No Fighting, No Biting

How many weeks start with an earthquake and end with a hurricane?

Up early Tuesday morning August 23 for the drive down I-95, which I’ve been doing for so many years that I can now do it in my sleep (almost.) Woke in time to shop Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts in their lovely new home in the Armory in downtown Philly,

then stopped for lunch at Johnny Brenda’s - a great oldtime Philly bar on Franklin St. that has turned in to a big time music venue by night. By day they have killer oyster stew.

I’d just taken my first sip of beer, waiting for said stew, when the building began to tremble, then shake. After a few seconds (which felt like minutes) light fixtures were swaying. My buddy looked at his beer and said, “Wow. Powerful stuff.” Still uncertain as to how much more shaking we’d get, we beat a dignified retreat to the outside doorway, and saw Franklin St. full of people – all of them looking up. Why do people look up after an earthquake?

Well, the oyster stew tasted better than any oyster stew we'd ever had. We were alive to enjoy it.

Then on to Kennet Square and the shop of old veteran Tom Macaluso. I remember exhibiting across the aisle from him at a bookfair in Cambridge Mass. in the late 1970s. He looks the same now as he did then. I’m the one who’s gotten older.

By 9:00 the next morning I was loading my wares into the cavernous Baltimore Convention Center for the zillionth annual Baltimore Antique (and book) Show.I’ve got my issues with this show's promoters, the Palm Beach Show Group. Their one size fits all approach is a bad fit for book dealers (can’t speak for the antique people) and their over the top self promotion is silly, as well as being full of baloney. (Here’s a shot looking up my aisle at 3:30 Saturday afternoon, after two days of their annoying emails boasting big crowds and record sales – looks like a freakin’ bowling alley to me!)

But I have to admit, watching them pull together a giant show like this (550 antique dealers, 70 book dealers) is awe inspiring.
There are tens of thousands of details – from flowers to food to walls for booths that must turn into high end storefronts, to moving objects weighing hundreds or even thousands of pounds,
to accommodating every dealer complaint about lighting or placement, and accomplishing it all at top speed with absolute safety and complete security. Pretty amazing.Even moreso when it was revealed to us Thursday morning that the ceiling above the middle portion of the Book Fair area was prone to leak badly during heavy rains (apparently the Convention Center Management had failed to previously notify the Palm Beach Show people about this unfortunate situation), and, what with Irene bearing down, we were likely to see some heavy rain.

They let the booksellers vote whether to stay or move, and the booksellers voted to move.

So, beginning at eight o’clock that night, after the show shut down, the dozens of dealers in the middle of the show area packed their stands up, moved them to safety, and reassembled the booths in new locations.


It was a backbreaking, miserable job at the end of a long day. But here’s the kicker.

Most of the dealers who were not affected by the move stayed around anyway to assist their less fortunate colleagues. Sure, there were a few “me first” dealers who disappeared, but almost everyone remained on the floor and helped pack, schlep, unpack and set up the booths of the thirty-two dealers who were in harm’s way. No fighting, no biting, not even any whining. By the end of that evening, the hall was cleaned out, and the food court was moved in.


Just when I get cynical and grouchy about my brethren, just when I think I’ll snap if I hear another jackass bookseller braying about some great thing he bought, something like this happens and I realize, yet again, what a fundamentally decent bunch of people booksellers are, and how fortunate I am to have had my life’s lot cast among them. Wonderful stuff!

And once again, the Palm Beach people came through with flying colors, offering whatever assistance they could, whenever they could.

Wish I could say the same about the rest of the show, but the hurricane reports scared the customers away, and packing out was a nightmare for almost everyone. Little had changed from last year's fiasco, and several dealers were stuck there for three or four hours.

Sadly, Palm Beach just doesn’t “get” the difference between book dealers in 10x10 booths and antique dealers in spaces the size of my living room.

One size does not fit all.

Going, Going, Gone!

Front elevation of the future. (See below.)

In 1993, after seventeen years in the used book business, I finally saw the light. Retail bookselling was not for me.

I closed the shop in downtown Gloucester, my fifth location since 1976, sold all my non-maritime, non-rare stock, and headed home. As chance would have it there was a shack on a 10,000 sq. foot lot across the street from my house that wasn’t being used by anyone.


