Searching The Old Book Sites:
Just Who Is The Best?
- By Michael Stillman
Amazon offers a cacophony of choices that does not make it easy to find old books.
By Michael Stillman
There are two sides to every internet sales story, buyer and seller. Most of what you read is taken from the seller's perspective. How many customers visit the site, how easy is it to upload your material, and most importantly, how much do they charge? This month we look from a different perspective, the buyer's. Not just any buyer. No, we take it from the slow-learning technophobic easily confused buyer's point of view. If you're a seller, you know him. He makes up about 90% of your business. I am totally qualified to speak for him.
Just to elaborate on that last point a bit more, some of you may say "you should have just clicked this link," or "you should have done..." fill in the blank. Probably. But remember, most people are not as well versed in these sites as the average person reading this article. For a site to perform up to its potential, it needs to work for the ignorant as well as the learned.
This is not to say dealers should choose which sites to list on based on how well they work. Dealers should post their listings based on which make them the most money. This will be a factor of how many books they sell, what commissions they charge, how much time you have to spend to place books on the site, and factors like these. Many booksellers will gravitate to Amazon because, with their large audience, they have the ability to move a lot of books. If not always the most user-friendly site, to paraphrase John Dillinger, it's where the customers are. Still, it is worth looking at a site from the buyer's perspective, as in time this will make a difference.
We looked at seven sites: the two major regular booksellers, Amazon and Barnes and Noble, the two largest primarily old book sites, Abebooks and Alibris, two bookseller organization sites, the ABAA and ILAB-LILA, and the biggest search engine, Froogle (brought to you by Google). We also tried the IOBA site (Independent Online Booksellers Association). We found only one copy of one of the books we searched, so it was not very productive. However, there did seem to be many low-priced other books available there, so it might be worth a look if you are searching for not very rare items at bargain prices.
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Searching The Old Book Sites:
Just Who Is The Best?
- By Michael Stillman
ILAB provides a keyboard of non-English characters to use in searches.
Amazon is the largest bookseller, if you include new and old, and when you look at their site, you wonder how they do it. The obvious answer is they got there first, built a huge audience with the dollars gathered during the internet stock "bubble," so everyone goes there. They also sell new books more cheaply than the typical bricks and mortar store with which they compete. Still, I cannot imagine how they would do it without the advantage of being there first with the most dollars to spend. Perhaps they would still do all right with new books, but old books? This is one confusing site, a cacophony of attempts to sell you everything under the sun. This morning when I visited, and evidently based on the information they have about me, the first item they tried to sell me was a coffeemaker. I guess they do know what I like, but they don't know my lazy work habits. I prefer the ease of preparation and clean up that comes with instant coffee. Sorry, Amazon, but you missed this time.
The first step with Amazon is to locate the "Books" tab at the top of the page. That brought me to a search box where I could search either "Books," "Used Books," "Collectible Books," or "Bargain Books." Huh? What if I'm looking for something that is all four? Since I prefer a search where I can place terms in various fields such as "title" and "author," rather than a single field, I clicked on "Advanced Search" instead. This gives a well-designed search page into which I entered the author and title for the first book on my list, Howard Stansbury's 1855 Expedition to the Great Salt Lake. I click "search" and Amazon responds with four titles by Lemony Snicket. Say what? Was Snicket one of the early Mormon pioneers?
After awhile, I realize the Snicket snippets are recommendations, not matches. My account is actually in my wife's name, and Amazon has determined that she likes Lemony Snicket books. This is something not even I knew about her. This is scary. What other secrets of hers can I find? Here's what. Everything she's ever purchased from Amazon. What I haven't been able to find yet is a copy of the Expedition to the Great Salt Lake. We’ll get back to this in a moment, but for now it's time to move on to the next site.
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Searching The Old Book Sites:
Just Who Is The Best?
