Reading Copy Book Blog

One of the last great mystery pulp writers passed on recently. The obituary of Edward D. Hoch was featured in The Guardian this morning.

In every monthly issue since May 1973, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine has featured a short story by Edward D Hoch. Hoch, who has died after a heart attack aged 77, was perhaps the last heir of the penny-a-word scribes who pounded out a living in pulp magazines. He published nearly 1,000 short stories, primarily mysteries, in the few fiction magazines that survived the demise of the pulps…

Hoch was best known for his short stories but also wrote a few novels including The Shattered Raven, The Blue Movie Murders, and The Frankenstein Factory.

Thinking of writing a book? Don’t do it. There’s no money in it even if you get a publishing deal, says Boyd Tonkin at The Independent.

More than 250 people attended the AbeBooks.com Open House event last Friday. I thought may be 50 people would come along and would have been thrilled with 70, but they just kept arriving. In the end, we ran out of visitor badges. It was a real mixture of people - techies, project managers, marketing types, finance people, entrepreneurs, some folks who were regular buyers and wanted a look, and even a couple of booksellers sneaked in.

Thank you to everyone who attended - Judy Hamza, our HR director, has a huge pile of resumes and she began reading them almost immediately after the event ended.

AbeBooks.com is hosting its first ever Open House today, so if you are in Victoria, BC, and wondering what it takes to work for us then pop down. We’re at 655 Tyee by the Bay Street Bridge. Look for the big glass building with Bala Fitness on the ground floor - we’re on the fifth floor. The Open House runs from 12 noon to 2pm today (Friday 2 November).

Here at AbeBooks.com we have an on-going problem - the difficult task of finding new staff. We have an exceptionally high profile in Victoria, where our headquarters are located, and across Canada as a whole but we still have to work very hard to fill our vacancies. We also have a top notch HR director called Judy Hamza, who works tirelessly to find talented people, but it’s not getting any easier. Currently, we have around 95 employees at our new offices in Victoria but take a look at our careers page and you will find eight or nine vacancies.

We’re not the only ones. All the technology companies on Vancouver Island have problems filling their job postings. We advertise our vacancies on the Internet and we’re open to applications from anywhere. Right now, AbeBooks.com employs Canadians, Americans, Germans, French, Italians, Britons, Spanish and Chinese and there is also an Australian, a Brazilian and a Russian. If you are the best person for the job, then our HR department will help you move to our neck of the world.

In an effort to fill some of these vacancies, we are staging our first ‘Open House’ event on Friday 2 November between 12 noon and 2pm. Anyone can attend but we’re particularly interested in meeting job-seekers. There will be an introduction to the company, free goodies to take away, a department-by-department tour of the company and if you leave your resume then you will be entered into a draw to win $100 worth of books.

In May, we moved into brand new offices on the top floor of a huge glass building overlooking the Gorge waterway. From my desk, I can see the Olympic Mountains in Washington State, sea planes taking off and landing in Victoria’s inner harbour, kayakers paddling from the Gorge and the entire city skyline. (I’m sure I have the best spot in the whole office.)

In order to attract, and retain staff, we offer a huge number of benefits and operate a regular program of social activities. Our working environment is relaxed and senior management put a lot of trust in its workers. We support many good causes. Anyone can submit ideas for making our business better. Everyone has the opportunity for progression into other areas of our business - we even give our employees the opportunity to work in our German office and see Europe at the same time.

We’ve decided to be more proactive and simply open our doors for the first time ever - even if you want to take a look inside our business then feel free to drop in. Get details, directions and a map here.

Here is Cathy Waters’ third and final posting of the week - this time she explains why the book business is the best business in the world

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When I started my first bookstore, it was my first foray into the retail world. Honestly, my first job was as a short-order cook at a fast-food joint and when I finished school, I entered the business world. I was doing consulting work for the British Columbia government and on my lunch hour, I would go to the library. I was always reading books about businesses and how to start your own business. I had it in the back of mind to open a craft supply store so was looking for any book that may assist me in that endeavour. I came across a book on how to open a second-hand bookstore. I thought, “hmmm, this could be interesting.”

