Bookseller Digest UK

AbeBooks site maintenance

Beginning at 4 am BST on Friday 19 September, we will be performing site maintenance for 24 hours. During the time that this essential work is being carried out the impact to booksellers will be:

• Inventory updates (adds/updates) can be uploaded as normal but will not be reflected in Search results until after the work is completed.

• Updates, i.e. price changes, will be reflected correctly when a book is added to the Shopping Basket.

• Books sold via AbeBooks, as well as those marked 'Sold' by the bookseller, will be deleted and removed from Search as normal, so no orders for previously sold books will result.

• Newly added listings will not be searchable until after the work is completed but Want matches will be made and Want Match emails will be sent as normal. Any listing matched to a Want can be accessed through the Want Match link and purchased as normal.

• Account level updates, (i.e. Storefront, Shipping Matrix, Terms of Sale, etc.), can be made as normal but will not be reflected in Search results until after the work is completed.

All of the above applies regardless of the method of inventory management, i.e. Online Inventory Manager, FTP, HomeBase, etc., will all be affected equally. 

We apologise for the short notice and for any inconvenience. Updates will be posted as required throughout the upgrade process.

AbeBooks site maintenance

During the time that the site maintenance is being carried out the impact to booksellers will be:

• Inventory updates (adds/updates) can be uploaded as normal but will not be reflected in Search results until after the work is completed.

• Updates, i.e. price changes, will be reflected correctly when a book is added to the Shopping Basket.

• Books sold via AbeBooks, as well as those marked 'Sold' by the bookseller, will be deleted and removed from Search as normal, so no orders for previously sold books will result.

• Newly added listings will not be searchable until after the work is completed but Want matches will be made and Want Match emails will be sent as normal. Any listing matched to a Want can be accessed through the Want Match link and purchased as normal.

• Account level updates, (i.e. Storefront, Shipping Matrix, Terms of Sale, etc.), can be made as normal but will not be reflected in Search results until after the work is completed.

All of the above applies regardless of the method of inventory management, i.e. Online Inventory Manager, FTP, HomeBase, etc., will all be affected equally. 

We apologise for the short notice and for any inconvenience. Updates will be posted as required throughout the upgrade process.

AbeBooks site maintenance - 9th and 10th June 2014

Update: 12 June 2014: The site maintenance has now been completed.

Beginning at 5 pm BST (9 am PST) Monday, 9th June 2014, we will be performing site maintenance. During the time that this essential work is being carried out the impact to booksellers will be:

• Inventory updates (adds/updates) can be uploaded as normal but will not be reflected in Search results until after the work is completed.

• Updates, i.e. price changes, will be reflected correctly when a book is added to the Shopping Basket.

• Books sold via AbeBooks, as well as those marked 'Sold' by the bookseller, will be deleted and removed from Search as normal, so no orders for previously sold books will result.

• Newly added listings will not be searchable until after the work is completed but Want matches will be made and Want Match emails will be sent as normal. Any listing matched to a Want can be accessed through the Want Match link and purchased as normal.

• Account level updates, (i.e. Storefront, Shipping Matrix, Terms of Sale, etc.), can be made as normal but will not be reflected in Search results until after the work is completed.

All of the above applies regardless of the method of inventory management, i.e. Online Inventory Manager, FTP, HomeBase, etc., will all be affected equally. 

We apologise for the short notice and for any inconvenience. Updates will be posted as required throughout the upgrade process.

AbeBooks site maintenance - 1st and 2nd October 2013

Update 03.10.2013: The site maintenance has now been completed.

Beginning at 5 pm BST - 9 am PST Tuesday, 2th October 2013, we will be performing site maintenance. During the time that this essential work is being carried out the impact to booksellers will be:

• Inventory updates (adds/updates) can be uploaded as normal but will not be reflected in Search results until after the work is completed.

• Updates, i.e. price changes, will be reflected correctly when a book is added to the Shopping Basket.

• Books sold via AbeBooks, as well as those marked 'Sold' by the bookseller, will be deleted and removed from Search as normal, so no orders for previously sold books will result.

• Newly added listings will not be searchable until after the work is completed but Want matches will be made and Want Match emails will be sent as normal. Any listing matched to a Want can be accessed through the Want Match link and purchased as normal.

• Account level updates, (i.e. Storefront, Shipping Matrix, Terms of Sale, etc.), can be made as normal but will not be reflected in Search results until after the work is completed.

All of the above applies regardless of the method of inventory management, i.e. Online Inventory Manager, FTP, HomeBase, etc., will all be affected equally. 

