The BookThinker Newsletter ISSN 1547-9501 131, 5 January 2009

BookThink Special Report
26 January 2009>>>

BookThink Special Report An Overview of Historical Pricing Resources Three Resources at the Right Price Among booksellers, pricing is more often regarded as an art than a science. And yet never before in the history of bookselling have booksellers had such ready access to so much pricing data. Granted, most of this data pertains to books that haven't sold yet, but, increasingly, historical pricing data is becoming more and more available as well.

BookThink Update
19 January 2009>>>

Update Announcements

BookThink's Top 10 on eBay December 2008 December 2008 was a good month for relative novices on eBay. Four of the 18 sellers (2 sellers sold 2 books each) had feedback in the single digits. The fiction top 10 included 3 copies of Twilight and 2 books by Haruki Murakami. Classic science fiction was represented by 1st editions of Ray Bradbury's Dark Carnival published by Arkham House and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The non-fiction top 10 included 3 1st editions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Beyond that it was diverse - from a pre-revolutionary history of St. Petersburg, Russia and Barack Obama to Mark Twain and Daytona Cobra coupes.

QMR Book of the Week How To Survive & Thrive in the Coming Wave of Deflation In investment circles, there are forecasters who get it right sometimes and wrong other times - as we would expect. Occasionally, however, there are those who get it right a lot. Such a case could be made for investment advisor A. Gary Shilling. In 1999, Shilling published How to Survive & Thrive in the Coming Wave of Deflation. Essentially, it's a how-to on investing in anticipation of the onset of a deflationary cycle. Well, in 1999, almost nobody was talking about the possibility of deflation, and there weren't many buyers for this book. Today, few aren't talking about it. (And, for that matter, Shilling had been talking about for years previous to the publication of this book.) [Read the complete article here.]

How to Buy and Sell Photobooks Issues #32, #33 & #34 I've made a lot of money on photobooks over the years, and I must tell you that this is one of the easier genres to make money in. Here's why: Close your eyes and toss a brick into a room full of photobooks, and chances are you'll hit something of value - and there's a pretty good chance you'll hit something of significant value. Reasons are several. [Read the complete article here.]

From the Editor

Bookselling with Apple's iPhone 3G Taking It to the Next Level? Wow, did I ever get a neat present for Christmas - an Apple iPhone 3G. This is the hottest thing out there in tech land and is packed with so many features that it'd almost be easier to tell you what it doesn't do. Among these features are several bookselling tools that will enhance your scouting big time. Details follow in my feature article, "Bookselling with Apple's iPhone 3G."

BookThink's Quarterly Market Report of Common, Profitable Books Issue #5 Issue #5 of BookThink's Quarterly Market Report of Common, Profitable Books is now available for purchase. Purchase or subscribe now.

Previous BookThink Update >>>>>>>

BookThink Update
22 December 2008>>>

Update Announcements

BookThink's Top 10 on eBay November 2008 Barack Obama vied with Audubon, Helmut Newton, and Alcoholics Anonymous in the non-fiction category and came in at #4, #5, #6 and #7 for Dreams from My Father and #4 for a signed ARC of The Audacity of Hope. Some were signed; others were mint. But even an unsigned good condition Dreams .... fetched $3,200.00. The fiction list was mainly populated by the usual suspects. There were 2 Flemings, 3 Tolkiens, 1 King and 1 Meyer listings. The usual super seller from Hamburg, Germany took positions 2, 3, and 4 on the Antiquarian and Collectible list, losing out to an 1830 copy of The Book of Mormon in 1st place and Barack Obama's signed Dreams From My Father accompanied by his sophomore high school yearbooks in 5th position. The latter attracted 64 bids

QMR Book of the Week The Art of Terry Redlin Master of Memories Question: For eight consecutive years, 1991 through 1998, the same artist was named America's Most Popular Artist in annual gallery surveys conducted by U.S. Art magazine. Who was it? If you guessed Thomas Kinkade, "Painter of Light" - who, by the way, is presently America's most collected artist - you'd be wrong. [Read the complete article here.]

Gold Edition Quotation of the Month Bible Mania Issue #11 Question: when scouting, what book do you come across more than any other? Easy. The Bible. By far. It can pop up anywhere, especially at thrift shops, church sales and estate sales - in fact, even when there are no other books in sight, there's still a good chance you'll come across a Bible. Somewhere. But - how many booksellers actually sell them? Hard to say, but from what I've observed, it ain't many, despite the fact that it can be a consistently (and sometimes very) profitable niche. [Read the complete article here.]