I took the book out of the library and read it cover to cover over the weekend. All I could think about was, ‘I can do this!’ The big challenge was getting Keith, my husband, on-side. I had to be sneaky. I told Keith I just read the most interesting business book and he should read it too. After he read it, he had that gleam in his eye I have come to know well. I had to pretend I wasn’t too interested, but when he said ‘We could do this’, I knew we were going to have some fun.

We got a map of Victoria and a pack of new highlighters. One colour was for libraries, one for new bookstores and one for second-hand bookstores. At the time, there were more than 30 second-hand bookstores in town. We wanted to find out where all of these businesses were in the city, so we could then identify where there was a need for our bookstore. Once the general location was settled, we got down to some serious book-buying. We put an ad in the paper, but our most effective method of book acquisition was by hitting the garage sales. Our kids were young, so each weekend, we would split up and take a car, a child and $100 each. We would then meet up later in the day when we ran out of money. It was a lot of fun opening our first bookstore.

Aside from a love of reading, I didn’t know that much about bookselling when I started. I took more and more books out of the library. I read anything I could get my hands on about book collecting and the value of books. Read articles about great collections and libraries. As well as all of the reading I was doing, I talked to my customers. I’ve never really been shy - I strike up conversations with perfect strangers while in lines. I asked my customers about what they liked to read and why. If a customer is a collector, I asked them why they collected, what they collected, how they collected. Through their knowledge, I became better at buying the books my customers wanted. More importantly, I became a better bookseller.

I have been able to share information my customers have provided with other customers. If a customer comes in asking for a particular author, and I don’t have any of their books in, I can make recommendations for another author they might like. One of the truly gratifying things about being a bookseller is helping my customers find the books they’re looking for. Or introducing them to a new author and have them come back looking for more books by the same author. I love it when customers come in to my bookstore with their list of books they’re looking for.

Right after I bought The Grafton Bookshop, I had a lady ask if she could look at the books in our first editions cabinet. I said, sure, go ahead. She opened the cabinet and reverently took out two books from the cabinet. She was crouched down with the books in her lap and she lovingly ran her hands over the covers. As she gingerly opened the cover of the book, she heaved a sigh. I had to help another customer, so I lost track of her for a little bit. I looked up later and she still had the two books hugged to her chest and she was wandering around the store browsing the other sections of the store. When she was ready, she came up to the cash desk and told me how much she loved the author and how his books had been such an impact on her. She had read all of his books in soft cover and never imagined she would ever see his earlier editions in hard cover, let alone first editions. She bought both of the books and she justified the purchases as a Christmas present to herself.

This is what I love about this business. I can hear the cynic commenting about the fact I made a sale and that I’m making money. The business side of me is right there with the cynic, but the booklover in me just loves the fact that I’ve brought a booklover together with the book they’ve been looking for.

Oh, in case you were wondering, the author was Robertson Davies.

Cathy

Today, Cathy Waters recalls how the founders of AbeBooks used the media to spread the word.

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One of the interesting things about starting a new Internet company, in a time before Google, Facebook and iTunes, was how to promote the website. I don’t mean promoting the website as in banging your own drum, but how to get buyers to come to the site so our booksellers could sell books.

It was an interesting dilemma because we didn’t have a lot of money to advertise. We put ads in book magazines when we could and even took out a three-line advertisement in the classifieds of the New York Times. Not a cheap proposition.

We brainstormed and determined that as we did not have a lot of money, we had to promote AbeBooks through word-of-mouth and by getting written up in the press. As much as we didn’t want to bang our own drum, that kind of publicity is what drove customers to our website. The interesting thing about AbeBooks, was that it was a great story. Two couples build this terrific website from scratch without investment. It’s the great American dream (although we’re Canadian). I remember when the Globe & Mail (one of Canada’s major newspapers) wrote an article on us. We were thrilled when we saw it come out on the front page of the business section. Pretty heady stuff! The local press in Victoria was always favourable to us. We live in a city where hi-tech is one of the largest employers, and the press loves touting the successes of our local companies that are competing, and making it, in the global marketplace. In a way, the principals of these hi-tech companies become minor celebrities.