We apologise for the short notice and for any inconvenience. Updates will be posted as required throughout the upgrade process.

AbeBooks site maintenance

Update 24.07.2013: The site maintenance has now been completed. 

Beginning at 4 pm GMT - 9 am PST Monday, 22nd July 2013, we will be performing site maintenance. During the time that this essential work is being carried out the impact to booksellers will be:

• Inventory updates (adds/updates) can be uploaded as normal but will not be reflected in Search results until after the work is completed.

• Updates, i.e. price changes, will be reflected correctly when a book is added to the Shopping Basket.

• Books sold via AbeBooks, as well as those marked 'Sold' by the bookseller, will be deleted and removed from Search as normal, so no orders for previously sold books will result.

• Newly added listings will not be searchable until after the work is completed but Want matches will be made and Want Match emails will be sent as normal. Any listing matched to a Want can be accessed through the Want Match link and purchased as normal.

• Account level updates, (i.e. Storefront, Shipping Matrix, Terms of Sale, etc.), can be made as normal but will not be reflected in Search results until after the work is completed.

All of the above applies regardless of the method of inventory management, i.e. Online Inventory Manager, FTP, HomeBase, etc., will all be affected equally. 

We apologise for the short notice and for any inconvenience. Updates will be posted as required throughout the upgrade process.

Bookselling Tips During the Summer Holidays

Summer is finally here and that means holidays are about to start, or maybe for some, have already started! Here are a few tips to ensure that your bookseller account is well managed during the summer holidays.

 

Vacation Tool:

There is nothing more aggravating for a buyer than to wait 4 days for their order to be processed only to have it expire. If you plan to be away from your bookseller account for more than 3 days be sure to set your account on vacation in order to avoid letting orders expire.

1. Log onto your AbeBooks.com bookseller account
2. Click on the link 'Put My Books on Vacation'
3. Enter the start and end date of your vacation. (End date is optional if you are not sure when you will be returning).
4. Confirm the changes.

 

Shipping Speeds:

Buyers often order their books just before they go on holiday and expect them to arrive in time. Their expectations are based on the delivery times you set in your shipping matrix.

We recommend that you double check your shipping rates and speeds to ensure that they can be reached, particularly during this busy time of year. This will also help to avoid any failed deliveries when the buyer is away on vacation.

Our customer service team will be in full force this summer, so if you have any questions about your bookseller account, feel free to contact us.

May's Most Expensive Sales on AbeBooks

1. Tibet and Lhasa by John Claude White - £18,589

Published in 1908 by Johnston and Hoffmann, this is the first single volume edition and contains White’s amazing photographs of the region taken during the 1904 British expedition to Tibet. 

2. The Natural History of British Fishes, Including Scientific and General Descriptions of the Most Interesting Species by Edward Donovan - £12,471
Published in 1803, this first edition contains an extensive selection of accurately finished coloured plates produced by Donovan.

Alexandre Dumas Père

3.  Zanzibar; City, Island, and Coast by Richard Burton - £10,970
Published in 1872 by Tinsley Brothers, this two-volume set includes 11 engraved plates and a folding map.  Burton details the country and its natural history, and his various journeys between 1857 and 1859 in the lake regions of east Africa, including the discoveries of Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika.  This copy is a first edition, which contains a signed presentation from Isabel Burton, the explorer’s wife, to Sir Henry Rawlinson, a key army officer, politician and writer.

4. Autograph Manuscript and Letter by Alexandre Dumas Père - £6,234
A 12-page autograph manuscript and also an autograph letter, both signed by the author famed for writing The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.

105. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - £5,818
Published in 1932, this first edition was signed by Huxley and bound in original yellow buckram over bevel-edged boards with a blue leather label on the spine panel and top edge gilt.

6= Shifâ' Sharif (Ash-Shifâ Bi Ta'rif Huqûq Al-Mustafâ) by 'lyâd Ibn Mûsâ Ibn ' Iyâd al-Yahsubî (aka: al-Qâdî 'Iyâd) - £4,987
Noble Healer (The Healer for Knowing the Rights of al-Mustafâ) is an extensive biography of the Prophet Muhammad.  Published circa 1800 with text in Arabic.

6=Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum by Elias Ashmole et al - £4,987
Published in 1652, this first edition is a compilation of English alchemical literature and contains works by various authors such as Thomas Norton, George Ripley, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, John Lydgate, John Dastin, Abraham Andrews and William Backhouse.

8. Ars magna Lucis et Umbrae in Decem Libros Digesta by Athanasius Kircher - £4,712
Published in 1646, this is the first edition of Kircher’s work on light, shadow, and optical phenomena. One of the first books to reference concepts like the camera obscura and magic lantern. 

