Special Announcements

by Craig Stark

6 December 2015


By Craig Stark

Feedback for the November 22 BookThinker - "Critical Mass Bookselling" - was, let's say, above average, and it pointed to some things I probably should have clarified the first time through. Thus a second look in today's feature article.

Part I of BookThink's Bookseller's Guide to Grosset & Dunlap has been delivered to subscribers of our Author Reports. If you didn't receive your copy, please check your spam folder first. If it's not there, email me at editor@bookthink.com and I'll get it to you ASAP. This report is also available for purchase here at $19.99.

Part II will follow in a few weeks - and apologies for the delay, but this has proven to be a much bigger project than anticipated, currently at 272 pages and not yet complete. For those of you who missed it, an abridged preview was published in the free BookThinker a few months ago here. A lot of research has gone into this report, and of special note in Part I is a comprehensive tool kit with case studies that will enable you to date (with few exceptions) not only Grosset & Dunlap First Editions but reprints as well. Dating G&D's has been an area of concern for booksellers for decades, and the approach for most has been to report the copyright date (because it was all that was available) and either leave it at that, do nothing or guess at a date window. Happily, in most cases, this will no longer be necessary. If you'd like to save a few bucks, subscribe to the Author Reports today and receive all seven previously published reports, Part I of the G&D report, Part II to follow and three additional reports, when issued, to complete the subscription. $49.99 makes it happen here today.

Part II will present complete (as complete as I can make them, that is) yar-by-year lists of Grosset & Dunlap First Editions along with lists of G&D series and collectible reprints. Additionally, there will be a detailed marketing analysis - high spots to look for and how to market them.

Due to the popularity of the "kitchen sink" sale it's been given a spot in BookThink's Store. Here's the deal: You get everything for $179.99, subscriptions to BookThink's Guide to Online Bookselling and BookThink's Author Reports along with all complete report packages - all Gold Editions, all 50/50's and all Quarterly Market Reports - and any revisions/updates to these reports as they are completed. The subscriptions include all current chapters and reports and additional chapters and reports as they are issued. This is a ton of bookselling content that, if applied, will pay for itself quickly and generate income for years to come. Click here to purchase it, and everything will be emailed to you as attachments within 24 hours.

Note to subscribers: Chapter 16 of BookThink's Guide to Online Bookselling has been delivered, and Chapter 17 on book photography is near completion. If you didn't receive your copy, please check your spam folder first. If it's not there, email me at editor@bookthink.com and I'll send it to you ASAP. For those of you not familiar with the guide, a list of completed chapters may give you a better sense of what's going on:

1. Essential Book History for Booksellers

2. How Books Are Made

3. Why Bookselling?

4. How to Make Money Selling Books While You're Learning How to Sell Books: First Things First

5. How to Make Money Selling Books While You're Learning How to Sell Books: Closing the Gap on Your Competition

6. Trust: The Sine Qua Non of Bookselling

7. Getting Down to Business: Why Your ASP Will Make You or Break You

8. How to Identify First Editions: Books That Aren't, Part I

9. How to Identify First Editions: Books That Aren't, Part II

10. How to Identify First Editions: Books That Are, Part III

11. How to Identify First Editions: Books That Are, Part IV (The Essential Reference Library)

12. How to Buy Inventory: Part I, Building Hot Lists

13. How to Buy Inventory: Part II, Building Flashpoint Lists

14. How to Buy Inventory: Part III, An Introduction to Sourcing Inventory

15. How to Buy Inventory: Part IV, An eBay Buying Tutorial

16. Presenting Books for Sale: Part I, An Introduction to Modern Book Description

17. Presenting Books for Sale: Part II, Book Photography

Purchase a subscription here.

BookThink's popular First Edition Library Checklist has been reformatted to PDF and now includes thumbnail photos of cover art for all FEL titles. The FEL, for those not familiar with it, is a series of extraordinarily faithful first edition facsimiles of over 100 notable publications, most of them issued with protective slipcases. Many are now out of print and all are enthusiastically collected. As booksellers, it pays for you to know of them and about them. Our checklist package includes a checklist of all 111 FEL titles, thumbnail images of cover art, indications of most and least valuable titles, indications of rarest and most common titles, detailed issue points (where applicable), explanatory notes, and the full text of Stan Shelley's superb, illustrated primer on the First Edition Library.

If you have purchased the earlier version (which was available in DOC and TXT formats), you can upgrade to the new version for $5. The price for first time buyers is $14.99. Either option can be exercised by clicking here.

Also, BookThink's complete Gold Edition is now available in PDF format. All 59 Gold Editions have been recently updated (and in some cases expanded) and combined into a PDF format e-book. A table of contents presents clickable report titles, and the entire document is searchable by keywords. The PDF format ensures 100% compatibility with all computers, tablets and smartphones, and it's easier than ever to take the Gold Edition with you on scouting trips. Purchase it here for $59.99.

Click here to see several sample pages. (And yes, we're working on converting and updating 50/50 and QMR as well.)

Important: If you have previously purchased a complete Gold Edition package, this e-book is available to you at no charge. Email me at editor@bookthink.com for your copy. Also, if you have purchased any Gold Edition issues either singly or in groups at any time, we will subtract those purchases from the price of the e-book. Again, email me at editor@bookthink.com and we will research your purchases and forward a discounted invoice reflecting them.

Some changes to BookThink's forum. It has been remodeled to conform to BookThink's color scheme: Please note that guest access has been disabled - that is, non-registered users are no longer able to read posts or reply to them. You must be registered and logged in. Also, registration is now a two-step process that requires approval on this end. In most cases this will happen quickly; if not, please follow up with an email to me at editor@bookthink.com. I'm usually loath to make anybody jump through hoops to do anything associated with BookThink, but what this does is effectively shut down the dozens of bogus bot registrations and subsequent spamming we had been getting daily.

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Contact the editor, Craig Stark
editor@bookthink.com

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