A Busy Few Weeks @ Both Shops

Early September, back-to-school rush, lots going on in both shops:

• Approx. 750 new graphic novels priced and out on Main Street's shelves

• Approx. 100 "For Beginners" books priced and out at Main Street

• Big collection of hardcover Heidegger titles, including a number of rare and out-of-print titles, purchased and on display behind the desk at Main Street

• Lots of new books in Kitsilano. New books are selling really well in Kits, and we've recently expanded the selection there, so that all the new titles we carry are now available at both stores. No more crosstown treks! Also, lots of new bookshelves going in at Kits as we speak.

• New lease in Kits! We really like the neighborhood, and plan to be in the 3100 block of West Broadway for the forseeable future. Also, huge shout-out to our new neighbors at Baugette & Co., located at 3273 West Broadway, for their awesome coffees, breads, croissants, pastries and chicken-salad sandwiches. Highly recommended by our staff, and a great addition to the neighborhood.

• Lots of quality used stock in Kits. Very few of our friendly West Side competitors seem to be doing much cash buying these days, and we're seeing lots of prime material. Hesse, Vonnegut, Murakami, Palahniuk, Bukowski & multiple etc.

As always, we're buying and trading books on a daily basis. No need to make an appointment; if you're in before 5pm, we will be happy to consider your books for cash purchase or trade. No limit on quantity; we have the interest and financial wherewithal to deal with collections of any size, and are always glad to see you.

"What Are You Looking For?"

Not a day goes by that someone doesn't phone or email wondering what kind of books we buy and trade. The short answer: books we can sell quickly that we don't already have fifty million copies of. Thus: recent fiction, recent higher-end nonfiction, recent murder mysteries, recent science fiction and fantasy, and enduring literary classics (Huxley; Orwell; Hemingway; Hesse; Vonnegut & etc.). Plus anything that we are currently ordering in new copies of (Steig Larsson; Malcolm Gladwell; Thomas Bernhard; Zadie Smith; Hunter S. Thompson, etc.). The new book wall in the front room is a convenient Cole's Notes of the kind of books we'd like to see every day, and we always try to add a little extra when new books originally purchased from us are returned for credit or cash.

That said, certain kinds of books are never good candidates for trade or resale: worn or damaged books; most debut novels; stuff widely available on the bargain tables at Chapters and Book Warehouse; books that everybody's book club read 3-5 years ago (Camilla Gibb; Miriam Toews; recent Michael Ondaatje; Sue Monk Kidd); books on topics that our customers don't care about (sports biographies; travel picture books; manky mass-produced kids' series (Animorphs; Goosebumps), spiral-bound cookbooks; diet books; textbooks, etc. Plus most bestsellers that you can buy in an airport bookstore or at Costco (Dan Brown; John Grisham; Danielle Steel; Stuart Woods).

In general, we only buy and trade books that we know we can resell. That way, the shops are always full of recent and interesting titles, and you don't have to wade through thousands of mediocre or badly dated books to find the good stuff.

Our trading policy is largely identical to our buying policy, except that you receive a higher rate for trade credit, based on how quickly we think your books are going to sell. Unlike most other book stores, our trade credit doesn't expire, can be used at either one of our stores, and doesn't have to be combined with cash. That said, trade credit can't be used to purchase new books (everyone, even the staff, pays cash for them), and material that is being offered for trade has to meet a basic common sense test. (Eg., a box of John Grisham and Stuart Woods pocket books never equals a bag of used Bukowskis, Murakamis, Fantes and recent graphic novels).

The Future of Print

Via the New Yorker, a thorough and detailed look at Kindle v. iPad, Amazon v. everybody, print v. digital, & etc. Worth reading.

On a related note, I just spent two and a half weeks on the road in the USA, where I noticed several things:

1. Almost a third of the bookstores that were open when PFB first opened in June 2000 have now closed. Of the used bookstores that remain, most are no longer buying books at all. Sales at those stores, based on my first-hand, limited, and admittedly anecdotal observation, are awful. The few stores that still regularly buy for cash are, like us, seeing more good books than they ever have before, and almost all of their owners told me that they expect 2010 to be their "best year ever."

2. Books @ PFB, new and used, are by and large cheaper than those at stores located in major US metropolitan markets (Seattle; Portland; San Francisco; Las Vegas).

3. Paperback exchanges that only carry mass market paperbacks -- a concept that's always struck me as an incredibly flaky business model -- are done, a victim of rising rents and their owners' reluctance/inability to buy for cash. The survivors' stock, which ranged from great to middling ten years ago, is now uniformly terrible.

4. Thrift stores in the States are now charging as much for recent books as we are. This doesn't make much difference to me, but it should to any bookstore owner whose business model is predicated on heading to the local thrift store first thing in the morning and loading up.