9. The Complete Works of Frank Lloyd Wright - £4,555
Published in 1985, this 12-volume set offers details of Wright's 200 most significant architectural projects.

10. New Hampshire by Robert Frost- £3,990
A first edition, first printing published in 1923 and inscribed by Frost. This collection of poems won a Pulitzer Prize in its year of publication and includes several of Frost's best-known poems like Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and Nothing Gold Can Stay.

Related Video

See our video review of August Sander's Portraits: People of the 20th Century › Play Video

 

Merchandising Focus for July

In July, AbeBooks will be promoting books from German art book publisher Taschen, as well as First Editions from the 1950s. Both will feature books that are plentiful and affordable, as well as those that are harder to find and more expensive.  The features will be promoted by email, prominent placement on the homepage, as well as through social media.

 

Top 10 Bestselling Signed Books on AbeBooks

Topping April’s top ten signed bestsellers is the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson. Hailed by the Wall Street Journal as, “The single best work of fiction published in 2012,” The Orphan Master’s Son is set in North Korea under Kim Jong Il and tells the story of a man who is both a perpetrator and a victim of crimes committed on behalf of the state.  The novel is by turns suspenseful, harrowing, deeply touching, and despite the subject matter – or perhaps because of it - darkly, at times even absurdly, humorous. 

And love her or despise her, after Margaret Thatcher’s death early last month it’s no surprise that she appears twice in April’s list, for both The Path to Power and The Downing Street Years. 

 

AbeBooks Top 10 Signed books from April 2013

1. The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson

2. The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher

3. Life after Life by Kate Atkinson

4. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

5. Wool by Hugh Howey

6. The Path to Power by Margaret Thatcher

7. The Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks

8. A Delicate Truth by John Le Carre

9. The Golden Egg by Donna Leon

10. Dead Air by Iain Banks

April's Most Expensive Sales on AbeBooks

1. Poems. First, Second, and Third Series by Emily Dickinson - £19,315
A set of first editions of her first three works; the First, Second and Third Series of Poems, published in 1890, 1891 and 1896 respectively. 

2. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams - £9,657
A first US edition from 1922 of one of the first modern picture books for children. Illustrated by William Nicholson with colour pictorial endpapers and seven richly coloured full page lithographs.

Valley of Fear: A Sherlock Holmes Novel

3.  Rénovateur Du Ballet Français by Julie Sazonova & Jean Laurent - £7,379
A first edition, first printing of this work which contains a colour illustration on the front cover by Pablo Picasso as well as monochrome photographs, and a frontis of legendary ballet star Serge Lifar also by Picasso.  This copy is inscribed on the fly leaf by Lifar "A Madame Baron, grande amie des arts, cordialment , Serge Lifar, Cannes le 3.9.63."

4. Almagestum novum astronomiam veterem novamque complectens observationibus aliorum et propriis by Giambattista Riccioli - £6,692
Published in 1651 in two volumes, ‘The New Almagest’ became the standard technical reference book for 17th century European astronomers.  Within the two volumes, there are 10 main sections detailing objects in celestial motion, the Earth and sun’s size, gravity and motion, eclipses, and the structure of the universe.

5= Valley of Fear: A Sherlock Holmes Novel by Arthur Conan Doyle - £6,438
Published in 1915, this first edition is rare in its original publisher’s dust jacket.  Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller with seven full page illustrations.

5= Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell -£6,438
A first edition in the red dust jacket, published 1949 and in fine condition.

7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - £6,116
A first edition, without a dust jacket, published in 1925. It also contains a signed envelope, laid in, addressed by Fitzgerald to a friend.

Poor Richard Improved
by Benjamin Franklin

8. Lippincott’s Magazine, February, 1890 - £5,472
The first appearance of The Sign of The Four, the second Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle, was in this publication.  This was Vincent Starrett's copy (Starret was a journalist and author) with his signature and Fridolf Johnson’s Sherlockian bookplate (signed by Johnson).

9. Poor Richard Improved by Benjamin Franklin - £4,204
Published 1760, this is a scarce example of Franklin's most famous project, this copy is of added interest for the contemporary manuscript notes added to its margins about burials, marriages, and travel of various Philadelphia merchants of the 1760s. There is also the typical astrological advice and medical counsel including the promotion of the recently-introduced practice of inoculation against smallpox.

10. Endymion: A Poetic Romance by John Keats - £3,974
Published 1818 by Taylor and Hessey, this first edition was bound without advertisements in full crushed red morocco by Riviere & Son.