Dec 27, 2009
Well, the last post. There appears to be no way I can keep up with posting
something here even at the rate of once a week. I still do work around the site,
see the
The Oxford Lectern Bible page for example, but what with other comminments
taking up more and more time, I have to quit pretending I might make this a real
blog sort of page with more than just sporatic posts. I have enjoyed writing
the blurbs when I get around to it, but round tuit's are in very short supply for
me recently, and, it appears, for the forseeable future.
>> maybe again one of these days - DW <<
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Nov 09, 2009
The world of books and booksellilng is a strange one. It is one profession where
the businessman regulary gives discounts to their 'rivals', other booksellers. In
fact, a lot of booksellers think of other booksellers as their colleagues rather
their rivals. It is also a profession where it has been said "To get a group of
booksellers to agree on any rules is like trying to herd cats." It is (almost)
impossible.
However, one thing that many booksellers agree on is the 'unethical'
practices of Better World Books (BWB). There are several reasons I find them
objectionable and I thought I would mention one today for my occasional
rant and tilting at windmills.
The latest in the BWB story is told in a 'press release', see the
Main Antique Diegest story. BWB stretched the truth quite a bit and didn't
mention that the minimum $20,000 for an item on eBay was the second time it was
offered on eBay. They pulled the original auction when they thought they might
suffer from their mistake in not recognizing what they had. Booksellers underprice
all the time, but generally they pay for their own mistakes and don't ask others
to do so.
Oh, and by the way, that 'free shipping' they offer on their site from their
market place sellers is because BWB raises the price the item to cover the normal
shipping costs. Look on other sites where the dealer has the book listed and the
price is cheaper. In some cases the S&H is cheaper also so the overall price is less.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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Nov 01, 2009
Well I missed the last two weeks due to some family business. I'll try not to do
that too much.
You've heard me talk about BookTrakker before as the book inventory program we
use. Well this week, I've been thinking about Checkit - an add in for BookTrakker.
I really wasn't too sure about it but Joan wanted to try it and it looked like it
might be worth it. For those of you who don't know (and there were some questions
on the BookTrakker board), I thought I would give you my short take on the extras
which come with the paid version of Checkit in a slightly different fashion than the
documentation [which, IMO, covers all I'm going to say about Checkit].
First though, I'll remind you that you have to have a copy of your current
inventory from Amazon. That is the Request Report Button and, after Amazon has
notified you they have made the report via e-mail, the Download Report. You need to
redo this every time the Amazon inventory changes, i.e. after making corrections.
After getting the report, Checkit compares your BT inventory to your Amazon inventory
in three ways and I'll talk about them in the order we generally do them:
- The ability to find out and/or correct the differences between BT inventory
prices and Amazon inventory prices [the Reconcile Amz Prices operation]. When
you click on the Reconcile button you can choose to either correct the BT prices
to the Amazon prices - in which case your BT prices are changed OR correct
Amazon prices to the BT prices - in which case those records are marked for
upload.
- The ability to find out what Amazon has that you don't have in BT [the Show Amz
Recs not in BT operation]. When you click the Show Recs button, you get a
combination of two lists. The first list is those records that Amazon has that
aren't in BT at all. For those, you need to log into Amazon and close them. The
second list is those items on Amazon whose Status in BT is not AVAILABLE [ON HOLD,
SOLD etc.]. For those you can manually mark the records for upload, do a hit
list to mark the records for upload, or just do a purge and replace on Amazon.
- The third thing you can do is what, IMO, makes Checkit really valuable [the
Update ASINs operation]. It allows you to list ALL of your inventory on Amazon
[o.k. you might have to play with it a bit, but it is possible and, technically,
you don't even have to have BT or Checkit for this part] AND allows you
to add those ISBN's/ASINs/BASINs into BT without you're needing to look them up
individually [this is the part you need the paid version of Checkit for].
When you click on the Update ASINs button, if you have items without
ISBNs/ASINS/BASINs and Amazon has such in that Report you requested, they are
copied to BT. If you have 'incorrect' ISBNs/ASINS/BASINs Checkit will 'correct'
them for you [incorrect and correct in quotes because, as we all (should)
know, Amazon isn't always correct. So watch this]
Even if you don't have any or very few pre-ISBN books, you may find that it is
worth your while to buy Checkit if you list on Amazon. The free version will give
you the numbers for those paid functions, i.e. there are 17 items where there is a
price disagreement. If there are enough of these, it might be worth it in saved
time to purchase Checkit.
