From the Editor by Craig Stark 2 April 2012

How to remove odors from books may not be the number one question booksellers ask, but surely it's in the top ten. Ask it in a forum, and you'll get many different answers - baking soda, cat litter, Febreze, etc. - and I've written here about the use of ozone generators. But sometimes Mother Nature can help the cause. Find out how in today's article.

Now that the Gold Edition has been updated and reformatted to PDF, it's time to tackle another group of reports - namely, BookThink's 50/50 and QMR (the Quarterly Market Report). Since these reports focus primarily on individual titles to look for, it stands to reason that their content would not be as durable as that of the Gold Edition. To the extent that this is true, values for featured titles will be revised upward or downward to reflect current market conditions. Inevitably, a few titles will need to be removed, and, when necessary, descriptions of retained titles will be revised. Also, for the first time, each book or book grouping will be accompanied by a color photo. This will serve, I believe, as a useful mnemonic device.

So - the plan is to revisit each of the previously published reports - 26 50/50's and six QMR's - revise and supplement them, and reissue the reports with 25 illustrated titles of books that are commonly encountered and sell for amounts worth bothering with - $30 and up. Most of the featured books will fall into the $50 - $100 range, by the way. We'll continue to issue these reports at $5 each until 1,001 entries have been compiled - a total of 40 reports - and the series will be renamed BookThink's 1,001. The complete package will then be available for purchase as well. Issue #1 is ready now for $5, and a short sample of its contents can be seen here, and it may be purchased here.

Also available now: BookThink's complete Gold Edition in PDF format. All 59 Gold Editions have been recently updated (and in some cases expanded) and combined into a PDF format e-book. A table of contents presents clickable report titles, and the entire document is searchable by keywords. The PDF format ensures 100% compatibility with all computers, tablets and smartphones, and it's easier than ever to take the Gold Edition with you on scouting trips. Purchase it here for $59.99.

Click here to see several sample pages.

Important: If you have previously purchased a complete Gold Edition package, this e-book is available to you at no charge. Email me at editor@bookthink.com for your copy. Also, if you have purchased any Gold Edition issues either singly or in groups at any time, we will subtract those purchases from the price of the e-book. Again, email me at editor@bookthink.com and we will research your purchases and forward a discounted invoice reflecting them.

Finally, Chapter 10 of BookThink's Guide to Online Bookselling will be delivered tonight to subscribers. New subscribers will receive all chapters issued to date and all remaining chapters as they are issued. Subscribe here.