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<b>Bonhams:</b> MANDELSHTAM, OSIP. 1891-1938. Autograph Manuscript, 2 pp, [Petersburg,] January 1913, entitled

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Bookselling Relationships: Partnerships or Parasitism? - By Renee Roberts The deer tick, a common parasite on Cape Cod. Who does it remind you of? by Renée Magriel Roberts Every day around 4PM I begin to crash after too many hours at the computer and I've found it comforting to put up my feet and watch Dr. Phil on TV (this activity is not shared by my husband, who is more likely to be found picking up heavy boxes of books, or working on the roof of the warehouse to keep the rain off our inventory). Dr. Phil is an everyperson's everyshrink. I've found him particularly effective in working with women in abusive relationships where his message is "it is not your fault" and at the same time "you have to ask for the life you want". I've seen him work with real control-freak husbands, who seem to be completely oblivious to what they are doing to their partners. They manage to convince their wives that they have no other options; with no other options the abuse escalates and continues. Turn on the TV any day around 3 or 4 PM and you can see people who are having their lives sucked out of them. You may ask what this has to do with bookselling. It has everything to do with bookselling in today's current Web-based environment. Like many other booksellers I must go where the customers are and partner with selling websites, such as ABE, Amazon, and eBay. These relationships began for me as a partnership. However, as these mega-marketing sites continue to strengthen their respective monopolies, they use their power to increasingly abuse the sellers who are providing their products. I feel violated just about every day. Not by the thieves who send their endless lottery-winning emails to my spam folder, or the phishers informing me that my paypal account is about to be closed unless I input my login and password. Not even by the book crooks who want me to send a lot of good material to Indonesia, express mail please. I can deal with them. No, it is my so-called website "partners" who are giving me that dry-sucking feeling. In other venues, the business moves by these sites would probably be illegal, or be broken up as monopolies. However, strangely, in webworld, hard-core pressure-based business practices appear to be totally ignored. ABE is an obvious example, although the principles I'm describing surely apply to other sites. What I am speaking about specifically is the sites' penchant for expanding their profits entirely at the expense of the bookseller by forcing us to "purchase" services we may not want (or want from them), or even need. It is not enough to be charged a fee for listings. We are charged a percentage of each transaction, completely at the whim of the selling site. We can no longer choose who we might use to process our major credit card charges, nor do we have any control over the decisionmaking regarding the transaction (as we do not see those that are refused).
Bookselling Relationships: Partnerships or Parasitism? - By Renee Roberts Booksellers and mega-sites on which they list can use some relationship rescue. Payments are not wire-transferred immediately; instead they are delayed so that the sites can take advantage of the very substantial "float". And the accounting can be so complex and so difficult to use that even tracking sales becomes unpleasant. Their partnership with inventory utilities suggests they will additionally want control over more aspects of our business and I will not be at all surprised if they don't attempt to get into the postage printing and package insurance business as well. I recently participated in a dealer survey on one site to see if I was interested in having them do postage printing and package insurance (I'm not). Nor do I need or require any service to upload my listings, thanks anyway. It takes just seconds to do those uploads and I am totally disinterested in offering a mega-inventory "partner" yet another piece of each transaction. At the same time, these sites have made no attempt to improve selling conditions in their environments. They have done nothing to eliminate the drop-shippers, the empty listers who own no books, the re-listers, who use other people's listings, the ignorant, not even booksellers who can't SPELL, or who write nonexistent, poor, or just plain lying descriptions of their wares. They have not gotten rid of the computer programmers who do not own books, but are real good at creating bogus listings with those irritating repetitive descriptions (I especially like the ones that say books may have a remainder mark). They do not eliminate those with whom it is near-impossible to communicate (real names and addresses and emails and telephone numbers missing or obfuscated). They do nothing to eliminate sellers who throw their books without protection into bags -- good luck to you if you get your purchase in one piece. They do nothing to eliminate all the trash $1.00 and $.01 listings. We booksellers who care about what we sell and care about our customers have to do business in what is becoming a bookselling garbage dump, while at the same time, at just about every turn, being bled by new vertical integration ideas, like forcing us to "buy" services which we do not want or need. Am I being just a sloppy sentimentalist to suggest that a "partnership" is not a one-way street characterized by the abuse of one party by the other because they have a near-monopoly position?
Bookselling Relationships: Partnerships or Parasitism? - By Renee Roberts none Well, Dr. Phil says we should ask for the relationship we want, so I'm asking for this from all you mega-sites: Do not force me to buy your "services". Make your services so attractive that I will want to buy them. Roll back your fees. Period. They are not sustainable. Eliminate all the transaction-based charges. By the time I compute my net-net-net I seriously wonder why I'm in this business. Clean up the sites and eliminate all the garbage listings and the non-seller programmers hiding behind their electronic names. Make me proud to put my listings on your site. Ask me how I feel about changes, and then listen and respond. No relationship can exist if one party feels completely used and ignored by the other. Fix the feedback system where it exists and eliminate customer abuse. Award excellence. Provide us with services we really need. How about low-cost health insurance for small independent booksellers? Provide opportunities to do good in the world. Act like a real "partner" and design your business model to be mutually beneficial, not parasitic. A parasite - from the Greek word parasitos, means "one who eats from another's table." Parasitism is an interaction between two organisms, in which one organism (the parasite) benefits and the other (the host) is harmed, though usually without killing the host. Parasitism can be considered a special case of predation since in both interactions one species acquires biomass directly from another. A partnership is a type of business entity in which partners share with each other the profits or losses of the business undertaking in which they have all invested. (Wikipedia) What kind of relationship are we going to have? Renée Magriel Roberts can be reach at renee@roses-books.com.

