FEATURE/Gift Buying Trend: Old Books Create New Memories This Christmas — All With the Help of a Canadian Website

Business Wire, Nov 8, 2002

Feature Editors

FEATURE...

--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 8, 2002

Parents are Giving Books They Read as Children to Their Own Kids,

Friends are Giving Signed Books to Each Other, and Lovers are

Digging Up Old Classics

With so many choices in today's consumer world, giving a unique gift -- even if it's secondhand -- shows that time and thought have gone into its purchase. This holiday season many shoppers are turning to used and secondhand books.

Parents are buying out-of-print books they read when they were young to share with their own children. Avid readers and bookclub members are giving their friends unique signed first editions of best-selling authors. And spouses are searching for that special book of poetry that they first shared when they were dating in college.

Where to find rare books?

How do shoppers find rare or old books that are often out-of-print? They turn to Abebooks.com, a Canadian Internet site that lists the used, rare and out-of-print books from 10,000 bookstores around the world.

Abebooks began as the secret online source for book collectors searching for rare books but has grown to become a favorite site for groups such as:

-- gardening buffs looking for out-of-print gardening classics

-- cookbook collectors looking for signed copies of "The Joy of Cooking" and other classics

-- avid readers searching for cheap bestsellers

-- students looking for secondhand textbooks

I don't remember the title, but there was a dog named...

Can't remember the title? Try posting the details you can remember (such as a character's name) on the Abebooks "BookSleuth" board. Readers from around the world write in to solve your book question. "BookSleuth" is a free service and a fun place to visit -- see if you can help "solve" someone else's puzzle.

Is "used" a bad word?

Some people wonder if it's okay to give a "used" book at Christmas. Yes, especially when it is a rare signed edition. These gifts are special because they are truly "unique" -- no two copies are exactly the same. Prices range from outrageously cheap to outrageously expensive. For example, there are 3956 copies of "Winnie the Pooh" on Abebooks.com. Prices range from a ten-cent copy listed by a bookstore in Hopatcong New Jersey, to a $45,000 first edition in its original book jacket offered by a bookstore in Varen, France.

Thoughtful gifts -- quick purchases

People don't have time to browse used bookshops in person but they can browse for used books online. Online shopping lets you shop from home or the office and Abebooks makes it possible to browse the bookshelves of 10,000 bookstores in less than a minute. Once a book is purchased (through secure online credit card processing) the book is mailed from the bookstore to the buyer, or sent directly to the gift-receiver.

Gifts with interesting stories: "I bought it for you in Paris!"

Part of the fun of giving secondhand books relates to the stories and histories that these books carry. When asked where you found such a treasure you can say "In a small bookshop in Paris," or "Somebody's garage in New Zealand." And you won't be lying! Over two-thirds of Abebooks' ten thousand booksellers sell books from their home.

Buying a book from a different country adds a nice story to a gift and makes the receiver feel that you searched the globe to find such a one-of-a-kind book. A suitable effort for those one-of-a-kind people on your holiday shopping list this year.

Background: The Abebooks Story

Abebooks began as the Advanced Book Exchange in 1996 as a mere scribble on a notepad. Keith Waters, then a government web programmer, and his wife Cathy were running a used bookstore in Victoria, BC. Cathy often spoke of how difficult it was to find certain out-of-print titles for her customers. She knew the books were available in bookstores somewhere, but how to find them?

A short time later, during a dull business meeting, Keith began to scratch out a solution, one that combined books, databases and the Internet. He sought the help of a friend and together they came up with Abebooks, a collective of independent booksellers united by the Internet through a massive searchable database.

Abebooks found immediate success and quickly grew from a group of four booksellers to a network of ten-thousand booksellers offering 40 million books.

Today Abebooks is a global company based in Victoria, BC Canada with sites dedicated to book buyers in North America (Abebooks.com), the UK (Abebooks.co.uk), France (Abebooks.fr), and Germany (Abebooks.de) and strategic partnerships with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and eBay/Half.com.