The AbeBooks Weird Book Room was recently launched and is still growing in scope and success, but we know that we have barely scratched the surface of the world of bizarre books out there. Since nobody knows books as well as booksellers, we’re enlisting your expertise to help us find more.
If you know of a strange book, funny or serious, that we haven’t already included, please send your suggestions (and an image, if at all possible) to weirdbooks@abebooks.com for possible inclusion.
It's never too soon to start preparing for the festive season. To help you to sell more online this Christmas, here are a few ways you can make your books stand out to online Christmas shoppers over the coming weeks...
Put Your Best Items Online
If you have any signed books, first editions or titles you have been wanting to put online, now is the perfect time! Upload them to AbeBooks now to take advantage of Christmas shoppers and to avoid missing out on any pre-Christmas marketing features.
Upload Photos
Reassure buyers that your books are in the condition they want (very important for presents!) and exactly the copy they are looking for by providing a photo or scan. Only books with photos can be used by our marketing team in newsletters and features.
Enhance Your Descriptions
Your description is your chance to sell your books to potential buyers. Help them to get a better idea about your book by including detailed condition information and storylines or synopses. Include an ISBN for ISBN books so we can add synopses, reviews and other important information to your listings.
Use Keywords
Include descriptive keywords with your listings such as themes, subjects, and, where
it makes sense, main characters or place names from the book.
Review Your Shipping Matrix
Postage costs and accurate delivery times are important to gift-buying customers. Be sure to adjust your rates to reflect accurate and competitive delivery speeds and postage costs. You may wish to consider offering free postage to make your li, let us know and we'll add you to our Free Postage website.
Check Our Books-Wanted List
Every day shoppers who can't find the books they're searching for leave us Wants. Review this list from time to time and, if you have a match, upload it right away.
This month, our team is very happy to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the AbeBooks European office and we would like to use this opportunity to thank all member booksellers for their support and cooperation over the past few years.
In October 1999, during the Frankfurt Book Fair, our German website was launched under the name JustBooks. 10 years down the line, member booksellers from around the world can now sell their inventory on 6 international websites.
With the launch of our different websites and the increasing number of users, our team has grown each year offering support to buyers and sellers in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian, as well as marketing services in all these languages. Our office is home to people from many nationalities, coming from the principal European countries, the US and even Mexico!
We hope to continue working closely with all of our member booksellers and look forward to more exciting developments in the future!
We would like to remind you that the postal strikes that are currently taking place may have an effect on the delivery time of your orders. Please take this into consideration when dealing with customers' enquiries and any urgent parcels or missing shipments.
If you have orders that you suspect may be affected, we would recommend that you let the buyer know as soon as possible and proactively reassure them by providing them with the date that the parcel was sent out. You may also want to consider sending the order using a different service provider or requesting Extra Shipping Charges for those buyers who would like a speedy, more expensive delivery service.
Please also bear in mind that buyers from countries outside of the UK are likely to be unaware of these delays.
Last month we asked booksellers which sales channels they found most successful for selling their books.
In the UK, the most successful sales channels were by far Online Platforms and your Own Website. The least successful method was Auctions, and Book Fairs appeared as the method that is currently the least used by booksellers.
Online Platforms seem to be considered as a very successful sales channel across Europe, with Book Fairs following closely in second place for Spanish booksellers.
This month, we invite you to take part in a new survey on the subject of our Bookseller Digest: a bulletin sent out to your email address at the end of each month:
How interesting do you find the following categories in our
The next Bookseller Digest should be sent out on the 31st July. If you are not sure whether you receive the bulletin, please check your Junk Mail folder and make certain that you are reviewing the email address registered to your bookseller account.
Thanks for providing your feedback!
If you are not already aware, today (Wednesday 8th July) marks the beginning of a three day strike by Royal Mail employees in London. Please bear this in mind when sending books either in or out of London. You may wish to inform any buyers that could be affected about the possible delay of their parcel or offer an alternative form of delivery.
If you do wish to offer an alternative delivery service at a more expensive price, remember that you can request extra charges from buyers. This would provide them with the option of a faster, guaranteed service and you can explain why you are offering this option in the Comment box. If the buyer refuses, you can still process the order at the normal price and send it by standard post.
On Thursday 18th June we launched an improvement to the Bookseller Rating system that will provide a more accurate rating to booksellers with fewer orders. Previously, booksellers with 3 or fewer orders were automatically given 4 stars regardless of how many of their orders they completed.
Now, with the exception of the ratings for booksellers new to the site, the number of stars a bookseller has will reflect their actual completion rate. Therefore, members with 3 or fewer orders for a rating period will now be able to achieve 5 stars:
Have you been thinking about purchasing your own website and strengthening the presence of your bookshop on the Internet? Chrislands is a service that can help you to create an effective online webshop for your books.
Advantages of Chrislands:
Examples of booksellers already using Chrislands websites:
www.anderidabooks.co.uk
www.booksfoundfast.co.uk
www.byblos.uk.com
For further information on Chrislands, you can visit the website or send an email to info@chrislands.com
