gems there if you look for a while - like the first artbook of Masamune Shirow in perfect state for abou 1500 yen (~13$ ?)! I dont even want to think how much that would have cost on Ebay...
I would be interested to know how much the Book Off model depends on the fact that manga is a huge market in Japan. Every time I've been into a Book Off, there's always been a huge manga section and it's always packed with people because (a) manga is really popular and (b) they don't shrinkwrap the manga to prevent people reading them in the shop the way a lot of places do. In a market like the UK or US where (comics being more niche than manga) there isn't that huge part of the store that's driving footfall and turnover, would the same model but working primarily with books do as well ?
[+] [-] mistrial9|5 years ago|reply
I have a Powells bookstore bookbag, and know others that do, too. Bookstores were a destination across counties or states. The loss of these local bookstores has 1000 unintended consequences. People see the absence the same way they see the absence of a blooming meadow where there is now only pavement and some litter -- in other words, not at all.
I am literally disheartened by the loss of local bookstores, in any size town.
[+] [-] smoe|5 years ago|reply
Just getting into one, chatting with people genuinely and deeply passionate about what it is that they are selling. Having a coffee, talking about a book I read, what aspects I liked, philosophizing about the topic in general and getting recommendations what to read next based on that has beaten at least 10x any 'modern' and automatized approach I have ever seen.
But I think that is a situation where a lot of small shops, whether they sell books, music instruments, clothes, food, etc. are in. If they grow too big, the immense value of personal advice and interaction gets lost and if they are too small the people might not be able to make a living.
[+] [-] WalterBright|5 years ago|reply
And I have indulged myself, acquiring a small mountain of books :-)
I also browse the books at thrift stores. It's how I've obtained a ton of strange books I never would have discovered otherwise. For example, I found an encyclopedia of electronic circuits I never knew existed. Goodwill is a book gold mine, I wound up getting a nearly complete set of the Star Trek novels (and cheap as dirt, too!).
[+] [-] avasthe|5 years ago|reply
I don't understand the luddite attitude towards ebooks: - you can carry them anywhere - you can search them (more important for technical books) - you can save important parts as screenshots in some other folder - they can be significantly more affordable - even those people in small cities can get them without searching in bookstores - Poor/middle-class students can easily get pirated copies - you can copy paste from them.
The resistance to ebooks instead of adaptation is weird.
In fact, because of ubiquity of smartphones, I wish there would be some sort of programming environments for these devices, that nicely reformat code to fit into the smartphone screens or even use some different representation, so that we can get something done on the go. These devices are not just for consuming Netflix content.
[+] [-] et-al|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevewillows|5 years ago|reply
It's unfortunate that this is such a rare feature for a city.
[+] [-] TomSwirly|5 years ago|reply
I'm starting to lose interest in the world.
[+] [-] qubex|5 years ago|reply
I pointedly decided to buy second-hand copies of several of my favourite books (The Computational Beauty of Nature by Gary William Flake and Surfaces & Essences by Douglas Hofstadter & Emmanuel Sander) from them, despite the absurd logistical hassle of buying them and transcontinentally shipping them home because I wanted storied copies with no pristine air to them.
[+] [-] biophysboy|5 years ago|reply
I read a lot of non-fiction, and I find that websites like Amazon and Goodreads do give decent suggestions, but they are books about topics I already know, sharing ideas I am already familiar with, in a style I like. I can feel the customer profit gradient descent maximization breathing down my neck. Looking at you, books with sans-serif titles, white backgrounds, and clever illustrations!
Algorithmic websites prioritize the new and the popular, whereas bookshops and libraries still feature the old and obscure (I realize that libraries have 30 copies of Harry Potter, but you get my point).
So, in my opinion, while these vicious market forces are currently destroying bookshops, I think it'll get to a steady state where bookshops serve a smaller, more loyal and niche audience.
[+] [-] Balgair|5 years ago|reply
Large cities, small hamlets, the used bookstore in each were all the same stacks of yellowing books haphazarded. The smell, oh the smell, exactly the same musky deep scent. The pacing feet or strolling dogs outside the door drop away, leaving an alike meander and comforting scootch past stacks.