When I purchased my store, The Grafton Bookshop three years ago, I hired a wonderful lady to handle marketing and promotion. The goal was to let the public know the store had changed hands, but that the store would continue to be the charming English-style bookshop that everyone loved. She contacted one of the business writers at our local paper, Victoria Times-Colonist. The reporter interviewed me and they sent a photographer around. I was expecting a small mention in the weekly business column. Imagine my shock when I picked up the paper the next morning to see my face splashed on the front page of the newspaper (albeit, below the fold, but still!). That kind of press brought so many people to my store.

When AbeBooks had its 10th anniversary last year, I was more than happy to help with the promotion of the big event. Again, there was a good story. It was about my coming full circle, from owning a bookstore, to creating AbeBooks, to going back to my roots as a bookseller. That kind of publicity has brought more people to my store, not just local people, but people from all over the world.

It’s very strange having my store as a tourist destination. I’ll be in my store and as people walk by, I have heard them comment about AbeBooks and that the lady who owns that store started AbeBooks.com. I didn’t really start Abe, it was a group effort. Even now, a year and a half after the birthday celebrations, I have tourists coming into the store and they tell me they read about my bookstore and they wanted to come in and thank me for starting AbeBooks. Again, it wasn’t just me. I am glad we started Abe. I believe in and support the staff’s continuing efforts to help book buyers find the books they’re looking for and to help booksellers sell their books.

I can’t really describe how odd it is to be recognized for what we did. Complete strangers (although, not for long) have asked me “Do you know what you’ve done?” Well, I like to think it was a good thing.

Cathy

Today, we have our first guest post from Cathy Waters - one of the AbeBooks’ founders

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A lot of people ask me what I’ve done since we sold our interest in AbeBooks. Well, Keith, my husband, and I decided we would take a year off, do some travelling, then decide what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives. We got some travelling done, but with three older teenagers at home, it was a little stressful. Do you remember being a teenager and having your parents gone for a weekend? Well, try that for a few weeks at a time. You can understand our predicament.

I didn’t quite make it to a year. I think the one think having AbeBooks taught me was that I’m pretty much a workaholic. Sad, but true. I got bored. I started looking for a business to buy. I checked out Internet cafes, candy shops, and craft shops. When I found there was a bookstore for sale, I stepped waaaay back. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into the book business again. I thought long and hard about it and almost bought the store, sight unseen. Keith, my voice of reason, told me I couldn’t do that. I knew the owner and knew it would be a quality shop, then I went to see the store. I fell in love and absolutely had to have it. I even kept the name of the store because, to me, it personified the look and feel of the store. The Grafton Bookshop. The name reminds me of an old English bookshop and that’s exactly what the store is.

The main floor of the store is around 900 square feet with 12 foot ceilings and dark oak floor to ceiling bookcases with ladders on rollers around the shop. There are fantastic antique cabinets with lovely leather books in them. There are several antique lamps situated around the store and a very quirky “monkey” lamp on the glass display cabinet. The monkey lamp always reminds me of Robinson Crusoe. We even have a pith helmet on the wall. Whenever someone asks us where our travel section is, we point them in the direction of the pith helmet.

The lower floor of the store is our nerve centre. This is where we take the new books that have come in to the store. We clean them, make minor repairs, ‘Brodart’ the dust jackets and price and inventory them. It is also our main shipping hub (a corner, really). We ship our books all around the world and we get such a thrill with where our books find new homes.

Keith decided being retired fit him to a tee. This is what I’ve chosen to do for the rest of my life. My name is Cathy and I am a bookseller, by profession and by passion.

Cathy

Imagine being able to walk down the hall to your office lunchroom and be able to catch your favourite author talk for an hour while you munch down your tuna sandwich.

The dream is a reality for some. Several major west coast companies (ie Google Microsoft, Starbucks, Yahoo, etc.) have been including author speaking events as part of their perks package for employees. Sounds good to me!

