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Homebase and Atypical Descriptions

Ever wonder why some ABE bookdealers' inventory shows up as Unknown/Unknown?

Damaged Homebase Database

Corrupt Access database would've meant loss of important data. Luckily I found my backup: database repair can be expensive.

Dematerialization of the Book

What will happen to the market for used books when people can just download out-of-print books?

Scooter Libby's Collectible Novel

Foolish collectors pay too much for The Apprentice: A Novel. Nobody will want it a year from now.

Good Riddance to Summer

It was too hot in the shop and in Durham, NC. And internet ecommerce sales were at an all time low.

The strange fetish for first editions

Why are first editions valuable and why would anyone collect them?

Customers who aren't customers

People who visit my used book and CD store and pretend that they'd like to buy something when really they don't.

21st Anniversary

Books Do Furnish A Room in Durham, North Carolina celebrates 21 years of doing business.

Reading for pleasure, what an odd notion

A young woman, a girl came into my used bookshop looking for a copy of Nabokov's Lolita.

No textbooks, never!

We don't sell textbooks. Pity the average person can't distinguish them from academic and scholarly books.

Who underlines in a James Bond novel?

Who makes marginal notes, underlines words in James Bond novels?

More women read than men

Aliteracy increasing in America. Women ready more literary books than men.

Honest people

Honest people leave change on my used bookshop's porch for the cheap books they take when we are closed.

Some books go in the trash

Sorry (not really) we don't sell Rush Limbaugh books.

Present this card at time of purchase

My used bookshop has a mailing list, we send out cutomers offering discounts or announcing sale days.

Describing used books

The art and science of used book description and the frustration of buying a poorly described book from an incompetent or dishonest bookseller.

S l o w . . . .

May has been a deadly slow month for us in the used book business both online and walk in customers

A used bookdealer's weblog

About weblogging, being a bookseller who owns a used bookstore and keeps a weblog

Nigerian wholesale book order scam

Nigerian scam emails placing wholesale orders for books

Of customers and bags

Some customers don't want their books bags, used bookdealers don't mind not paying for a bag

My book is too tall

Size matters, some people want shorter books

Xmas slump

Disappointing Christmas sales in 2003

So you like British authors?

Some books are more cheaply bought from the UK even new than bought used in the US

Young man among his books

Drawing of a young man reading books, probably decadent poets

Among the travel, nature, cartoon, sports books

A photo of my used bookshop's interior

Holiday shopping

Used book and comic books sales sometimes get too damned slow, then there's the Christmas selling season

Is that really what your bookshop looks like?

A photo of the outside of my bookshop in Durham, NC - Books Do Furnish A Room

Libraries and new book sales

Publishers complain that library lending hurts new book sales

Garfield (of all the damned things)

Lamas Brothers Newsstand in Savannah, GA. Running out of common books, making kids happy

Shoplifters

Shoplifters stealing compact discs, CDs and used books.

Finding ISBNs

Finding the ISBN for books that lack them or show an incorrect ISBN

Goodbye Clancy

Dumping all of our old Tom Clancy books

Buying odd old books is a gamble

Buying odd lots of old books is a gamble.

On being remembered by old customers

Former customers come back and sell me books.

Being curt

Bandwidth theft

Agreeable urbanity

Selling scholarly books to an urbane, erudite man. To hell with trashy books.

Rather be a janitor?

Better to be a janitor than a used bookdealer? Better than McDonalds, Wal-Mart.

Site of the week

Used bookselling weblog Aortal's site of the week.

Buying remainders & promotional books

Used bookselling: buying scholarly remainders and promotional books from Daedalus and Powells books wholesale

Some people give us books

Buying used books, paying enough, sellers who feel cheated when they sell their books to a used bookshop.

Seuss-isms for Success

Dr. Seuss, Kermit the Frog and Winnie-the-Pooh as self-help and business advisors.

Matches the ISBN exactly!

ISBN matches.

Gregson St. to Markham Ave.

Moving my used bookshop from Gregson Street to West Markham Avenue

My used bookshop: comics & vinyl

Used bookstore that sold comic books and vinyl records.

Books/Records/Comics

Opening my used bookshop, Books Do Furnish A Room in Durham, NC.

Walter Koenig 's Warped Factors

Big Shot Comics Walter Koenig 's Warped Factors

The man who wanted books

Nigerian Bible Scam

Nigerian orders for used books, bibles

Used Book Weblog Revived

Used book dealer's weblog.

The state of n/a

Rock and Roll & "Rebellion"

Selling stupid books like Why People of Faith Abandoned Rock Music and Why They're Coming Back

The dark side of the used book trade

Used bookdealers who wanted to profit from D.J. Enright's death

Selling your used books

Pricing Old SF Series Books

Pricing old DAW sf books

Nigerian Bookdealer Scam

Nigerian fraud aimed at used bookshop owners.

The Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge

Doctor Who Books

Pricing old Doctor Who books

A very short story

Kind people and raccoons

Book Collecting

Not Prudential Kindness, Honestly

Buying used books fairly and honestly.

Going Postal

Book of Dog Names : Heroic Hounds, Literary Lapdogs, Faithful Fidos, Courageous Canines & Precious Pooches

Wife for a Day

More Advice to the fellow who wants to sell used books

Opening a used bookshop

The Whole World Sings : The Fans Behind Barry Manilow

The Whole World Sings : The Fans Behind Barry Manilow

The Best-Ever Book of Dog and Cat Names

Have Books, Will Profit

More of My Blogs

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