BTW: I don't get paid for this testimonial except maybe in the sense that
it has helped someone. So, if you feel like dropping us a line, we would be glad to
hear from you.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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Oct 12, 2009
I mentioned book repair the other day and referenced several thing you could do
for those books that weren't of enough value to have repaired by a
professional. But what about those books which (might) need the professional
touch. For those, you turn to someone like
The Book Doctor.
If you live in the Dallas area vist the store in the Bishop Arts District at
310 West 7th St.
When looking for a someone to fix your valuable books, you should be looking
for restoration rather than just the simple repairs you could do yourself. Restoration
includes not only repairing the book (mending torn pages,reattaching covers, etc.)
but also adds choices such as cleaning leather covers and/or applying dye to restore
their luster, resewing bindings, creating new covers, etc. The work should keep in
mind the style and materials used for creating the book originally, i.e. type of
binding, colored/patterned endpapers, reusing the spine if possible when rebinding,
etc.
Conservation, as an added service, can take everything a step further to
prevent present and future problems and could include consulting on steps to be
taken for maintaining a private library or cleaning a book to remove bad acids.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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October 05, 2009
If you have read very many of these ramblings, you've probably seen mention of the
Independent Online Booksellers Association
(IOBA) and (hopefully) you have noticed that White Unicorn Books is a member of
the IOBA.
I also think I've mentioned that the IOBA dealers have a web site where
you can search the inventory of some of the IOBA dealers,
IOBA Books.
If you've been there before you may want to revisit because we've redesigned the
site and if you haven't been there and are looking for books from dealers you can
trust to 'get things right', you should. Anyway, here's part of the press release:
The Independent Online Booksellers Association is pleased to announce the launch of
our new and improved book selling site, IOBAbooks.com. This upgrade features a new
search engine with significant improvements in speed and performance, and a great
new look and feel.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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Sep 28, 2009
Got a book you need repaired? What kind of book is it? If it is one of those that
have only sentimental value, you might want to repair it yourself. You can
learn a lot from the net and I've posted links here before about book repair. One
very good set of links is on YouTube at
Molly1216, otherwise know as j godsey. Here you'll find tips on
- How to rehinge a book cover,
- how to apply Leather Dressing,
- how to remove a bookplate,
- how to clean surface dirt,
- and much much more.
And don't forget j also has a great book out on Book Repair and we even have some
for sale
Book Repair for Booksellers, A guide for booksellers offering practical advice on book repair [but it's really for more than just booksellers].
You might also want to look around
Simple Book Repair Manual from Darmouth College.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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Sep 21, 2009
You ever wonder what the web was like back in the days of yore?
The
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine
puts the history of the World Wide Web at your fingertips. Want to
see the
March 15, 2005 Ramblings Page or maybe the
Nov 21, 2002 White Unicorn home page.
But, there's a whole lot more available than just exploring sites
as they used to be. For example, you can search for Moving Images [think
Animation & Cartoons or Non-English movies or ...], Texts [American Libraries,
Canadian Libaries, ...], Audio, and other categories. As a bookseller, it
is very interesting to see copies of the Bibliography of American Literature,
Allibone Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors,
and other reference books I wish I could afford. But at least now I can
see those on line.
Anyway you just might want to look around. You never know what you will
run into.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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Sep 12, 2009
I enjoy a good book like many of you out there but have you ever
read (started to read) a book you don't think should have been written.
Well Corrina Lawson has. In fact, there's a list of her
5 Science Fiction/Fantasy Books We Wish Had Never Been Written
available and she even says why she thinks they shouldn't have been written.
For the most part, I'll let you read her reasons if you are so
inclined but there is one (almost) complete series I have to agree with and
comment on and that is the Gor series by John Norman. Back when we have a B&M
in the mid to late '70's (Amber Unicorn in San Diego, CA) we carried the books
as they came out because they were a part of the Science Fiction and Fantasy
world and they were, for the most part, written well enough that some people
enjoyed them. But, IMO, after the first several books, the adult subject matter
and general mistreatment of women made them books not suitable for underage
children. As Corrina mentions, Slave Girl of Gor is descriptive of the
whole series after the first few books. I, like Corrina, include this here as a
warning to parents to at least examine the books there children are reading even
if they do look like the pulp fiction a lot of us enjoy.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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Sep 07, 2009
How fast do authors complete books? Well for James Patterson, the average is
pretty darn fast. Over the next few years (through 2012), he will be averaging
over four books a year. The Hachette Book Group has announced that it signed a
deal with Mr. Patterson that would cover 17 books. The eleven books for adult
readers will be released in hardcover by Little, Brown & Company and in paperback
by Grand Central Publishing and include new storuies in his three series of
bestselling detective novels. The remaining 6 would be handled by Little, Brown
Books for Young Readers and include new titles in the Maximum Ride and Daniel X
series, and the Witch & Wizard series debuting this December.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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Aug 31, 2009
It's been quite a while since I read Moon is a Harsh Mistress by
Robert Heinlein (1907-1988)
and I'm just starting to reread Michaelmas by
Algis Budrys (1931–2008).
