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

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The Bookseller's Dilemma: Dealing with the Listing Bottleneck - By Renee Roberts It is important to list fields in the most effective manner. By Renée Magriel Roberts When the bookselling industry moved into virtual marketing and sales over the internet from a brick-and-mortar environment, a huge (and in some cases insurmountable) problem arose with the change. In a bricks-and-mortar environment books are shelved and are located by sight; in the virtual environment books must be correctly and accurately listed in a database and then uploaded to websites in order to be "seen" and to sell. Books unlisted in the shop of a virtual bookseller make no money. For many and we include ourselves, this has caused a bottleneck that is still unresolved. Sure, books with ISBNs can be scanned in with a correctly installed barcode scanner and software; this will bring up the basic information in most cases. But the book still has to be graded and described; often the default categories are too broad and unspecific. And in general these easier-to-list books represent the least expensive of the titles. Rare books and books that pre-date the ISBN present far more difficulties from a listing perspective, and here is where the bottleneck comes in. It is difficult to find another person who will grade, describe, and price a book the way you might wish. First of all you have to be dealing with someone who is honest and can be trusted around valuable material. Care must be taken in handling the books. And entering the information into a database (we use HomeBase) in not a walk in the woods either. To train someone to do this accurately, I suggest that you start with the lower-value titles. When using HomeBase, you can enter a 10-digit ISBN number without dashes in the ISBN lookup field. If listings are available on ABE, these will be shown as highest value and lowest value for the book, but these are still too inaccurate to be used exclusively in creating a listing, because the value will depend upon the condition of both the book and the dustjacket, if applicable, the edition of the book, and whether it has any additional valuable attributes, such as being signed by the author, or owned by someone well-known, or by someone who might have a relationship to the book or the author. The lookup feature of HomeBase is squirrelly; it won't find anything if too much information is put in, or might not find a real comparable. So, in general, we don't use the lookup feature very much. It should be mentioned that when searching for comparables, the identity and trustworthiness of the shop creating the comparable is just as important as the value of the book itself. There are some wild listings out there. In the author field, we use last name, first name in upper and lower case. Listings might also include variant spellings for the author name (Edgar Allan Poe and Edgar Allen Poe) for example, because if somebody types in the wrong spelling they are not going to get your listing unless the variant is there. I've seen some booksellers use all caps for author name; I personally do not think that is necessary, and it still sounds like "screaming" to me. Even if the author that makes the book valuable (for example a Poe poem in a large periodical) is not the editor, it is a good idea to list the valuable author name in the author field. Also note that the author field is required by some websites, so if you leave it blank your listing may not be uploaded. When I do not have an author name I either list the publisher's name in that field, or "editor", or some other place-holder. Once an author has been entered into HomeBase it becomes part of a look-up list that automatically fills in the field. Watch out for this, because this automatic feature can sometimes create an incorrect listing.
The Bookseller's Dilemma: Dealing with the Listing Bottleneck - By Renee Roberts In the title field we include all the main words of the title. If the book is illustrated and we don't know the name of the illustrator, "illustrated" goes into the illustrator field. In the publisher field we try to keep the names consistent so we don't have a ton of look-ups and similarly with place names. I have seen some weird stuff in the year field. Sometimes publishers or purveyors of cheap reprints put the first edition year in that field rather than the actual year of publication. I stick to the actual year of publication and do any explaining about the original year of publication in the description/comments field. The edition field is an interesting one. Although listings are sorted by edition, not all website will write the words "first edition" in the listing unless it appears in the description/comments field. To avoid missing out on anyone seeking a first edition, we put it in both places. If the book's title does not contain the most important keywords, and to add more visibility to your listing, you are going to want to use the keyword field, even though it is not required. We put keywords in all caps with nothing in between. The book and jacket condition fields can also be problematic. While "fine", "near fine" and "new" will work on ABE, they will all be changed to "very good" when the same record is uploaded to Amazon. Unless you have some special application that will change your uploaded records, the way to enter new material for sure is to go directly to Amazon and hand-enter it. Amazon will put the condition in the comments field, but will initially list the book under "used very good". The location of the book (we use boxes for storage) can be put into a number of places: we have experimented hand-creating book SKUs and using the location as part of the SKU; we have also used the location field; and we have also used the comment field. Ultimately the most convenient method for storing and retrieving records is to use a single database, and the location field works just fine because I can also tell what is in a particular box. It just means that when orders are received I have to hand-enter the location on the sheet so that we can pick it. I can't emphasize enough, by the way, the importance of BACKING UP your database, because if the location field is the only place in which you have your listings, you could lose the location of your books. We list in $US. Remember that some of the websites you may be using may not convert dollars into their local currencies, but instead use the same figure. Also on foreign sites, you may have to adjust for shipping, particularly for heavier items. We put in enough information in the description/comments field to describe the book: the edition, size, number of pages, collation, condition specifics, and any other information relevant to that particular book. This is no place to wax poetic with irrelevant material, or to copy entire Wikipedia articles. Most websites will truncate this information, in any case. Because it is easy to make typos we sometimes create this information in a word processor, which is also much easier to read, and then we cut and paste it into the database. Please note when cutting and pasting: if you accidentally pick up invisible characters in the buffer it will gum up your database. Double-check to make sure that any field you fill in this way does not have any leading spaces, or other invisible characters. There is no need to create lengthy listings for lower-priced items.
The Bookseller's Dilemma: Dealing with the Listing Bottleneck - By Renee Roberts We have a standard list of catalogs that we use. Remember that catalogs are listed alphabetically and read from left to right, so if you are using a proper name your catalog should be Last Name, First Name. Training another person to do all of this is a substantial investment in time and energy. You may want to consider individuals with a library science background; they already care about books, have an eye for detail, and have had substantial experience in describing and categorizing titles. We've been very slow to add additional book listers to our shop and largely we mostly list our titles ourselves. But books are like rabbits. They appear to reproduce quickly, even without buying more. At some point, when the bottleneck gets too unwieldy, and the books begin to force us out of our home, we are certain this will have to change. Renée Magriel Roberts can be reached at renee@roses-books.com.

