I wanted to thank you always for providing such a wonderful 'newsletter'! I glean a LOT of information on bookselling venues and more from each month's issue and do appreciate that it's FREE!!!!

With all the book selling sites, gouging us booksellers any way they can, it is refreshing to read all the 'truth' in YOUR articles and for FREE!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Ms. Mickey Kaz
booksr4u. net

EBAY: A few notes from a bookdealer's view

Just read Bruce McKinney's story, and wanted to comment. I am a Dutch bookdealer, and have never sold through Ebay. I find that as a specialized bookdealer (natural history, science, travel) I do best when I sell through internet PDF catalogues (a few printed ones for special customers) and offering books to my clients. Besides I am not dealing with ABE because they are a hassle (money and time wise). I put my inventory through Antiqbook (a Dutch company) on the net. And through them (and AddAll, Bookfinder etc.) I make enough extra sales and find new clients to send catalogues to. This works well for me.

I sometimes buy from Ebay but you have to remember that:

* It is a lot of trouble going through a lot of junk books to find a few good ones that often will be sold to others. I only have a quick look from time to time to see if there are a few highlights.

* You mostly buy what you can get (as on most auctions), not what you are looking for (the great strength of listing sites is the tremendous choice they have).

* McKinney states that many collectors (or their families) will sell through Ebay. I don't think so. My experience is that many of the better books are sold by dealers and bought by dealers! These will sell, and as always the great majority of the ''junk'' books will remain unsold or will go for a price I would not bother to pack and send a book for. Except for a few exceptions families will not sell through Ebay. A few will find it fun and perhaps become booksellers. Most of the families want to get rid of it and do not want to do tiresome deals with loads of individual books and at the end find that half remains unsold.

* Several ''interesting looking books'' are going for more money than they are worth. If these (I presume) private customers would be checking the listing sites AddAll or Bookfinder they would find these books at lower prices!

* I am thinking of selling a few (suitable) items through Ebay, but it will remain a marginal ''sellingtool'' for me.

Hermann Strack
(Natural History / Science / Travel Books)

Mr. McKinney,

Excellent advice regarding selling books on eBay but you missed one new and important aspect: PayPal's miserable new "protection policy" that forces sellers to send international orders by very expensive Global Express Mail.

Any buyer can claim not to have received his or her shipment and, unless the seller can give PayPal an online tracking number, will receive an instant full refund (and the seller a chargeback).

Global Priority does not offer online tracking. USPS's only offering with international tracking is Global Express Mail.

I sold something to an Italian buyer who would pay only for surface shipment (six weeks); he complained to PayPal seven days later that he had not received the item. Despite the circumstances PayPal immediately charged me back for the full amount and the buyer never answered another email.

So, you might answer, that's what feedback is for. You might address the issues of "feedbcak" and PayPal some time: If you give bad feedback, regardless of the circumstances, you receive bad feedback. None of us wants to hazard our "on line reputation" and feedback score, so we just bite the bullet and put the deadbeat on our "do not accept bids" list.

The advise from PayPal and eBay is to accept the risk as part of the cost of doing business. That's ok for Mr. Macy but it doesn't work out for a retired guy selling something for a hundred bucks on eBay.

Thanks again for your article. I've copied it and will give it to friends who ask for help getting started on eBay. I'll also look a little more deeply into your offering. I've ignored past emails but you certainly appear to be offering worthwhile advise.

Dan MacMurray

re: Abe

ABE wants to profit as a bookselling business when it is only a Listing Service.

Booksellers buy inventory, expertise and grade their books, list and photograph them, process the order and ship the merchandise.

ABE is involved only in advertising, and now in credit card processing at a steep fee.

ABE service to book dealers has diminished, as well as order revenue. Anyone can pay the fees and sell on ABE, so inexpert and wrong descriptions not only plague buyers, but reduce the veracity of sellers and their product.

I sell first edition collectable books and I liked ABE very much once. Fees have dramatically increased with no increase in service. Your statistic of perhaps 8% selling is in line with complaints of my colleagues.

We are all waiting for a new competitor to ABE so professional booksellers can switch from a once respected listing service, to a company better run and less greedy. I have severely diminished my listings on ABE, and income is the same, perhaps even better.

