Update Announcements by Craig Stark #43, 23 May 2005

Bookselling success depends on many factors, but one of the more important ones, in my opinion, is acquiring an understanding of why sought-after books actually are sought after. The more of this kind of understanding you have, the easier it will be for you to not only spot the best books but also to market them effectively, to point them precisely at the buyers who are looking for them.

In one of BookThink's premium newsletters, 50/50, I try to explain, as much as time and space permits, why the titles I showcase perform as well as they do, but there are times when more depth is necessary. This is certainly the case with dictionaries. Why, for example, would a dictionary published in 1828 be purchased for content? Used daily? By children? Think of the tens of thousands of words it wouldn't contain, the archaic or obsolete meanings, etc. On the surface, it sounds like an educational disaster waiting to happen. And yet, for many home schoolers, it's anything but. Today's feature article explains why.