From Lew Jaffe, the Bookplate Junkie, come these detailed step-by-step directions on how to remove a bookplate:
How Do You Remove a Bookplate?
Where the Wild Things Are will always be in my Top Ten list of children’s picture books.
Courtesy of Cynthia Gibson for CABS:
Here is a list of scholarships still available for the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, sorted by application date (soonest first). As you can see, they are many, and quite generous. For full details, please visit http://www.bookseminars.com/scholarships.php Please help us make sure that they all go to good use by applying to as many you are eligible for — and come join us in the shadow of Pike’s Peak in August!
Chrislands: Apply by May 31st
ABAA: Apply by June 1st
IOBA: Apply by June 1st
ABE: Apply by June 4th
Barnes & Noble: Apply by June 13th
Bibliopolis: Apply by June 15th
CABS: Apply by June 15th
Foreseeing Solutions: Apply by June 15th
Alibris: Apply by July 1st
Biblio: Apply by July 1st
RMABA: Apply by July 1st
At first glance, this announcement does not appear to be big news:
Create a friendly URL for your storefront
Help your customers find your products on Amazon by creating a friendly URL like http://www.amazon.com/shops/YourStoreName. To create a custom short URL, go to your Seller Account Information page and click “Edit” in the Seller Information section. On the Seller Information page, you can set or change your short URL.
You probably thought that you could do this already with your seller name, and that is correct. You might, for instance, already use the short URL ‘http://www.amazon.com/shops/My_Used_Books’. Fair enough, and the correct choice if you have already ‘branded’ your seller name. But if you weren’t able to ‘claim’ the name that you initially wanted as a seller name, you may be able to select it now as your short URL.
This change also offers an opportunity for another land grab in cyberspace. Say that you specialize in collectible children’s books, and have a not-very-well-branded seller name. This is your opportunity to claim ‘http://www.amazon.com/shops/Collectible-Childrens-Books’, or some variant.
Chip Kidd doesn’t judge books by their cover, he creates covers that embody the book — and he does it with a wicked sense of humor. In one of the funniest talks from TED2012, he shows the art and deep thought of his cover designs.
Chip Kidd on Book Design at TED2012
eBay today; Amazon tomorrow?
An article in today’s Auctionbytes, States and Snitches Target eBay Sellers Who Duck Sales Taxes, makes it clear that although much of the recent discussion around online taxes has addressed the ongoing debate over tangled interstate issues, sellers – online and off – are still clearly required to remit the tax on sales within their own state, save for the five states that have no sales tax (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon). What about the many sellers who do not?
Many are simply ignorant of the law, reasoning that they are “too small” to register. But the bar is surprisingly low. In California, for example, “Generally a person who makes three or more sales of merchandise in a 12-month period is considered a retailer and required to hold a seller’s permit. This is true regardless of whether the sales are at retail or for resale or delivered outside California,” said a spokesman for the California BOE.
“A person who sells merchandise in California, even temporarily, is required to register with the BOE and pay tax on their taxable sales. Sales by retailers made through Internet auction houses, such as eBay, are generally subject to California sales tax,” the spokesman added.
Easy enough to forgive. But many are large volume sellers, who simply shirk their tax collecting responsibilities to give themselves a competitive advantage with law-abiding retailers who do collect the tax.
Their days may well be numbered; the new 1099K filings are allowing states to look for discrepancies between sales made and taxes paid.
Remember – it is the customer who owes and pays the tax – it doesn’t come out of your pocket. There are advantages to registering as well – you will be able to buy inventory without paying sales tax.
Want to get legal? You should be able to find all the information that you need here:
IRS Small Business and Self-Employed Web Site
From the Pew Internet and American Life Project:
“21% of Americans have read an e-book. The increasing availability of e-content is prompting some to read more than in the past and to prefer buying books to borrowing them.”
Here’s an interesting sidenote:
“Amazon’s Kindle Fire, a new tablet computer introduced in late 2011, grew in market share from 5% of the market in mid-December to 14% of the tablet market in mid-January. This change also grew as the overall size of the tablet market roughly doubled.”
And here’s a look at the demographics:
And one at the types of books suited to e-reading:
Now, this news may not be of much practical use to booksellers on Amazon, given that communications between buyer and seller are kept as opaque as possible, but there is a new feature which shows sellers when a customer has placed previous orders with them, and what those orders were for:
“Do you want to know if that buyer has bought from you before? This feature will show when your order is from a repeat buyer and indicate how many total orders they have placed with you. With one click you can see all orders they have ever placed with you.”
President Obama will deliver a brief introduction this Saturday night, April 7th, 2012, on TV’s USA Network to the first presentation of a restored print of To Kill a Mockingbird, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the film’s release.
“I’m deeply honored that President Obama will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of To Kill A Mockingbird by introducing it to a national audience,” said Harper Lee. “I believe it remains the best translation of a book to film ever made, and I’m proud to know that Gregory Peck’s portrayal of Atticus Finch lives on–in a world that needs him now more than ever.”
Peck’s widow, Veronique, observed: “We are so honored that the president is doing this introduction.” The White House will also be hosting a screening of the film and reception in its honor Thursday. “If the president is there, it will be a great honor,” she added. “I know Greg would have been a great supporter of his. He would have loved that man. So we’re thrilled.”
To Kill a Mockingbird is a truly iconic American title, and early printings and even book club firsts sell well. The book into film connection is a large part of the reason for its enduring popularity.
biblioabditory is a term to describe a book which has been hollowed out to conceal an item of value.
This hybrid word is a mongrel, a combination of ‘biblio’ from the Greek βιβλιο meaning book, and ‘abditory’ from the Latin abditorium meaning a place for hiding or preserving articles of value.
Yours for precise and bookish words,