Joe Linzalone,
Wolfshead Gallery

re: Review of McBride's E-First Editions

In all the years we have been publishing A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions and, lately, the Electronic version EFEG, we have been the subject of many a review. Without exception, every reviewer made some major error or a collection of minor ones that add up to the same thing, rendering the review welcomed, but one that, when reading it, prompted shouts of "No, no, no!" or "Well, not exactly!" or "There's more to it than that . . . ".

Until now.

Ms Roberts has struck fire where others have merely made a few sparks. She got it right.

And we thank her.

Best,

Bill McBride


Editor's Note:

Renee Magriel Roberts' review of McBride's E-First Edition Guide may be found at the following link: Click here.

Abe/Alibris Comparison

We read your ABE article with much interest. We do business with both ABE and Alibris.

ABE is a listing service. Alibris is a book buyer and reseller. The difference between the two is the same as the difference between the newspaper that advertises your car and the customer that actually buys it. The two are worlds apart. It's astounding how few booksellers understand this.

The ABE self-justification scenario has become a frequent topic of discussion in our bookshop. Part of what we find troubling is that the majority of booksellers appear to know so little about Alibris - such as their exceptional fraud-detection system and protection policies.

Did you know that most of Alibris' bogus orders are caught before they're even captured? Did you know they have entire computer systems in place dedicated to nothing but preventing fraud? Did you know that even if a bogus order somehow manages to make it through all their safeguards, the bookseller is never liable for a chargeback?

Unlike ABE, Alibris IS the end customer. They take title to the book. They OWN it. They have a vested interest in preventing fraud, because it costs THEM money.

If a book is shipped after the fraud is detected, the bookseller is still out nothing. Alibris either absorbs the cost or, if the book was shipped directly to them, they put the book in their Sparks warehouse for resale (an amazing operation, by the way). Either way, the bookseller is protected.

The sad thing is, practically no one knows any of this because they never see it. Alibris insulates booksellers from fraudulent orders. The majority of booksellers just go on about their business, oblivious to it all. It doesn't get much better than that.

Whatever ABE may claim they are about to begin doing regarding fraud, Alibris has already been doing for years. From where we sit, they do it better than anyone in the industry.

But as good as Alibris is at anti-fraud, they are utterly ham-handed at self promotion. Their PR is near-legendary, among the worst ever seen. Alibris' idea of "news" comes across as self-congratulatory, xenophobic rhetoric. At times it has been borderline nauseating to read.

Such as it is. Most of the time, they keep a low profile and just do their jobs. I suppose we respect that. Perhaps it's no surprise that Alibris doesn't regard fraud protection as being of much interest to booksellers. From their perspective, it's an in-house issue.

As for ABE, reading their new terms closely, one realizes that they will "protect" the bookseller only under certain circumstances and in accordance with the reams of legalese that characterize their every move. Sadly, they have become a model of sleaze.

If you're selling books through ABE and making money, great! Stay there! But don't kid yourself, they are no longer the company Rick Pura founded. For booksellers who smugly tout their historical lack of chargebacks, congratulations! You're in the minority. You can feel good about your freedom from crooks. Just pray it never happens to you, because you'll discover to your horror that, as far as the credit card companies go, YOU LOSE. Period. End of story.

Most merchants have experienced chargebacks in their businesses and some have had horrible experiences with orders from places like Nigeria, Indonesia and others. And, the frequency of fraudulent US- and Canadian-based orders is not going down, it's going UP. A few Google searches reveal how big a problem it is. USA Today just did a big story on online fraud. The article said less than 10% of all companies really have their acts together to counter fraud.

But don't expect ABE to be any kind of magic bullet. ABE has protected themselves, not you. The CEO interviewed in USA Today said, "A company has to be completely prepared to deal with fraud. Halfway measures won't cut it." ABE is not prepared - not by a long shot.

We'll be leaving ABE as of May 1. Never thought we'd say so, but we're not sorry to go. They were great during the "Golden Age" but those days are gone.

Just to be clear: We do not work for Alibris, we have no agenda, we have no involvement with Alibris in any way, other than they buy our books and we once visited them. Faults notwithstanding, they do their jobs well and it's high time someone said so. Our orders are steadily increasing over time and that makes us smile on payday.

There was a time we could say the same about ABE. Not any more.

-Nathan & Company