But the books, the little things in the windows, the person behind the counter, the dog or cat, the hippie and the retiree, the fliers and aged comic strips, each of those things was utterly unique to the place. Those little bit of character just sing out the place they are in. The stacks of surf boards on Bondi Beach, the brownies in Newhaven, the beer glasses in Denver, it's those little things that made those used bookstores an absolute joy to wander into for an hour and slow down.
I'll miss them, I think we all will.
[+] [-] grugagag|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dorchadas|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimbokun|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sbuccini|5 years ago|reply
I was shocked. If you have no idea of your current inventory and sales history, how do you know how much to pay for people's books? Their books are about $0.50 a title -- I would gladly pay that price for a book I would otherwise get from the library if I knew it was available. They would be able to do a serious business selling required titles to local college students. And they could have a robust online presence through 3rd party sellers like Amazon and Ebay.
Yes, some beloved used bookstores are falling victim to "market forces". But if those same market forces inject some modernity into these businesses that badly need it, I'd be very grateful.
[+] [-] contingencies|5 years ago|reply
Edit: Responding comment is quite right, original calculation mistaken. It's 4AM here. 40 × 6 × 30 = 7200 books × 15 seconds ÷ 60 ÷ 60 = 30 hours, so <4 days assuming 8 hour days. Or 1 day if you can speed up to 5 seconds per book.
[+] [-] throwawaysea|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xaqfox|5 years ago|reply
https://opds.io
[+] [-] ghaff|5 years ago|reply
In the "bad old days" when new books were mostly sold at list price and there really wan't a whole lot of independent information about books out there, it often made a lot of sense to buy used books at half off based on serendipitous browsing of the shelves. But that's not really true any longer.
I used to go into Harvard Square on a Saturday afternoon every month or two in no small part to browse books and CDs at a variety of stores (many of which are long gone). I haven't done that in years.
[+] [-] grugagag|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vr46|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gorgoiler|5 years ago|reply
http://www.dalemcgowan.com/samples/bookcrawling.html
It is a grand theme of life that we fail to appreciate these things until it is too late. Thank you for the reminder.
[+] [-] pasabagi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jb775|5 years ago|reply
I recently purchased a few books from thriftbooks.com and noticed they shipped from different locations....I'm not sure if they're run as a marketplace where individual sellers can post books, or if they have multiple warehouses.
[+] [-] Doctor_Fegg|5 years ago|reply
I am honestly puzzled by the author citing the Oxfam shop on St Giles as an exemplar, because it's a poor shop full of tat and tired old guidebooks to Greece in the 1960s. Even the Oxfam bookshop 15 miles up the road in little Chipping Norton has more interesting stock. But it's interesting that he cites an Oxford example, because independent retail in Oxford generally has been on the decline for 20+ years, and I suspect the woes of the secondhand bookshops in Oxford are the same as those of small retailers generally.
Abebooks and Amazon, eBay etc. are a more significant cause. You can now order the rare book you want from a dealer somewhere in the countryside without them needing to pay for retail premises. One of my favourite secondhand bookshops, Sedgeberrow Books in Pershore, has recently gone that way - the shop has closed but the operation lives on as an Abebooks dealer. Pershore still has a secondhand bookshop, which is a lovely relic that doesn't even take debit/credit cards. Many of the survivals seem to fit that mould: intentionally arcane dealers who've chosen not to move with the times.