- By Michael Stillman
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Next up is Barnes and Noble, the stepchild, the Avis, the Boston Red Sox of online bookselling. They have the greatest stores, but online, they are never more than number two. They give me only one logical choice to search in, "Bookstores." It turns out that is for new books, but not finding any new copies of this 1852 report, it asks if I would like to check their "Used and Out of Print Store." Certainly. I click the link and up pop 12 copies, most fairly recent printings, and it even finds one where "expedition" is spelled "expidition." Do I like this search better than Amazon's? Of course not. It doesn't reveal any secrets about my wife. It just finds the book I want. However, with a little more digging, you will find that in order to sell books with Barnes and Noble, you must do so through Abebooks or Alibris. Unlike Amazon, they aren't giving you anything new, just some of the listings from those other sites. They do claim 30 million titles, nothing to sneeze at, but Alibris offers 40 million and Abe 50 million. They really haven't added much to the equation.
If you have been in the old book business for awhile, you undoubtedly know Abe and Alibris well, so I won't bother you with the details. Each offers good advanced search screens. I prefer the way Abe gives you all of the listings together, rather than the subsets of variations presented by Alibris. Abebooks was the standard for me at the start of this exercise, and remained so at the end.
The ABAA (American Antiquarian Booksellers' Association) and ILAB (International League of Antiquarian Booksellers) sites are remarkably similar. It doesn't take long to recognize these two are related. The search screens are practically identical. However, the ILAB site has the advantage of searching not only the items held by ABAA members from America, but international dealers as well. Even if you're looking for American books, it's surprising how many are held by foreign merchants. It’s hard to see why you would choose the ABAA site over the ILAB one. In fact, ILAB gives you the choice of searching inventory from just one country (like the U.S.) or all. And here's another neat feature on the ILAB site I've never seen before. They give you a keyboard of letters with those funny squiggles under them that denote they are in some language English-speakers don't recognize. If you want to find an "è" or a "ç" you can actually enter them that way without knowing the obscure code that lets your keyboard type such symbols.
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Searching The Old Book Sites:
Just Who Is The Best?
- By Michael Stillman
none
Here is an oddity of these sites that leads us to the last reviewed site, Froogle. The ABAA (and ILAB) search boxes don’t take too many characters (I did not count exact numbers). The result is that it has trouble finding titles like History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clarks. Somewhere in the “captains” it shut down. I could select out just the more important keywords in the title which helped, but wasn’t perfect. It never could find the copy of the Expedition to the Great Salt Lake where the seller added a few extra words to call it Expedition and Survey of the Great Salt Lake. Here’s the oddity. Froogle searches many sites for its books, including the ABAA. However, its search box accepts more words, and its formula can deal with less than perfectly matched titles, such as those with an extra word or two. Since it searches the ABAA listings through its own search engine, not the ABAA’s, it was able to find books on the ABAA site I was not able to find on that site itself! I found a copy of the Lewis and Clark book and one of the Salt Lake offered on the ABAA site through Froogle I could not find on that site itself.
The first item I attempted to track down was the Stansbury Salt Lake title. I found that most offered for sale were either the 1852 original or a 1966 reprint. Here’s what I found:
| Book Site | 1852 original | Price Range | 1966 reprint | Price Range |
| Abebooks | 5 | $135-$623 | 14 | $9.50-$35 |
| Alibris | 0 | -- | 8 | $9.90-$24.95 |
| ABAA | 1 | $350 | 1 | $25 |
| ILAB | 2 | $350-$613 | 1 | $25 |
| Froogle | 2 | $350-$1600* | 2 | $15-$25 |
| Barnes and Noble | 0 | -- | 10 | $10.05-$26.47 |
| Amazon | 0 | -- | 5 | $12-$107 |
*The $1,600 copy was the one offered on the ABAA site that I could only find through Froogle. It is priced so high because it includes the original, loose maps.
I hope I found everything from Amazon. I first attempted searching "used books" for the title, only to get 21,895 "matches." None of the first ten were actual matches, and not having the time to wade through 21,885 more listings, I went to "collectible books," where I found five.
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Searching The Old Book Sites:
Just Who Is The Best?
- By Michael Stillman
none
Next up was Rudyard Kipling?s With the Night Mail. This was easier since virtually all copies are of the 1909 original. Why this fascinating 1909 prediction of how the world would look in the year 2000 has not been reprinted is a mystery to me. Here are the numbers:
| Listing Site | No.of Copies | Price Range |
| Abebooks | 54 | $16-$500 |
| Alibris | 24 | $35-$300 |
| ABAA | 14 | $40-$500 |
| ILAB | 16 | $40-$500 |
Froogle | 21 | $40-$500 |
| Barnes and Noble | 28 | $36-$259 |
| Amazon | 12 | $75-$595 |
Abe also found two copies of a 1998 reprint by the upscale Arion Press for $350 and $400. Alibris found a paperback for $5.68.