Bookselling Relationships: Partnerships or Parasitism?

- By Renee Roberts

The deer tick, a common parasite on Cape Cod. Who does it remind you of?

by Renée Magriel Roberts

Every day around 4PM I begin to crash after too many hours at the computer and I've found it comforting to put up my feet and watch Dr. Phil on TV (this activity is not shared by my husband, who is more likely to be found picking up heavy boxes of books, or working on the roof of the warehouse to keep the rain off our inventory).

Dr. Phil is an everyperson's everyshrink. I've found him particularly effective in working with women in abusive relationships where his message is "it is not your fault" and at the same time "you have to ask for the life you want". I've seen him work with real control-freak husbands, who seem to be completely oblivious to what they are doing to their partners. They manage to convince their wives that they have no other options; with no other options the abuse escalates and continues. Turn on the TV any day around 3 or 4 PM and you can see people who are having their lives sucked out of them.

You may ask what this has to do with bookselling. It has everything to do with bookselling in today's current Web-based environment. Like many other booksellers I must go where the customers are and partner with selling websites, such as ABE, Amazon, and eBay. These relationships began for me as a partnership. However, as these mega-marketing sites continue to strengthen their respective monopolies, they use their power to increasingly abuse the sellers who are providing their products.

I feel violated just about every day. Not by the thieves who send their endless lottery-winning emails to my spam folder, or the phishers informing me that my paypal account is about to be closed unless I input my login and password. Not even by the book crooks who want me to send a lot of good material to Indonesia, express mail please. I can deal with them.

No, it is my so-called website "partners" who are giving me that dry-sucking feeling. In other venues, the business moves by these sites would probably be illegal, or be broken up as monopolies. However, strangely, in webworld, hard-core pressure-based business practices appear to be totally ignored. ABE is an obvious example, although the principles I'm describing surely apply to other sites.

What I am speaking about specifically is the sites' penchant for expanding their profits entirely at the expense of the bookseller by forcing us to "purchase" services we may not want (or want from them), or even need. It is not enough to be charged a fee for listings. We are charged a percentage of each transaction, completely at the whim of the selling site. We can no longer choose who we might use to process our major credit card charges, nor do we have any control over the decisionmaking regarding the transaction (as we do not see those that are refused).

Bookselling Relationships: Partnerships or Parasitism?

- By Renee Roberts

Booksellers and mega-sites on which they list can use some relationship rescue.

Payments are not wire-transferred immediately; instead they are delayed so that the sites can take advantage of the very substantial "float". And the accounting can be so complex and so difficult to use that even tracking sales becomes unpleasant.

Their partnership with inventory utilities suggests they will additionally want control over more aspects of our business and I will not be at all surprised if they don't attempt to get into the postage printing and package insurance business as well. I recently participated in a dealer survey on one site to see if I was interested in having them do postage printing and package insurance (I'm not).

Nor do I need or require any service to upload my listings, thanks anyway. It takes just seconds to do those uploads and I am totally disinterested in offering a mega-inventory "partner" yet another piece of each transaction.

At the same time, these sites have made no attempt to improve selling conditions in their environments. They have done nothing to eliminate the drop-shippers, the empty listers who own no books, the re-listers, who use other people's listings, the ignorant, not even booksellers who can't SPELL, or who write nonexistent, poor, or just plain lying descriptions of their wares. They have not gotten rid of the computer programmers who do not own books, but are real good at creating bogus listings with those irritating repetitive descriptions (I especially like the ones that say books may have a remainder mark).

They do not eliminate those with whom it is near-impossible to communicate (real names and addresses and emails and telephone numbers missing or obfuscated). They do nothing to eliminate sellers who throw their books without protection into bags -- good luck to you if you get your purchase in one piece. They do nothing to eliminate all the trash $1.00 and $.01 listings.

We booksellers who care about what we sell and care about our customers have to do business in what is becoming a bookselling garbage dump, while at the same time, at just about every turn, being bled by new vertical integration ideas, like forcing us to "buy" services which we do not want or need.

Am I being just a sloppy sentimentalist to suggest that a "partnership" is not a one-way street characterized by the abuse of one party by the other because they have a near-monopoly position?

Bookselling Relationships: Partnerships or Parasitism?

- By Renee Roberts

none

Well, Dr. Phil says we should ask for the relationship we want, so I'm asking for this from all you mega-sites:

Do not force me to buy your "services". Make your services so attractive that I will want to buy them.
Roll back your fees. Period. They are not sustainable.
Eliminate all the transaction-based charges. By the time I compute my net-net-net I seriously wonder why I'm in this business.
Clean up the sites and eliminate all the garbage listings and the non-seller programmers hiding behind their electronic names. Make me proud to put my listings on your site.
Ask me how I feel about changes, and then listen and respond. No relationship can exist if one party feels completely used and ignored by the other.
Fix the feedback system where it exists and eliminate customer abuse.
Award excellence.
Provide us with services we really need. How about low-cost health insurance for small independent booksellers?
Provide opportunities to do good in the world.
Act like a real "partner" and design your business model to be mutually beneficial, not parasitic.

A parasite - from the Greek word parasitos, means "one who eats from another's table." Parasitism is an interaction between two organisms, in which one organism (the parasite) benefits and the other (the host) is harmed, though usually without killing the host. Parasitism can be considered a special case of predation since in both interactions one species acquires biomass directly from another.

A partnership is a type of business entity in which partners share with each other the profits or losses of the business undertaking in which they have all invested. (Wikipedia)

What kind of relationship are we going to have?

Renée Magriel Roberts can be reach at renee@roses-books.com.