What do these two books have in common - well just the best two, IMO of course,
self aware computers depicted in the SF&F literature. I can't make up my mind
which story I like best. Sometimes it's one, other times the 'ther. But since
it's been a long time since my last review here and I am rereading Michaelmas
right now, I'll review that one:
Title: Michaelmas
Author: Algis J. Budrys
Edition: Paperback, Berkley Publishibng Corp., July 1978
Although the book only covers a short span of time, a lot is packed
into that one day. So, don't be surprised if, after reading the book, you feel it
might have been several weeks. Michaelmas is an independent TV Reporter, and
Domino began as a device so that Michaelmas could talk to his wife without charge.
The action begins with the announcement by Reuters that Walter Norwood,
an American astronaut, is not dead. Since the fact that Norwood is still alive
when he can't be, at least according to Dominio, and that fact may interfere with
some of the plans Michaelmas has, he is off to Switzerland from his apartment in
New York to find out what is going on. What he finds out is that he and Dominio
may not be the only ones running the world.
A verg good story teller, Algis Budrys is more about the characters than about
the gadgets. You even think of Dominio as belonging to the human species on Earth,
although I am sure he would deny it strongly. There are moments where you just
know he is still a kid growing into his job with Michaelmas as his teacher and
telling him, for example, that he has to develope some intuition or maybe Dominio
bragging a bit saying he has, at least a little. There doesn't appear to even
be a real villain in the story. Just a group with a differt view of what the
world should be like and opposing, maybe without even knowing it, the way
Michaelmas and Domino think the world should evolve.
Algis Budrys has written a delightful book and I am fully happy with the
book. It is another of those that I would reccommend to almost everyone I know and
definately to the public at large. BUT, if it could have been done, I sure would
have liked to have more on Michaelmas and Dominio.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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Aug 23, 2009
Have you noticed the price of books recently, say within the last several years.
The list price seems to be staying the same but discounts abound on many of the
new and (moderately) common books. The competition for the readers dollar has
become very fierce and that's without even counting the competitioni from the
e-books. Repricing programs drive some books down to the proverbial penny (plus
S&H). It's gotten to the point where some dealers are making their living on
the skim from the S&H.
But mega-sellers living on penny books aren't the topic today, repricing is.
One of the things I work on in addition to helping my wife with the bookstore is
to write repricing scripts. Repricing can be tricky. If you do a simple penny
less than the other guy/gal, you can soon price-wreck the book. That is, drive
the price down to where only large sellers shipping many many books can make a
profit on them.
If you're interested in some of the considerations in re-pricing, you
might want to look at our page on
(Semi)Automatic Repricing.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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Aug 18, 2009
What's this, a car that gets 230 mpg. Well thats what it looks like the EPA
is going to give
The Chevrolet Volt
Actually the car goes about 40 miles on roughly $0.40 or so worth of electricity
depending on where you live. Turning that into an equivalent gasoline cost at $2.50
per gallon for gasoline is about 0.16 gallon or an equivalent of about 250 mpg. So
maybe the 230 mpg is not such a bad number since most of us drive less than 40 miles
a day (three out of four of us according to the article).
All of that sounds good and it may even be coming for free. I'm seeing a car
that maybe would cost tops $20K if it were a
gasoline powered car and is going to cost maybe $30 - after the subsidy from GM if
they do that and after the $7.5K tax credit unless of course, it is structured like
some of the earlier ones which limited your credit. Life cycle of the battery is
expected to be about 10 years from what I can find arond the web, so, unless you are
one of those who keep their car 'forever', you won't have to replace the battery. On
trade in, you might expect a couple of K more if you still have a good life left in
your battery, call it $4K.
So, if things work out very well, it will cost us upward of $6K extra to
own this high milage vehicle for, say 3 years (about the average trade cycle although
it is moving up according to the AAA). Suppose you drive about 11000 miles at 40
miles per day. Normally, at $2.50 per gallon and 17 mpg, that would cost you about
$1500/year more than the costs at 230 mpg, or
over the three years you keep the car, you would save $4.5K in gasoline costs and
your 'final bill for owning the car' would be about $500 a year. If you stretched
the time out to 4 years of owning the car, you would break even, not counting the
beneficial effect on the environment.