The Bookseller's Dilemma: Dealing with the Listing Bottleneck

- By Renee Roberts

It is important to list fields in the most effective manner.

By Renée Magriel Roberts

When the bookselling industry moved into virtual marketing and sales over the internet from a brick-and-mortar environment, a huge (and in some cases insurmountable) problem arose with the change. In a bricks-and-mortar environment books are shelved and are located by sight; in the virtual environment books must be correctly and accurately listed in a database and then uploaded to websites in order to be "seen" and to sell. Books unlisted in the shop of a virtual bookseller make no money.

For many and we include ourselves, this has caused a bottleneck that is still unresolved. Sure, books with ISBNs can be scanned in with a correctly installed barcode scanner and software; this will bring up the basic information in most cases. But the book still has to be graded and described; often the default categories are too broad and unspecific. And in general these easier-to-list books represent the least expensive of the titles.

Rare books and books that pre-date the ISBN present far more difficulties from a listing perspective, and here is where the bottleneck comes in. It is difficult to find another person who will grade, describe, and price a book the way you might wish. First of all you have to be dealing with someone who is honest and can be trusted around valuable material. Care must be taken in handling the books. And entering the information into a database (we use HomeBase) in not a walk in the woods either.

To train someone to do this accurately, I suggest that you start with the lower-value titles. When using HomeBase, you can enter a 10-digit ISBN number without dashes in the ISBN lookup field. If listings are available on ABE, these will be shown as highest value and lowest value for the book, but these are still too inaccurate to be used exclusively in creating a listing, because the value will depend upon the condition of both the book and the dustjacket, if applicable, the edition of the book, and whether it has any additional valuable attributes, such as being signed by the author, or owned by someone well-known, or by someone who might have a relationship to the book or the author. The lookup feature of HomeBase is squirrelly; it won't find anything if too much information is put in, or might not find a real comparable. So, in general, we don't use the lookup feature very much. It should be mentioned that when searching for comparables, the identity and trustworthiness of the shop creating the comparable is just as important as the value of the book itself. There are some wild listings out there.

