Saturday, March 12, 2011

Lights, Books, Camera!

I know I’ve been quiet, but except for one loooooooong lunch at Sully’s Irish Pub with Cheryl I have been buzzing like a worker bee trying to wear out my little red Nikon camera. These new slim digitals seem like toys to me -- give me a camera with heft any day. I guess that goes back to my first newspaper job in the 70’s when I not only wrote the stories, but took the pictures too. In those days you lugged around a camera that not only meant business, but entered the room before you did. Every time I look at this lame little thing (and its many counterparts) I feel like it ought to say Made by Mattel. But this isn’t about camera technology – it’s about photographing books, a job you either love or hate.

I actually don’t mind snapping the images. I don’t even mind putting them on my own website because it’s so easy and you don’t have to rename them so they can be matched with the right books. On Advanced Book Exchange , however, you DO have to do this and it’s a tiresome and laborious process. I know it would be easier if I sent the file via FTP which I could do if I knew how, but the truth is I don’t really have much desire to LEARN. Control freak that I am, I want to see those pictures actually attach so I know the job is done and done right. Of course it would be a fine thing to get all these images on every site I sell on, but I am not inclined to do it. First of all, the small sites are disappearing faster than Borders stores -- ABE just snatched Choosebooks and will soon be absorbing it which means I’ll have one less place to upload to. I suspect there will come a day where the 3As not only dominate, but will be the last book sites standing other than the personal sites of indies like us. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Amazon alone ultimately stood on a heaping mound of books waving a spear like a victorius warrior king -- unless of course ebooks totally obliterate the physical book in which case they’ll give booksellers the heave-ho faster than you can say “Ahoy, matey!”

Actually, I am to the point where I really don’t care much about what happens online. My goal is to pare it down to Advanced Book Exchange, my own website, and my secret site. Yes, that means goodbye Biblio and alibris. I don’t really have anything against them – I just don’t think they fit my new business model. I do sell older things on them from time to time, but their buyers seem wedded to the almighty ISBN. ABE, for me at least, rules. So I’m thinking maybe I need to focus on just the three sites and give them my all instead of spreading myself so thin I’m like the last of the peanut butter clinging to the jar. There’s no question that the antiques mall has played a huge role in shaping my thoughts these days. I know it’s not for everyone, but even with the theft of my postcards, I am madly, crazy, over-the-moon in love with it.

But getting back to pictures, I think it’s imperative that we upload images, especially for books that don’t get matched with a stock photo which is about ninety per cent of my inventory. I have been doing it (some) for the past year, but am really ramping it up now. As I mentioned before, I am also in the process of paring down my inventory to get rid of books that have worn out their welcome. I would rather see a tight, controlled, small inventory than a sprawling, unfocused mess which is what time has left me holding after fourteen years. Once I get rid of all the dead wood and photograph everything that’s left it should be easy to keep in A-1 condition as new books come in.

There’s no question that photos sell books. When I sold on ebay I shot photos with merry abandon and managed to achieve and keep power seller status for three years with an inventory that never maxed out at more than 350 books and usually ran around 250. I realize that ebay draws from a huge pool of buyers, but that doesn’t mean you could just coast either. Photos and detailed descriptions were what sold the books.

So, if you haven’t already become a shutterbug you might want to give it some serious thought. Actually, forget thought. As Nike would say, “Just do it.”

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