So, counting the beneficial effect on the environment, it looks like it would be
a good idea to get one next year when they come out.
BTW: When I first started this piece, I had a 'All of that sounds good, but it
isn't coming for free nor anywhere close to it' and had to change it. Even if my
numbers are a little off somewhat, it looks like the initial costs wouldn't be
more than $500/year or so. If you add to that the very likely steep rise in gasoline
prices and the economies of scale as Chevrolet (and others) increase production,
owning an electric car could well become less expensive than owning a gasoline car.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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Aug 11, 2009
The
Hugo Awards
is one of science fiction's most prestigious awards and is awarded at the World
Science Convention each year, this year in at Anticipation, the 67th Worldcon in
Montreal with Guest of Honor Neil Gaiman. The awards are named after Hugo
Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering
science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and given in various categories. The
winners for 2009 are:
- Best Novel: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
- Best Novella: "The Erdmann Nexus" by Nancy Kress
- Best Novelette: "Shoggoths in Bloom" by Elizabeth Bear
- Best Short Story: "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang
- Best Professional Artist: Donato Giancola
- Best Graphic Novel: Girl Genius series by Kaja and Phil Foglio
- Best Editor, Short Form: Ellen Datlow
- Best Editor, Long Form: David Hartwell
- Best Related Book: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded by John Scalzi
- Best Semiprozine: Weird Tales by Ann VanderMeer and Stephen Segal
- Best Fan Writer: Cheryl Morgan
- Best Fan Magazine: Electric Velocipede (John Klima, editor)
- Best Fan Artist: Frank Wu
- (John W. Campbell Award: David Anthony Durham)
This is Frank Wu's fourth win which makes him tied for third in the number of wins for
Best Fan Artist along with Bill Rotsler, Teddy Harvia (David Thayer), and Alexis
Gilliland. Brad W. Foster has won six times and Tim Kirk has won five times.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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August 3, 2009
I saw a movie last night that reminded me of Dhalgren by Samuel Delany.
Not that the movie was anything like the novel in the story line but, like
Dhalgren, The Lucky Ones picked up the story in the middle of someones life
(actually three someones lives), ran until the writer got tired of writing
(the camera ran out of film) and ended.
When Dahlgren came out we had a small SF&F bookstore in San Diego.
Most people either loved the book or they hated it. There were a few, like me,
who didn't have that strong a reaction and most of us would reccommend the book
to others only if we though they would like it. Delaney's first novel was The
Jewels of Aptor and I preferred that writing to something like Dahlgren and the
following novel Triton: An Ambiguous Herotopia in 1976 which has been called both
a masterpiece and unreadable. Delany had won four Nebula Awards by the time he
was 26.
The Lucky ones, Director Neil Burger, Writers Neil Burger and Dirk Wittenborn,
picks up three young soldiers, Cheaver (Tim Robbins), Colee (Rachel McAdams), and
T.K. (Michael Peña) on their way back to the US from Iraq and ends as they - well
that would be telling. But suffice it to say, after a few week in their life and
right in the middle of the story.
You could do worse than read the one and watch the other. I think most people
will be glad they did.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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July 27, 2009
I was running around the web and came across another piece about Tim Miller who
apparently just sold a paperback for quite a bit of money (a $1000 or more I believe).
For those of you who don't know, Mr. Miller is probably best know for his stance
that a plain signature, i.e. a Flatsigned item, is worth more than an inscribed
item. Well many disagree with him, see for example
the Firsts article by Ken Lopez reprinted on his website at,
Signed vs. Inscribed
and the Spring 2005 IOBA The Standard article (Vol VI, No. 1) by Barry R. Levin,
Is a "Stand-Alone" Signature Better?.
Other disagreements abound on the web but that isn't the complete story. One other
side has to do with the disrespect apparent in the writings found around the web.
One example is the Aug 24, 2008 post
FlatSigned follow-up : 'The Cartel' Responds
on the P-I Reader Blog (written by readers, for readers) page. As for me, I believe
it is entirely possible that John Dunning's novel, The Sign of the Book, could have
been partially inspired by Tim Miller. Because of that, I wouldn't buy a book from
Tim Miller unless it was priced as an "unknown signature on the title page".
