A Manual on Bookselling

How to Open & Run Your Own Bookstore

Edited by Charles B. Anderson & G. Roysce Smith.

Sanford Cobb, Advisory Editor

American Booksellers Association, New York. 2nd edition, 1974 (1st ed was published in 1969 - the 3rd ed in 1977). Thick oversized trade paperback, 6" X 9". 336 pages. As you might guess, this is the definitive source for bookselling from the ABA. This edition, as you might also guess, is miserably outdated. Its illustrations include such things as printed sales record-sheets, cataloging slips, and other necessities from the dark ages of the pre-computer world. Still, sometimes it's very interesting to go back and see how things used to be. And, many of its lessons still apply today.

edited for the American booksellers Association by Robert D. Hale with Allan Marshall and Ginger Curwen. Harmony Books, New York. (1987). Fourth Edition. Trade paperback. 532 pages. (6 X 9). Foreword: The Climate of the Book Industry Today by Bernard E. Rath. Preface by Robert D. Hale. This is a collection of articles on opening and running a bookstore. I don’t have the other editions, so I can’t tell if the contents are different. Things have changed in the last twenty years and this would be very out-of-date.