While we’re still getting lots of entries daily in our Harry Potter poetry contest, BookNinja has posted some of the entries they have in their office/work Haiku contest

My personal favourite thus far….

Orthopedic chair
essentially useless since
I slouch, chin in hand.

Bibliophiles love books - even when they are in the middle of a warzone. That’s what we discovered after investigating the reading habits of US troops and western civilians living on bases in Iraq.

We put together a list of 50 books that have been purchased from AbeBooks.com and sent to bases in Iraq. We thought they’d be escapist paperbacks (Grishams, Kings etc) but the list is very surprising. What inspired someone to purchase The Physics of Blown Sand? The sand I suppose. And then there’s The Art of War, and Just and Unjust Wars, and whole series of other books about American politics, history and current affairs. Clearly people are trying to put the whole conflict into context.

The fact that one serviceman purchased The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the First Year speaks volumes about a soldier’s life when stationed far from home.

Unlike soldiers stationed in North America or Europe, these troops cannot leave the bases during their leisure time, so I imagine reading plays an important role for many. I love the idea of people learning the saxophone or how to write poetry.

Our section on reading in Iraq also contains two not-to-be-missed interviews. David Abrams, a writer and a soldier, explains how Don Quixote saved his life from a mortar attack and how books kept him going while in Iraq. Another soldier Brian McNerney tells us how he helped to set up a library of 15,000 books on Camp Anaconda, a huge logistics base, thanks to donations of books from World War II veterans.

It would seem the influence of Douglas Copeland’s Generation X is still being felt today…. especially in the headquarters of McDonald’s who are eager to rewrite the definition of ‘McJob.’

I liked this story about how Mexican police are trying to improve their reputation… by becoming cultural and reading a few books. They could try this one or this one.

After spending 4 days in Las Vegas at the HOW Design Conference and seeing over 3500 designers, 15 speakers, endless paper samples, countless slot machines and too many PowerPoint slides, it’s difficult to distill it all down into a concise statement of the experience.

Since design tends to fall on the expressive, intuitive and asethetic side the work world, there was lots of talk about ‘being creative’ and idea generation and where design meets the rest of the world. All in all, such events do re-invigorate the weary designer… filled with new ideas, approaches, and concepts.

Like most people, we all strive to do the best we can, and given the circumstances we succeed to various levels… myself included. I always want the best end result, so maybe this is why of all the tidbits of enlightement and knowledge that the speakers gave out… one rose above the rest. The speaker spoke of working with a German car company, working to help brainstorm new ideas for the company. Things were not going well… progress at a standstill. All the ‘tricks’ were tried to get things moving, to no avail. Breakthroughs were not coming. One of the consultants went and talked to the car executives, just to get them talking… he looked out the window at the snow and the parking lot, and asked about their drive in to the office. One car executive said that his drive in was lovely — the snow was perfect, big dry, flakes, he was thinking of how to spend the Christmas bonus on presents for his family, looking forward to visiting relatives. The consultant asked what it would have been like if it were one degree warmer… The executive said, it would have been miserable, there would have sleet falling, cold and wet… he would would be thinking about how cheap the company was to give such a megear Christmas bonus, and dreading the visiting in-laws. The consultant looked at him and said… “It’s only one degree.”

The speaker then asked the collected designers — “What’s your one degree? What is that small seemingly inconsequential thing that you can change by one degree in your work and lives, and will have an impact?”

Like death and taxes, it seems the cubicle is an inevitability of life. For anyone who has spent any time working in an office environment, they have come up against this dreaded cube.

It has been mocked in movies, books and Dilbert comics, and there are even action figures based on the cubicle world.

The inventor of the cubicle is somewhat contrite about his creation, but rightfully so? The initial vision was good, but the implementation in the real world falls short.

The traditional, oft-ridiculed cubefarms don’t really exist in this office, there is a much more open floor with a few partitions scattered about. It makes for a more dynamic and bustling atmosphere (and yes noisy at times, but that’s what headphones are for). We’re moving offices soon, so the topic of partions and cubes and desks has started to come up on a regular basis. Whatever the final fixtures and furniture decisions are, I hope it’s a green choice.