{"id":2461,"date":"2016-10-13T15:54:14","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T23:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tavbooks.com\/?p=2461"},"modified":"2017-04-05T20:26:12","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T04:26:12","slug":"the-migratory-habits-of-booksellers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.tavbooks.com\/?p=2461","title":{"rendered":"The Migratory Habits of Booksellers"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kate Mitas<\/p>\n

Ahh, book fair season is upon us once more: when booksellers of every stripe take to the skies\u00a0<\/span>and highways of America in search of fresh resources and temporary bibliophilic nesting\u00a0<\/span>grounds. It\u2019s one of the book trade\u2019s enduring mysteries, and a sight to behold. Drawn by forces\u00a0<\/span>scientists have not yet managed to explain \u2014 collective memory, blind professional instinct,\u00a0<\/span>shifts in the earth\u2019s magnetic field, or merely the prospect of good food and drink with\u00a0<\/span>colleagues \u2014 flocks of booksellers converge for weekends at a time in cities and towns across\u00a0<\/span>the country, clogging bar stools and sharing vast quantities of hugs, trade knowledge and\u00a0<\/span>alcohol. Here, they perform the time-honored ritual of artfully displaying their brightest finds for\u00a0<\/span>local bibliophiles and librarians to admire, in the hopes of attracting paying customers and thus\u00a0<\/span>ensuring continued survival. It\u2019s an improbable business model in the best of times, and the\u00a0<\/span>second decade of the 21 st century is not, alas, the best of times. It\u2019s hard to know these days if\u00a0<\/span>exhibiting at book fairs is increasingly an exercise in magical thinking — an evolutionary failure to\u00a0<\/span>adapt, with portents of incipient dodo-ism \u2013 or an increasingly necessary means of making\u00a0<\/span>available the real, tactile wonder of books (and ephemera, etc.) and advocating for the\u00a0<\/span>pleasures of owning them.<\/p>\n

\"Setting<\/a>

Setting up!<\/p><\/div>\n

In a bizarre reversal, Tavistock Books kicked off the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair in style and\u00a0<\/span>with a degree of hope, toasting a decent showing at the Sacramento fair and our just-released\u00a0catalogue with a glass of champagne in the American Express lounge at SFO. Contrary to last\u00a0year\u2019s comedy of bad luck, no van wrecks preceded our departure, and, though we didn\u2019t know\u00a0it yet, no luggage would be lost en route. Our books, along with those of a whopping 14 other\u00a0California booksellers, were already waiting at the venue, thanks to the combined might and\u00a0keen packing skills of road warriors Brad Johnson (The Book Shop) and Jesse Rossa (Triolet\u00a0Books). If the d\u00e9cor of the Amex lounge \u2013 typical neutral airport fare with an upscale twist,\u00a0backed by a wall-length display behind the bar composed of old 1940s-style suitcases, radios\u00a0and cheap \u201cantique\u201d books (of the World Book Encyclopedia variety), its warm shades of red\u00a0and yellow the only color in the place \u2013 hinted at an ominous book nostalgia underway around\u00a0us, we chose to disregard it. Besides, we\u2019d already begun drinking before noon.<\/p>\n

As usual, Louis Collins was running a tip-top operation once we got to Seattle, complete with\u00a0roving bands of equipment crews and free coffee and pastries for exhibitors. The venue was\u00a0hot, as is always the case, but a brisk pre-fair business left many dealers looking pleased, if\u00a0glistening. In yet another odd reversal, this time I found myself offering occasional tips to fellow\u00a0assistant and booth-mate Jeremy Reidel, of Books Tell You Why, doing an admirable job of\u00a0setting up his first solo booth display. The inevitable rain the following day did nothing to dispel\u00a0the crowds of fairgoers, given an extra boost by the Ephemera Society, and even Sunday\u00a0brought a significant number of people into the fair. And, through it all, strangely enough, the\u00a0Tavistock booth stayed relatively busy. We weren\u2019t selling things hand over fist, to be sure, but\u00a0we kept selling things: to collectors, institutions, old customers, fellow booksellers, all day\u00a0Saturday and, to a lesser extent, on Sunday, too. All in all, it was a frankly surreal turn of events.\u00a0Had the good ship Tavistock finally broken its bad luck streak?<\/p>\n

To some extent, astonishing though it may be to admit: yes. Unlike many at the fair, it seems,\u00a0<\/span>we had good sales this time around, or at least good enough to cover our expenses and cost of\u00a0goods and make a little profit, to boot. The buying was decent, and we walked away from a pre-fair Sunday morning trip to Taylor Bowie\u2019s shop loaded with armfuls of great new cookery\u00a0material. Not to mention this lovely eye-catching poster, scouted by Vic in the first few minutes\u00a0of set-up and soon to be catalogued (contact us for details if interested):<\/p>\n

\"fullsizer\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I even found a book for myself . . . from our own booth, much to Vic\u2019s endless delight, which I\u00a0<\/span>eventually bought after hiding it from the customers all morning.\u00a0As Vic has been fond of telling people, however, we probably made somewhere around $1.38\u00a0an hour \u2013 and that\u2019s not including potential missed sales from the shop being closed, the costs\u00a0of repairing at least one book that didn\u2019t weather the journey and extra handling, etc. So did we\u00a0really come out ahead, in the end?<\/p>\n

\"img_3361\"<\/a>

All dressed up!<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019d like to think there\u2019s more to it than just number-crunching. That, in some incalculable way,\u00a0<\/span>discussing Stephen Greenblatt with a long-time Seattle-area collector branching into\u00a0Renaissance studies, or helping a new customer find just the right early nursing books for her\u00a0research, or getting a whirlwind lesson in medieval paleography from Kait Manning (Philip\u00a0Pirages) and being schooled in maritime journals by Greg Gibson (Ten Pound Island Book Co.),\u00a0or simply being part of a physical, non-virtual book presence in the life of a community once a\u00a0year, amounts to something. It\u2019s too damn fun not to.<\/p>\n

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