I tracked the owner down and discovered that she was just about to have a baby, and needed money. It didn’t take long to arrive a mutually agreeable purchase price.

The place was a wreck, but we went to it with a will and soon had a sweet little warehouse in which to store our maritime books and documents.

These were the early days of the internet, before the dreaded “race to the bottom” that has all but destroyed the value of used books. For a few years we made damned good money buying all sorts of books and throwing them on Interloc, then on ABE. Soon the warehouse was filled with used books and orders were rolling in every day.

Joe and Amanda were over there working five days a week handling that end of the business. I stayed in my office at home, concentrating on growing my rare book specialty, working on my website, figuring out how to put catalogs together, and establishing relationships with librarians and collectors. Then I saw another light.

My two workers were sitting in the warehouse, up to their ears in used books, five days a week. I might as well open the doors to the public and see if I could make a little extra cash.

That was how shop number six came to be, right across the street from my house.


And for a number of years it worked very well. We kept banging out Internet sales, but now, from May to October, tourists would come in, tell us what a charming place we had, and ask to use the bathroom. Once in a while they’d even buy a book.

Sadly, as more people got into Internet sales the competition sharpened and prices began their inevitable decline. A book I might have sold for $25 in 1993 began showing up on Internet databases for $20, $15, $5… The party was over.

Meanwhile my wife Anne Marie and her buddy Cynthia, both talented artists, were toying with the idea of opening an art gallery on the main street of our little village. The light went on yet again.

“Don’t bother renting a gallery space,” I told them. “We’ll convert the old book building into a gallery with a book store attached.

The rent will be free. All you have to do is man the store on the days Joe can’t be there.”

So, once again, I sold all my books except for the rare maritime tomes that had become my stock in trade. This time I put the proceeds into spiffing up the building and grounds, and in the end the place looked pretty classy, track lighting and all.


Anne Marie and Cynthia started curating art shows.

And for every new show we’d have a big opening, which was really just a party for our friends and customers. We weren’t making a lot of money in the gallery business. But boy, were we having fun!

All this time, I’m happy to say, the rare book business was growing. Our website was drawing a steady response, and our catalogs regularly sold 50%-60%, which is considered a pretty good percentage.

Then, in February 2010, just after we returned from the Los Angeles Book Fair, a neighbor’s tree blew down on our little gallery,


destroying its structural integrity. The building was condemned.


Over the next year and a half this neighbor revealed himself to be a world class jerk. He somehow managed to forget that it was HIS tree that had ruined us, and steadfastly opposed every rebuilding plan we put forth, threatening legal action at every turn. We had all our permits and permissions from the various regulatory boards and commissions, and the jerk surely would have lost his lawsuits, but the process might easily have dragged on for five years and cost tens of thousands of dollars. So we kept trying to compromise with the guy. True to his jerky nature, every time we offered something, he’d want a little more. What he really wanted, it turned out, was to buy the property. No way that was going to happen.

Meanwhile the gallery was out of business, all our used books were in storage pods, and Joe had moved his office into my house, forcing me and the rare book end of the business upstairs into an unused bedroom. We were able to carry on, but it was very difficult. Nothing was where it used to be. Books kept getting lost. Our jury rigged computer network kept crashing. Fortunately, our insurance company came through just like the ads on TV. They worked with us to recover the value of the building, the ruined stock and the upfront costs of relocation. But after they signed off we were faced with a constant stream of unforeseen disasters and expenses just to try to maintain business as usual. I reckon our neighbor and his tree cost us about $50,000 in lost business and extra work over the course of that next year.

Finally, we came up with a compromise that even HE could not refuse, and we started in on our new gallery building.

Which gets me to the point of this essay.

After a year and a half, Anne Marie and I were itching to begin our building project.

Imagine our surprise, then, when the crusher took the first bite out of our dear old building,


and it suddenly felt like the machine was taking a bite out of us. We hadn’t tracked it, hadn’t given it a thought. But it turned out that both of us were incredibly attached to the physicality of that place – all the work we’d put into, all that had gone on inside it. It was the container of two decades of memories, and when that machine smashed it, we yelped.

