From: jamesd@techbook.com (James Deibele)
Subject: Re: bookstores on the net
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 21:54:04 GMT

emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti) writes:

>I am looking for some reasons to recommend that a local used book shop
>get a connection to the net.  The obvious things that come to mind
>are the on-line library catalogs, the sparkling conversation in 
>rec.arts.books and the science fiction groups, the good sized 
>collection of academic librarians on the net, and a general sense
>that more literate people on the net is a good thing.  A couple of

Sorry.  I'd recommend that they not connect to the net, not from a
business standpoint anyway.  There are two basic kinds of used
bookstores: the antiquarian bookshop, with rare books at possibly high
prices and the "we trade 2-for-1" used paperback store.  Other
permutations certainly exist, and it actually doesn't matter much which
category your folks fall into.

The online library catalogs aren't of much good to a book dealer, nor is
the free services available from dra.com.  I haven't investigated what
services they have beyond the free, but let's assume that they're
available for $50/month.  For that price you can buy a CD series from
Baker & Taylor (one of the two big industry wholesalers) issued every
other month (or maybe they've gone monthly by now).  It contains every
book that Baker & Taylor has run across.  For more money (approximately
$1000/year - depends on what associations you belong to, how long you'll
place a standing order, and what specials Bowker is running), it's 
possible to get "Books in Print" on CD.  For slightly more money
(somewhere around $1400-$1500 list), it's possible to get "Books in
Print" with reviews from a variety of publications, including
"Publisher's Weekly", "Library Journal", etc.

The advantage of the CD products is that they allow a bookseller to place
orders electronically with the distributors.  The CD products are
designed to print to a printer so that the customer can walk off with a
listing.  I suspect that rigging a printer to an online source of
information is more trouble than your bookstore would care to deal with.
Another advantage is that CD products don't require a phone line to be
usable for the customer.

Now for a used bookseller, it might be nice to be able to show a
customer a list of everything that Louis L'Amour ever wrote, and it
might be nice to be able to print off a copy for him to take with him.
If they want to settle for letting him copy off the books he doesn't 
have onto a piece of notebook paper, they can use the bound "Books in 
Print" for about one-third or one-half of the cost of the CD edition.  

But for an antiquarian bookseller, they'd probably be more interested in
the electronic service that the folks who publish "AB Bookman's Weekly"
run.  I have no idea how much it costs, but it's an electronic version
of the ads the "Weekly" runs: bookseller X lists books she has for sale
while bookseller Z lists books he is looking for.  

The net would lend itself well to cheap and fast communication with
potential customers, but I'm not sure how many customers there'd be ...
yet.  Services like America Online and eventually Prodigy (when they get
their promised internet connection) do allow people who don't want to 
invest the time in learning vi to send email ...

Reading newsgroups can be addictive, but that's a strike against it for
businesspeople, not something to count in favor of it.  

I created "biz.books.technical" when there was some concern over another
bookstore getting too commercial for misc.books.technical.  If you
created biz.books.misc for these folks to publish regular postings, I'd
carry it.  They might get enough business from that to justify spending
the time and money to navigate the net.  Wouldn't bet on it, though.

Otherwise I'd recommend that they spend the money on a subscription to
"AB Bookmans Weekly", paper and/or electronic.

--
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