In the author field, we use last name, first name in upper and lower case. Listings might also include variant spellings for the author name (Edgar Allan Poe and Edgar Allen Poe) for example, because if somebody types in the wrong spelling they are not going to get your listing unless the variant is there. I've seen some booksellers use all caps for author name; I personally do not think that is necessary, and it still sounds like "screaming" to me. Even if the author that makes the book valuable (for example a Poe poem in a large periodical) is not the editor, it is a good idea to list the valuable author name in the author field. Also note that the author field is required by some websites, so if you leave it blank your listing may not be uploaded. When I do not have an author name I either list the publisher's name in that field, or "editor", or some other place-holder. Once an author has been entered into HomeBase it becomes part of a look-up list that automatically fills in the field. Watch out for this, because this automatic feature can sometimes create an incorrect listing.

The Bookseller's Dilemma: Dealing with the Listing Bottleneck

- By Renee Roberts

In the title field we include all the main words of the title. If the book is illustrated and we don't know the name of the illustrator, "illustrated" goes into the illustrator field. In the publisher field we try to keep the names consistent so we don't have a ton of look-ups and similarly with place names.

I have seen some weird stuff in the year field. Sometimes publishers or purveyors of cheap reprints put the first edition year in that field rather than the actual year of publication. I stick to the actual year of publication and do any explaining about the original year of publication in the description/comments field.

The edition field is an interesting one. Although listings are sorted by edition, not all website will write the words "first edition" in the listing unless it appears in the description/comments field. To avoid missing out on anyone seeking a first edition, we put it in both places.

If the book's title does not contain the most important keywords, and to add more visibility to your listing, you are going to want to use the keyword field, even though it is not required. We put keywords in all caps with nothing in between.

The book and jacket condition fields can also be problematic. While "fine", "near fine" and "new" will work on ABE, they will all be changed to "very good" when the same record is uploaded to Amazon. Unless you have some special application that will change your uploaded records, the way to enter new material for sure is to go directly to Amazon and hand-enter it. Amazon will put the condition in the comments field, but will initially list the book under "used very good".

The location of the book (we use boxes for storage) can be put into a number of places: we have experimented hand-creating book SKUs and using the location as part of the SKU; we have also used the location field; and we have also used the comment field. Ultimately the most convenient method for storing and retrieving records is to use a single database, and the location field works just fine because I can also tell what is in a particular box. It just means that when orders are received I have to hand-enter the location on the sheet so that we can pick it. I can't emphasize enough, by the way, the importance of BACKING UP your database, because if the location field is the only place in which you have your listings, you could lose the location of your books.

We list in $US. Remember that some of the websites you may be using may not convert dollars into their local currencies, but instead use the same figure. Also on foreign sites, you may have to adjust for shipping, particularly for heavier items.

We put in enough information in the description/comments field to describe the book: the edition, size, number of pages, collation, condition specifics, and any other information relevant to that particular book. This is no place to wax poetic with irrelevant material, or to copy entire Wikipedia articles. Most websites will truncate this information, in any case. Because it is easy to make typos we sometimes create this information in a word processor, which is also much easier to read, and then we cut and paste it into the database. Please note when cutting and pasting: if you accidentally pick up invisible characters in the buffer it will gum up your database. Double-check to make sure that any field you fill in this way does not have any leading spaces, or other invisible characters. There is no need to create lengthy listings for lower-priced items.

The Bookseller's Dilemma: Dealing with the Listing Bottleneck

- By Renee Roberts

We have a standard list of catalogs that we use. Remember that catalogs are listed alphabetically and read from left to right, so if you are using a proper name your catalog should be Last Name, First Name.

Training another person to do all of this is a substantial investment in time and energy. You may want to consider individuals with a library science background; they already care about books, have an eye for detail, and have had substantial experience in describing and categorizing titles. We've been very slow to add additional book listers to our shop and largely we mostly list our titles ourselves.

But books are like rabbits. They appear to reproduce quickly, even without buying more. At some point, when the bottleneck gets too unwieldy, and the books begin to force us out of our home, we are certain this will have to change.

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