But we’re over it now…

Ecology 101

No bookfairs to scout or participate in this weekend. Maritime List #204 is in the can and ready to go on line. (It’ll be on the tenpound website Monday – a collection of reference books about Melville and Moby Dick).

Maritime List #205 has been written and sits on the shelf awaiting photographs, and I’ve even got our poor old gallery building across the street cleaned out and ready for demolition next week.

The storage containers are filled to bursting.










A perfect opportunity, this Sunday afternoon, to indulge in a little wool gathering.

Specifically, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about IOBA – the Independent Online Booksellers Association. I joined this group a few months ago, and was quickly drafted to head up their Membership Committee. I was happy to take the job because I thought it would give me a broader look at the contours of the book trade.

And indeed it has.

Lurking on the IOBA listserv got me hooked also on the Bibliophile Group listerv, a private subscription discussion list ($30 annual membership fee). Both these venues have provided a wonderful opportunity to learn about aspects of the online culture to which I never would have been exposed.

I had no idea, for example, how pervasive the phenomenon of “phantom listers” had become. These are guys who use specialized software to scan titles and prices of books offered for sale by legitimate booksellers. The phantom lister will copy the description but raise the price and wait for an unwary customer. When they get a purchase order (This doesn’t happen often, obviously. But phantom listers can offer hundreds of thousands of titles since they don’t actually own or have to handle any of the books they list.) the phantom buys the book from the original lister and has the lister drop ship the book to the customer. Aside from obvious problems with delivery, shipping, and price-gouging, phantom listers are parasites. They undermine the fiscal health of the entire trade. The open discussion and education provided by venues like the IOBA or bibliophile chat lines is the best way to combat them.

Then, there’s this email, typical of an entire genre of such discussions on IOBA and Biblio:

“Although the most recent version of Ubuntu will be somewhat demanding (but will run on anything that can handle Windows 7 and on most computers that can run XP or Vista) there are other versions that will require fewer resources, like Lubuntu, or be more familiar to Windows users, like LinuxMint… It’s also very easy to keep a version of Windows and install Linux side-by-side, booting up to whichever version is needed for a particular task. Linux can see and use data files on a Windows partition, although Linux partitions seem to be invisible to Windows… I’ve had Windows and Ubuntu dual-booting for over a year now, but since I found that I could convert my very old Pegasus email files to a different format that Claws-email-for-Linux can read I find that I rarely boot up Windows.”

Say what?

I have no idea whether this fellow makes $1500 a year selling used books, or $150,000, but I’m fairly certain that Lubuntu and LinuxMint are not in my computing future. However, it’s nice to know that such a high level of technological sophistication is available to me. Next time I’m contemplating the purchase of some new and inscrutable gadget or piece of software, I’ll feel comfortable asking this gang for their recommendations.

Sure, there are a lot of $15 books being offered, and heated debates about mailing bags and postal insurance – the kinds of newbie concerns I had myself 35 years ago, and have been listening to ad infinitum ever since.

But that’s OK, because, along with this chatter, I’m hearing about various ways these newbies have discovered to help their bricks and mortar operations survive. I’m learning how people scout booksales with hand scanners and price comparison software. I’m learning about constantly evolving Internet marketplaces like Amazon and the increasingly sophisticated sales tools and fulfillment options they offer.

True, not much of this pertains directly to my rather specialized business, but IOBA and Biblio have provided a window into what scholar, poet and historian Michael Suarez refers to as the ecology of the book trade. Dealers, collectors and librarians, from the biggest mega-institutions to the smallest hole-in-the-wall operations, each have distinct roles. It’s a system in which each part relies on the others. “The ecosystems of book history.”

That’s what IOBA has to offer an old-timer like me – a splendid view, and access to a broad international range of dealers, business models and viewpoints. I’m happy to report that more and more veteran dealers, members of organizations like ABAA or ILAB, are joining IOBA’s ranks, and I suspect that they’re enjoying the same benefits.

More importantly IOBA serves as an educational resource for newer dealers. In my brief tenure on the Membership Committee, the majority of applicants have been people at the beginnings of their bookselling careers. IOBA provides one-on-one mentoring if required, and a wealth of other educational resources. Through its code of ethics, IOBA also presents guidelines and standards for the “right” way to do business.

