All The Write Moves

Have you ever been desperate to get hold of a book and found that you just can?t seem to track it down? You may have just discovered a new author and you're eager to read their other works or possibly want to track down a book that they have recommended. You might just want to locate a book which you have borrowed or a hard to find book for a friend. You go to your local booksellers only to be told that the book you require is no longer in print or that it can be imported at a price that is beyond what you want to pay. You trawl through the local second hand bookshops or web sites like Amazon.com but still draw a blank, so what do you do?

You look at turning your experience into a moneymaking venture. If you can come up with a working strategy for locating hard to find books - you are well on your way to being able to set up as a book searcher i.e. a person who will track down a book for a customer for a fee.

What Does a Book Searcher Do?

A book searcher tracks down rare and hard to find books for clients. Clients engage a book searcher when they don?t have the time or insider knowledge to track down the book(s) they?re after. Clients also go to a book searcher when they are in a hurry.

How Does a Book Searcher Deal With Clients?

A client will approach a book searcher with a request to locate a given book. At this stage the book searcher will get as much information as possible from the client regarding the book sought including full title, author, and publisher, whether the book is a hard or paperback, what condition the book needs to be in, ISBN or ASIN number, whether the book needs to be a first edition etc. The client is not always able to supply all of this information. However, the more information that a client can supply the easier it is for the book searcher i.e. you to meet their requirements. Now comes the fun part - working out how much to charge!

Usually a book searcher will only charge a fee if the book is located and the client decide to purchase it. When this happens the book searcher invoices the client for the cost of the book, postage and packing, costs incurred in finding the book including a charge for the book searcher?s time and an amount to allow for all those abortive searches when you don?t find the book or the client doesn?t want it! Remember when calculating your fees that you have to make a profit as well as cover the overheads incurred in running a business. Some book searchers do charge for undertaking a book search irrespective of whether the client decides to go ahead and buy the book once found, which minimized the bookseller?s risk of being left out of pocket but is harder to sell to the client.

For those of you who already have knowledge of a particular genre e.g. graphic novel it makes sense to capitalize on the experience that you have built up in terms of getting hold of these and to specialize in doing book searches in this genre initially. You?ll also be in a great position for spotting bargains that you can sell on at a profit and for managing clients? expectations in terms of what they?re going to have to pay to get hold of a particular book and how long it?s likely to take.

When it comes to finding clients you could look at advertising, forming links with local booksellers and using the Internet.

Resources:

http://www.bookfinder.com/

http://www.alibris.com/

http://www.abebooks.com

http://www.amazon.com

http://www.ebay.com