From The Editor by Craig Stark #85, 1 January 2007

On November 21, 2005, we published Part III of a scheduled 4-part series titled "Taking Bookselling to the Top: How to Succeed in Bookselling without Really Trying." I had every intention to wrap up the series in a matter of a few months, but, needless to say, one or two things got in the way, not the least of which was a rapidly growing website and an ever-present full-time bookselling business. Worse, Part I of this series was published fully 17 months ago. How's that for continuity. Anyway, I made a New Year's resolution to write Part IV, and what better time to publish it than New Years Day? The only thing is, there are two parts to Part IV, and Part IVa will appear today - and Part IVb had better be fast on its heels.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about or have long since forgotten what these articles were about, here are links to the Parts I-III:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Next, BookThink launches a new monthly column in this issue - BookHunt Tip of the Month. Some of you have gotten off to a slow start with BookHunt and have expressed interest in tutorials that would help you get up to speed. Today's tip shows how to use BookHunt to locate under-priced first printings of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner - and of course this technique can be applied to any modern first edition of value.

Speaking of BookHunt, a major upgrade is now available. If you purchased BookHunt but haven't received an email with instructions for downloading it, write me at editor@bookthink.com

Finally, here are my November results using BookHunt. (I had far less time to spend on this in November - actually, about half the time I normally devote to it. Numbers reflect this.)

Books purchased: 36

Cost of acquisition (final value plus shipping): $375.81 or $13.44 per book

Estimated resale value (conservative): $2255.00 or $1879.19 gross profit

As mentioned in previous issues, this was accomplished using only two search queries, both relatively simple, and BookHunt ran in the background while I worked on other things. Interested? BookHunt is only $19.99 (or $29.99 bundled with the 4-part Gold Edition series on buying inventory online). This price includes free upgrades, and there's a no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee. Click here to purchase.

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