Still Buying Books @ Both Locations

Spring 2010 is turning out to be the busiest year in the shop's history, and we're energetically buying books at both locations. We're seeing lots of stock already, but can always use more. In particular, we're looking for:

• Recent ($9.99-$13.50 cover price) mass market paperbacks, esp. recent science fiction, fantasy, and murder mysteries.

• Recent literary fiction (eg., Dave Eggers; Haruki Murakami; Cormac McCarthy; David Sedaris; Paul Auster; Zadie Smith; Nicola Krauss)

• Recent quality nonfiction (eg., Christopher Hitchens; Richard Dawkins; Daniel Dennett; Jared Diamond)

• Award winners (eg., New York Times Notable Books of The Year)

• Literary classics (eg., Orwell, Hemingway, Huxley, Hesse, Borges, Vonnegut, Pynchon, Richler)

• Modern first editions; deluxe Folio and Easton Press editions; rare and scholarly books that we think we can resell within 12-24 months

We pay up to 40% of our retail price in cash on the spot for prime material.

We buy books every day up until 5 pm, unlike many local competitors who just issue trade credit, or only buy on certain days of the week. There's never any need to make an appointment; just bring your books in and our staff will gladly to examine them and make an offer on those we can use.

There are also certain kinds of books that we're never looking for:

• Damaged books of any kind

• Books we have way too many of (eg., if we already have 14 copies of Ian McEwan's Atonement in the back room, we don't want a 15th copy)

• Most Book Club editions

• Books widely remaindered by Chapters, Coles, Book Warehouse, etc.

• Magazines, textbooks and computer books

• Very common airport-bestseller mass market paperbacks: Danielle Steel; John Grisham; Dan Brown; V.C. Andrews; James Patterson et al. These authors are printed in massive quantities, are available in every thrift store in town, and are almost never good candidates for resale.

Now in Stock: More New Books Than Ever!

A month or two ago, we decided to start stocking new releases from most major publishers, in addition to the usual assortment of used books, out-of-print books, and publisher's remainders. Mornings now routinely begin with a parade of courier vans arriving at Main Street's front door, and we've built new shelves at both stores to handle the influx.

Our new book ordering guidelines are very simple: will anyone still care about the book a year from now? If someone buys a book from us, reads it carefully, and brings it back for store credit or cash, will we want to see it again? Questions like this eliminate 90% of the new releases in most major publishers' catalogs. We will happily sell what remains for years to come.

So, no thanks to Sarah Palin's ghostwritten autobiography. Yes please to Barabara Kingsolver's first novel in nine years (above), and Anthony Beevor's history of D-Day, and the Momofuku Cookbook, a new edition of Wade Davis' perennially requested The Serpent and the Rainbow, & etc.

Also noteworthy: the strengthening Canadian dollar means that many of our new books are now priced way below US cover price. Just saying.

Buying Update, April 2009

Unlike many other bookstores in the Pacific Northwest, we are still actively buying books for cash.

We are particularly interested in the following:

• Recent mass market science fiction, fantasy, and mystery paperbacks (cover price $9.99+ CDN)

• Literary classics in either mass market paperback or trade paperback (examples: Orwell, Dostoevsky, Huxley, Woolf, Austen, Faulkner)

• Trade paperback "literary" fiction, (examples: Roberto Bolano, Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, Elizabeth Gilbert, Elizabeth Hay)

• Trade paperback "popular" nonfiction (examples: Jerad Diamond, David Quammen, Steven Pinker)

• Classic children's lit (examples: Richard Scarry, Roald Dahl, later J.K. Rowling)

• Nicely illustrated cookbooks

• Philosophy and cultural studies (examples: Agamben, Adorno, Benjamin, Foucault, Arendt, Zizek)

• Graphic novels

• Any author/title that we carry new.

We consider books for purchase at both stores every day up until 5pm. There's no need to phone unless you're bringing 100+ boxes of books; simply show up and we'll be pleased to go through what you have. Please note that we do not buy textbooks, computer books, ex-library books, trashed or damaged books, series romance, and very common mass-market paperbacks (examples: Mary Higgins Clark, Danielle Steel, John Grisham).

Are You Still Buying Books?

We consider books for purchase up to 5pm on any day of the week, including the first of the month, which means lots of new stock on the shelves. Today's arrivals include a run of David Gemmell pocket fantasy paperbacks, lots of new titles by Steve Erickson and Terry Pratchett (20+ titles!), and much interesting nonfiction, including facsimile reprints of Canadian classic cookbooks The Five Roses Cookbook and the Purity Cookbook (above).

Buying Update

We are currently seeking large quantities of RECENT pocket mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy and literary classics. If your usual bookstore isn't buying due to economic conditions, we'd be happy to see you and your books before 5pm on any day of your choice.