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsckboy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pratio|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] briga|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dehrmann|5 years ago|reply
Now the book business... The best used book marketplace at the time was Abebooks. There's been some consolidation, and they got bought by--who else--Amazon, but I ordered something from them recently, and as far as I could tell, it wasn't just Amazon sellers. Amazon and Ebay looked like huge markets to tap, we we never had much luck on either. Ebay, especially around 2000, was more auction-oriented, and those work great for mid-price, in-demand products. For books, to hit the price range for making a good listing make sense, it would have to be rare, but how many people are in the market for a first edition of "The Jungle." The smaller marketplaces made more sense because that's where the buyers were. It was a hard business, even then. The bookstore closed its storefront and moved everything into a second home because the rent/mortgage was cheaper. The other thing that became clear is that "rare" books weren't as rare as people thought once they started surfacing online, so prices dropped. I have no idea how Amazon sellers selling copies of old, but popular books for $2 can turn a profit. The only reason the owner ran this store was she had a passion for books.
[+] [-] grugagag|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisseaton|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Freak_NL|5 years ago|reply
For now the only things holding me back are the fallout of Brexit and Corona.
My wife and I visited London three years ago and popped into bookshops wherever we could find one (Word on the Water, the London book barge was nice), but the best haul we had was on a day trip to the Isle of Wight where we rode the train to the end of the line and hiked to Ventnor where a festival was going on. In a churchyard an old man had a vintage bus he brought to England from Paris for the sole reason that he fell in love with it (the bus, not Paris), so he bought it when it was too old for its public transport role and restored it. It was filled with second-hand books for the occasion (for a charity I think it was), and we came away with a dozen books and a lovely chat.
[+] [-] mushufasa|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philip1209|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simplesleeper|5 years ago|reply
Independent and second hand shops have really benefitted from these events and they usually offer discounts and gift bags for crawlers
https://www.ninjabookbox.com/london-bookshop-crawl
[+] [-] Doctor_Fegg|5 years ago|reply
(Could you have words with your site designer, though? I honestly haven't seen Safari struggle with a site like that for months, even including the worst excesses of UK local newspaper sites or the Independent.)
[+] [-] TrackerFF|5 years ago|reply
I have fond memories of those shops, but, they had their quirks. Inventory systems were typically non-existent, and some of those shops were a mess.
But you know, even those things had their charm. Reminds me of the older mom'n pop stores and shops that didn't have the 100% cleanliness or neatness of modern big-box stores, where everything has been designed and optimized to perfection, and just looks...sterile. The modern stuff is excellent when your only goal is to go in, find your stuff, and get out - as fast as possible. But it's not that great when you just want to exploring/treasure hunting.
The old and unorganized stuff was great for that - treasure hunting. You didn't get the flippers or re-sellers that would swoop in 9AM on a daily basis to get the most valuable stuff, because their inventory trackers had notified them that store XYZ just got in rare item ABC.
[+] [-] chris_st|5 years ago|reply
Just cleaned out a bookcase and put up a bunch that people want... glad to get them to good homes (where they might actually be read, rather than collecting dust on my shelves).
[0] https://www.paperbackswap.com/
[+] [-] dheera|5 years ago|reply
- Well-curated collections to make people actually want to be there
- Some bookshops collect entrance fees since they don't necessarily expect to sell books. In return, you often get nice couches to read all you want, air conditioning, Wi-Fi, sometimes free tea, and sometimes you can discount your entrance fee against the cost of any books you buy.
- Some bookshops offer themed experiences in the shop itself. One I went to had the entire bookshop very dark except for the books and reading areas themselves, with the idea being that you only see yourself and the books, and not other people.
Of course, yet others seemed to be struggling, in the face of Eslite and other massive bookstores that have started to capture the young crowds.
[+] [-] cafard|5 years ago|reply
"[Graham Greene] and he remains one of the few serious literary figures who also understood the glamour and romance of the bookselling trade." Take that, Larry McMurtry! At least one other moderately known author had a used bookstore in Washington, DC, years ago. And Nancy Mitford worked for Heywood Hill in London for a while.
[+] [-] m4rtink|5 years ago|reply
Its really an amazing rxperience there - clean orderly stores with bright illumination jam packed by books at lidiculously low prices & you can find total gems there if you look for a while - like the first artbook of Masamune Shirow in perfect state for abou 1500 yen (~13$ ?)! I dont even want to think how much that would have cost on Ebay...
[+] [-] pm215|5 years ago|reply