Next I tried a harder to find title, Jared Sparks 1828 The Life and Travels of John Ledyard… Here, only Abebooks and ILAB found anything. Abe found five copies priced $550 - $1,265. ILAB found four priced $537-$1,265. Why did ILAB find four and ABAA zero? All four copies were offered by foreign (to America) booksellers, 1 Canada, 1 Netherlands, 2 Australia.
Now we'll try a different type of book. Here's one that's not valuable, not too old, but not too new, and not well known. Probably most books fit into this category. We will try a search for Laurence Pringle's Death is Natural. This book is supposed to teach children about death. What it really is is an antidote for anyone feeling too happy. If you want to get depressed in a hurry, read this book.
Not to digress, but here's how it starts: "A cottontail rabbit left the shelter of some weeds and hopped onto the road. The night was cool, the pavement, still warm from spring sunshine, felt good underfoot. Suddenly, two bright lights shone on the rabbit. It hesitated, then ran. Too late. THUMP." It even comes with a picture of a dead rabbit. I'm just glad my wife didn't buy this book on Amazon or they would probably be recommending a copy of Dr Kevorkian?s "how-to" book to me. Here is what I found:
| Listing Site | No.of Copies | Price Range |
| Abebooks | 47 | $1.95-$22.00 |
| Alibris | 55 | $2.95-$18.95 |
| ABAA | 0 | |
| ILAB | 0 | |
Froogle | 13 | $1.99-$22.00 |
| Barnes and Noble | 4 | $2.07-$17.84 |
| Amazon | 55 | $1.24-$23.32 |
Froogle also offered copies of The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession and the Everlasting Dead by Heather Pringle. I don't know whether Laurence Pringle and Heather Pringle are related, but they'd make a lovely couple.
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Searching The Old Book Sites:
Just Who Is The Best?
- By Michael Stillman
none
The final book I looked for was a rare and very valuable title, History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark. This was originally published in 1814 and is the official report of that momentous expedition. Naturally, I would not expect to find too many copies available. Here is what I did find.
| Book Site | 1814 original | Price Range | Later reprint |
| Abebooks | 5 | $25,000-$125,000 | 9 |
| Alibris | 2 | $99,999.95-$124,999.95 | 3 |
| ABAA | 2 | $100,000-$125,000 | 5 |
| ILAB | 3 | $25,000-$125,000 | 6 |
| Froogle | 3 | $20,000-$125,000 | 14 |
| Barnes and Noble | 0 | | 9 |
| Amazon | 0 | | 1 |
Of course what instantly jumps out here is that the copy that sells for $125,000 elsewhere can be had for just $124,999.95 on Alibris. Normally, I round off their nickel discount, but if you're looking to save a nickel, literally, Alibris is the place to go. Everything is a nickel less there.
Time has come now for a few conclusions. Here are mine:
- Amazon confuses the heck out of me when it comes to old books. Instead of trying to read my mind, I'd rather they concentrate on making it easy for me to find what I think I want. They also need to find a way to sell books without identifying numbers (ISBNs) as this limits their ability to sell older titles.
- Barnes and Noble offers a nice search, but no books that aren't available elsewhere.
- Froogle is not that bad, though not up to the dedicated old book sites yet. Worth watching.
- Everything and more you can find on the ABAA site can be found on ILAB, and more of everything on the ABAA site can be found on Froogle. They need to work on their search formula and should merge their search with ILAB.
- I wish Alibris would keep their extra nickel and in return get rid of their annoying pop ups. If I wanted Omaha steaks when searching for a book, I'd call Warren Buffet.
- Abebooks started out as the leader and I have not seen anything from the competition which would, in my opinion, dislodge them from that spot. They have the largest database at 50 million plus books, and their searches work well, find lots of books, and present them in a clear and easy to follow manner. Of course this is all subjective, but for this dummy, Abe is still the easiest and most rewarding site to use.
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