Bookselling roundup: Scanning the library sale for first editions

Dirty little secrets of library book sales exposed

An essay of interest in the Wall Street Journal titled “Reaching for that First-Edition high.”

… they’d wised up to me and my ilk. They now run the books, a combination of donated and aging library books, through Internet rare-book websites to make sure they’re not valuable. If they are, they give them to book dealers on consignment. They’d done that with two books before this sale—a first edition with dust jacket (though not in what’s known as a “first state) of “Catcher In The Rye”; and a first edition of John Irving’s first novel, “Set Free The Bears.” They’d also had a preview sale the night before for library members, where some dealer spirited away 200 volumes.

Read more: Reaching for That First-Edition High – WSJ.com.

FBA listings now remain active during vacations

From the Fulfillment by Amazon team:

This month we launched a new feature that has been an ongoing request to keep FBA listings active while sellers took vacation or were unable to fulfill inventory for whatever reason. FBA sellers have wanted an easy way to remove their self-fulfilled listings from Amazon.com while keeping their listings fulfilled by Amazon active. Previously, it was necessary to manually deactivate and activate self-fulfilled listings if you were taking a vacation. The alternative was to remove all listings from Amazon.com using the Seller Account Listing Status.

Now, when you change your listing status from active to inactive (or “On Vacation”), the listings you fulfill yourself will be removed from Amazon.com; however, your listings fulfilled by Amazon will remain available for sale on Amazon.com and through Multi-Channel Fulfillment. When you are ready to resume fulfilling orders, you simply reactivate your listings.

Also from FBA:

We are nearing completion of revisions to the Fulfillment Report options based on feedback from our beta testers. The new fulfillment reports page will provide logical grouping, more accurate names, and online and downloadable formats. You will be able to link to the original version of the fulfillment reports page for at least three months to help you through the transition.

Adult Hardcover Sales Rose 49 Percent in April

Holy cow! This is the best bookselling stat I’ve seen in many a moon:

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) reported some promising news today: sales in the adult hardcover category rose 49.2 percent in April compared to the year before–a cool $142.9 million in sales.

via Adult Hardcover Sales – GalleyCat.

Related posts:

1. Library app lets patrons hold a book by scanning ISBN barcode
2. Bookselling roundup: Woman busted for pouring mayo in library drop box