To put it in perspective I needed to examine my online sales too. As I believe I mentioned, internet sales dropped off the first part of August, but picked up again with gusto this past week, primarily and predictably from ABE, with several high end purchases such as a Holmes County, Ohio history for $85 and a book on American bayonets for $160, several genealogy titles in the $35-60 range and a host of other items in the $15-30 bracket. Alibris added a fair number to the mix too and – surprise, surprise – in the past seven days Biblio tossed me more orders than I’ve come to expect in a month. Okay, so it was three, but for Biblio that’s cause enough to strike up the band. Well, on second thought, let’s leave the band out of it.
I can track visitors on both my own website and on my secret site, so I had a look at those numbers too and was amazed to find that traffic on both had dropped significantly over the last two weeks. I have no idea why this might be and am not going to speculate. The thing to do is to keep working and try to drum up a little side action until the market corrects itself. Friday I had an order for a Georges Simenon novel on ABE. It was a rare one, first British edition, so a fairly nice sale. I mentioned to the buyer that I had a whole carton of Simenons unlisted and he immediately replied that he’d like a list. So of course I hauled out the entire unlisted carton and painstakingly provided him with a page and a half of titles, their publishers, and dates. Turns out he has hundreds of Simenons (Georges was a prolific guy), but I actually had three books that he didn’t. Bingo – side action sale! The fun part is that the guy is a fairly well known author, so when he called with his credit card we enjoyed a rollicking conversation about writing and the state of publishing. Sometimes it pays to remember that bookselling’s rewards don’t always show up in cash.
Side action sales also occur when you quote new items to customers who’ve asked you to let them know when stuff similar to what they bought comes in. Today I am planning to quote on an 1897 catalog for boilers, a glitzy anniversary catalog from a steel company, the name of which I can’t recall off the top of my head, and one of my dearly beloved autodidactical courses which I wrote about here some time back. I won’t even tell you the title of the course because if I do I’ll spin into a frenzy of excitement over it and either drop off the page or bore you to death. The point is that sometimes it’s necessary to be proactive.
Of course when things are slow anywhere human nature tends to want to concentrate only on that which is producing well. I understand this because when the antiques mall flies high the polar pull almost forces me off the fabulous purple chair and down Rt. 18. with another box of books even though I was just there. But today that’s where I need to go even though it has about as much appeal as a tractor pull. I also need to get over to my secret site today and dazzle them with new goodies. Of course none of this may produce immediate sales, but it’s not too early to get well stocked for holiday shopping. I have already sold two books for Christmas – both in May to the same person, but records for the last few years indicate that people ARE buying ahead to spread out the holiday pain during iffy economic times.
So, now that I’ve laid out an ambitious plan for the day it’s time to hit it. If you need further inspiration to list your own stuff turn up the air conditioner and let Bing croon in your ear.
“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas ….”
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