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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July 23, 2009
Have you ever wanted to own a rare book? Say something like "Notes on Nursing:
What it is and what it is not" written in 1898 by Florence Nightingale. Well a
copy of quite a few rare and one-of-a-kind titles have been made available as
print on demand (POD) copies available with the recent
University of Michigan reprint agreement.
Right now, the books will be available on Amazon but that is not an
exclusive agreement and other potential printing and distribution partners will
be developed in the future. Some 10,000 public domain titles are availible now
and titles will be added
as they are digitized. All of the titles offered for reprint are books or other
publications that exist in the U-M Library collections. The U-M will determine the
list price of each book based on the length and size of the book.
Some of the title are available as e-books for free on
Project Gutenbery
and even the U-M site.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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July 21, 2009
First Amazon and now Scribner. Although the actions were different, they both are
messing with what we read in a bad way.
Amazon has decided that they control the value of e-books even after they sell them
to you. They can erase your copy of a book on your Kindle after they have been paid
and decide that you will sell it back to them at a price they choose. Well, maybe
that's a little much, but as long it is at least what you paid for it, you have no
recourse but to accept their offer. The latest
Amazon erasure
is George Orwell’s Animal Farm but there have been others. For example, there
were the Ayn Rand titles which suddenly disappeared from everyones Kindle last year.
Scribner is doing things a little bit differently. They are rewriting the
authors book in a big way. I'm not talking about editing, I'm talking about deleting
some chapters and rewriting them or just moving them to an appendix. In the particular
case at hand, the author can't say anything because he, Ernest Hemingway, is dead and
the apparent 'copyright holder', his grandson, doesn't like the way the book treats
his grandmother. Read more from A. E. Hotchner's article
Don’t Touch ‘A Moveable Feast’
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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July 20, 2009
The Monday funnies or maybe not so funnies. I ran across an article on Dihydrogen
Monoxide (DHMO) the other day and though I
would pass along some of the information just in case some of you out there aren't
familiar with the substance. DHMO is a colorless and odorless chemical compound,
also referred to by several other names including Dihydrogen Oxide and Hydric acid.
Although its basis is the highly reactive hydroxyl radical, a species shown
to mutate DNA, denature proteins, disrupt cell membranes, and chemically alter critical
neurotransmitters, the U.S. Government and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has
not classify Dihydrogen Monoxide as a toxic or carcinogenic substance (as it does
with better known chemicals such as hydrochloric acid and benzene).
For more about this substance including information about supporting
a ban on this substance please visit the
Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division (DMRD).
As the award-winning U.S. scientist Nathan Zohner reported, if more people knew the
truth about DHMO then studies like the one he conducted (indicating 86 percent of the
population supports a ban on dihydrogen monoxide) would not be necessary.
BTW: I didn't see it mentioned specificially on the site, but if a book
comes in contact with this stuff it can ruin a perfectly good book.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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July 19, 2007
Doing some clean up today. I had put the post on the Book Inventory Programs
on its own page and updated it today so I just clipped the post and put in a link.
I'm reading the fifth book in the Mage World series by Debra Doyle and
James D. Macdonald. I've found this series better than some where, after the
first couple of books, the series starts to run down. Another pair I don't think
I'll ever get tired of is Steve Miller and Sharon Lee, especially their Liaden
Universe series.
Did you know? Since 2004, Biblio.com has used a portion of its profits to
build 7 public libraries in impoverished regions of South America.
Did get a comment on this page even if it were just a request for a link it
is nice to know someone reads this. You could leave a comment also, just
look up top for the "comments - click to read or post."
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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July 12, 2009
Charles N (Charlie) Brown (1937-2009), editor and Grand Pooh-Bah at Locus died peacefully in his sleep
July 12, 2009 on his way home from Readercon - see
announcement at Locus Online.
Charlie co-founded Locus with Ed Meskys and Dave Vanderwerf but continued it long
beyond the original planned 1 year period. Locus, with Charlie and Dena as editors, won
the first of its 29 Hugos in 1971 for best Fanzine. Locus has almost monopolized the Hugo
semiprozines award throughout its 25-year history.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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July 11, 2009
Well a little over a year and a half. I though I would start again and see what I
could do. Maybe even talk about it out side the site itself. First thing is to
see if this registration at
Tecnorati
works. As told I'm publishing the following code:
3bk7n9zh2c
Technorati is a popular blog directory service. It measures the popularity
of a given blog as compared to all other sites that have been submitted to its system.
If you have a blog, you should sign up and submit your blog, it's free.
>> 'til next time - DW <<
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