From The Editor by Craig Stark #105, 8 October 2007

I haven't asked lately: How's business? The thing is, I've noticed a pattern in my emails over the past few months: There are more of you reporting that sales are either flat or down than there are those reporting robust growth. Some of you have even put temporary holds on your businesses. If true on a broader scale, this is serious - assuming that bookselling is still something you're interested in making a go of.

At Gold Edition HQ this year, we've been producing a series on buying and selling hypermoderns for profit. There are 4 issues to date, and, since there are a few more topics to cover before we move on to the next project, I thought perhaps this might be a good time to interrupt the series, take a break to discuss something more fundamental - the present health of your businesses and what can be done to improve them. If you believe that your business is suffering largely for reasons beyond your control - the economy, too much competition, planet misalignment, etc. - you won't be interested in what I have to say. On the other hand, if you believe that you've played a large role in creating your situation, you might want to check in. There are steps you can take immediately to turn things around.

If you're not yet a Gold Edition subscriber, this might be a good place to begin. You'll have the option of starting your subscription with this issue or Part I of the current series - i.e., we'll catch you up so that it won't be necessary to purchase back issues separately. Also, you can save almost $20 by taking advantage of our special package subscription - purchase both the Gold Edition and BookThink's Quarterly Market Report of Common, Profitable Books for $59.99. If you presently subscribe to one of the premium newsletters and not the other, you can still take advantage of this special; we'll simply advance your existing subscription one year. It happens here.

First up today's issue is Thomas Lee. Tom's topics are: issue points for dust jackets, how first issue dust jackets impact value, and specific dust jacket issue points for Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October - one of the more intensely collected hypermoderns out there.

Next is BookThink's Amazon guru Steve Weber - today with a trick up his sleeve. If you're like me, this is something that simply never occurred to you before. It could, however, put you on the path to finding valuable books that you previously wouldn't have bothered with.

A final point. If you're reading this newsletter and see neither hide nor hair of my weekly article, you're in the wrong place. Get off the website pronto and subscribe to the email version of the BookThinker.

Some of us are just elusive - that's all.

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