Survey: Most booksellers are over 45, highly educated

ABE.com polled nearly 2,000 of its member booksellers, and found:

• 79% are aged over 45 – more than half have a degree or a higher qualification;
• Most sellers had left white-collar careers to become booksellers – the most common previous professions were jobs in teaching, libraries, sales, and management;
• 11% work between 51 and 60 hours per week, and 9% are working more than 60 hours a week with the online cataloguing of books being the most time-consuming task;
• 25% will increase their online book inventory by between 10% and 25% in 2007;
• 21% plan to launch their own e-commerce website;
• Sellers acquire books through a large number of sources – many of which require time on the road – including library sales, estate sales, private sales, and auctions. 26% had traveled up to 100 miles to buy a book and 9% had gone abroad to buy books;
• Many sellers also sell through other online marketplaces and 74% had set up their Internet selling operation without outside IT assistance;
• 60% of sellers polled operate purely online – the others had bookstores or showrooms;
• 64% of the sellers offer mostly out-of-print books and most specialize in a number of genres – history, fiction and children’s books are the most common;
• 68% list falling book prices as their biggest fear for the future but 38% are also concerned that fewer young people are reading books now;
• Despite their long working hours, 33% read between five and 10 books per month.

Read more here.

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