Saturday Night Magazine
Email To Friend Print Version The New Used By Craig Riggs
IN THE DARK DAYS before Google and e-mail, Keith Waters was a government computer programmer and a partner, with his wife, Cathy, in a used-book store in Victoria, B.C. They had the same problem as everyone else in the used-book trade: the books their customers wanted were out there, but tracking them down was nearly impossible. Then, during a sleepy 1995 meeting at the day job, Waters began to doodle on a notepad, working out a blueprint for a new business that combined books,
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databases and the Internet. Watersâ™s sketch came to life a year later as the Advanced Book Exchange â” now Abebooks â” a collective of independent booksellersâ ™ inventories brought together on the Internet through a vast searchable database. Launched in 1996 with just five booksellers on board, Abebooks now lists titles from more than 13,000 on its websites based in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. âœWe had no expectation of it being quite this big,â• says Waters. Last year, the company generated sales of $160 million and now averages four million visitors a month. The tipping point for used books appears to have been 2002. Recent U.S. studies indicate that more used books were sold through the Internet than were sold to walk-in customers at âœbricks-and-mortarâ• bookstores that year. In the years since, the growth of second-hand-book sales has outpaced that of new books. Used editions now account for about 15 per cent of total book sales in the U.S. Along with uncorking the potential of a vast inventory of used books, the Internet has given local bookstores access to a global marketplace. Even the most obscure books can find an audience online, and that audience can be anywhere. âœWe do 40 to 50 per cent of our sales online,â • says Roger Brown of Browns Books in Burnaby, B.C. âœIf youâ ™re in the used-book business, you canâ™t afford not to be on the Internet.â• Go to www.abebooks.com and you enter a virtual marketplace of more than 70 million books where one-of-a-kind collectorâ ™s editions keep company with dog-eared paperbacks.✠The key thing for Abebooks is selection,â• says CEO Hannes Blum, who joined in 2001. âœYou can find books here that you canâ™t find anywhere else.â•
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There are, for example, 3,266 copies of Mordecai Richler books on offer, ranging from a $1.26 Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang paperback to a $590 signed first printing of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. For $37,061 you can get a signed first edition of the classic To Kill a Mockingbird. And where else could you find the Expo 67 program alongside the first-ever Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue from 1964? Abebooksâ™ biggest innovation may be that it doesnâ™t actually own any books. All Abebooks transactions are between buyer and bookseller â ” a âœlow touchâ• model popularized through auction sites like eBay. A bebooks connects booksellers and readers, and provides the software and support that allow booksellers to easily list their titles online. Booksellers pay a monthly fee (ranging from $25 to $300 U.S., depending on the number of books listed) and an eight per cent commission on sales. âœWeâ™re empowering booksellers and helping them expand their business,â• says Blum. âœPlus, people like the personal touch that comes from dealing with a small bookstore.â• The Internet may be a great leveller in connecting far-flung buyers and sellers, but itâ™s also blurring the traditional lines between new and used books. In the U.S., Barnes & Noble is beginning to experiment with used books, and Amazon has for years listed used copies alongside new books. Abebooks began to accept new editions in 2004, and estimates that more than 10 million new books have been added to its websites since. Itâ™s anybodyâ™s guess how all of this will play out. Some publishers wonder if an increased used-book trade will cut into sales of new books, and authors are beginning to raise questions about royalties on used-book sales. What is clear is that Abebooks has emerged as a major player in online bookselling. Blum admits that people are sometimes surprised to find the industry leader in Victoria, but adds âœon the Internet, you get to choose where you live.â• Keith and Cathy Waters, meanwhile, have come full circle. Having sold their ownership stake and retired from Abebooks in 2003, the couple bought a used-book store in Victoria last year and have been building up their listings and sales on Abebooks ever since. âœItâ™s more competitive than it used to be,â• says Waters. âœBut now weâ™re experiencing Abebooks from the other side, and we see, hey, it does work! â•
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