In a lecture a few years ago Bill Reese lamented the demise of bricks and mortar shops - not for nostalgic reasons, but because these were the places where new dealers learned their trade. “Despite a fancy education,” he said, “I learned most of what I know in used book stores, and I’m sorry to see them go.”

In this new world IOBA can serve that educational function. They’re helping us keep our “ecosystem” robust and healthy, and they deserve our support.

Next week: Report on Papermania and the incredible stuff I bought there. Also - the hazards of counting chickens.

A Contrarian Speaks His Mind

Something about a thawed-out skating rink that makes a book dealer’s heart skip a beat.

The moldy walls, the gloomy vault of the ceiling, the scarred, unforgiving concrete floor… And the lights! Those Am-I-Going-Blind/I-Am-Going-Blind war surplus mercury-xenon floods… That’s how we know we’re home! Like bats in our cave. (Mental flash here of a flock of dealers hanging upside down from the rafters, waiting for dusk, reminding me that soon (August 20th) we’ll be at Hartford’s Summer Papermania, in the mother of all concrete and neon hellholes, the Hartford Civic Center, now known creepily as the “XL Center.”) But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It just goes to show what a hardy lot booksellers are. This year’s Vermont Antiquarian Book Fair, despite the fact that it was held in a skating rink, was smoothly managed by promoter Garry Austin. The aisles were wide, the dealers attentive, and the stock attractive and well displayed – ranging from the minimalist presentation of Matthew Raptis’ eponymous Raptis Rare Booksto the more traditional cornucopic display curated by old pal Eugene Povirk of Southpaw Books.

Matthew, I’m told, hosted a wonderful gathering for exhibitors the night before the fair. Mr. Povirk, on the other hand, may not be left-handed. (I’m calling for an ethics committee investigation.)

Still, the sad truth is that with only thirty-nine dealers, this show is on the verge of losing its critical mass. Furthermore, it was a hot and humid day. Attendees seemed rather bedraggled, and Peter Stern likened the experience to "doing a fair inside a toaster oven.” I doubt any of those brave thirty-nine dealers made a killing at the fair. Professional scouts like Bill Hutchison probably made a day’s pay (somehow he ((almost)) always does), but I wonder how many of the other thirty-eight booksellers turned a profit?

I was just shopping, not exhibiting, so I was free to flee. But before I left, I sat down with long-time colleague Steve Finer for some traditional and comforting whining about the death of book fairs, how difficult the book trade is, and how close we are to extinction.

But Finer, always the contrarian (in his blurb on ABE he describes himself as a “retro business: most of the stock in inventory sells either through periodic hard copy, subject-oriented catalogues, distributed first through snail mails, to be later uploaded to www.ABEBooks.com..”) had something surprising to say to me.

He told me he was amazed and thankful that promoter Garry Austin kept promoting these shows, even when they didn’t make sense financially. He talked about how organized Garry was, how attentive to detail and solicitous of dealer needs. He reminded me of all the money Garry spent on advertising and amenities, and wondered how he made any profit at all. In Finer’s estimation Garry’s efforts were more ideologically motivated than business oriented, and rather than complaining about the demise of book fairs, we should be thankful that there are people like Garry who keep them alive.

Talk about uplifting! And from a grizzled old pro like Steve Finer, none the less…

On the drive home, still glowing from his oration, I realized Finer’s sentiments would apply equally to the stubborn, sturdy lot of book dealers who keep doing these shows, to the dealers who faithfully shop them, and to those few book-mad souls who still get a treasure hunt buzz from walking the aisles and nosing through our wares. Here’s to us all!

And to skating rinks where they don’t play hockey in the summer!

And to this wonderful trunk I picked up at the fair. It measures 20 x 10 ½ inches, made of pine with a rounded top, once covered in wallpaper, and still lined with this lovely broadside taken after a lithograph, circa 1850, by James Baillie.



I priced it at $750, but if I never sell it that’s OK. It’ll be a perfect container in which to display my ephemera at all those book fairs Garry keeps promoting.