Bookselling is the commercial trading of
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...
s which is the
retail
Retail is the sale of goods and Service (economics), services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturing, manufacturers, dire ...
and distribution end of the
publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of libraries in c.300 BC stimulated the energies of the
Athenian
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...
booksellers.
History
In
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, toward the end of the
republic, it became the fashion to have a library, and Roman booksellers carried on a flourishing trade.
The spread of
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
naturally created a great demand for copies of the
Gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...
s, other sacred books, and later on for missals and other devotional volumes for both church and private use. The modern system of bookselling dates from soon after the introduction of
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...
. In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the Low Countries for a time became the chief centre of the bookselling world. Modern book selling has changed dramatically with the advent of the Internet. Major websites such as
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
,
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
, and other big
book distributors offer
affiliate programs and dominate book sales.
Modern era
Bookstores (called ''bookshops'' in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
and most of the
Commonwealth, apart from
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
) may be either part of a
chain, or local
independent bookstores. Stores can range in size offering from several hundred to several hundred thousand titles. They may be
brick and mortar stores or internet only stores or a combination of both. Sizes for the larger bookstores exceed half a million titles. Bookstores often sell other printed matter besides books, such as
newspapers
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...
,
magazines and
maps; additional product lines may vary enormously, particularly among independent bookstores.
College
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...
s and
universities
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United State ...
often have bookstores on campus that focus on providing course
textbooks and scholarly books, and often also sell other supplies and
logo
A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wo ...
merchandise. Many on-campus bookstores are owned or operated by large commercial chains such as
WHSmith or
Waterstone's
Waterstones, formerly Waterstone's, is a British book retailer that operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and also other nearby countries. As of February 2014, it employs around 3,500 staff in the UK and Europe. An average-sized Wa ...
in the United Kingdom, or
Barnes & Noble College Booksellers
Barnes & Noble Education is one of the largest operators of college bookstores in the United States. As of the end of 2020, Barnes & Noble Education operated 760 campus bookstores and school-branded e-commerce sites through its Barnes & Noble C ...
in the United States.
Another common type of bookstore is the
used bookstore or second-hand bookshop which buys and sells
used and
out-of-print books in a variety of
conditions. A range of titles are available in used bookstores, including in print and out of print books.
Book collector
Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is ''bibliophilia'', and someo ...
s tend to frequent used book stores. Large online bookstores offer used books for sale, too. Individuals wishing to sell their used books using online bookstores agree to terms outlined by the bookstore(s): for example, paying the online bookstore(s) a predetermined commission once the books have sold. In
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
, the
Bouquinistes
The Bouquinistes of Paris, France, are booksellers of used and antiquarian books who ply their trade along large sections of the banks of the Seine: on the right bank from the Pont Marie to the Quai du Louvre, and on the left bank from the Quai ...
are antiquarian and used booksellers who have had outdoor stalls and boxes along both sides of the
Seine for hundreds of years, regulated by law since the 1850s and contributing to the scenic ambience of the city.
See also
*
Book store shoplifting Book store shoplifting is a problem for book sellers and has sometimes led stores to keep certain volumes behind store counters.
Shoplifters at book stores may be thieves who want the book, or thieves who want to make money by selling the book. T ...
*
Bookstore tourism
*
History of books
*
Independent bookstore
*
List of independent bookstores
*
Quarter bin
Notes and references
Further reading
* Davis, Joshua Clark
"Una Mulzac, Black Woman Booksellers, and Pan-Africanism" ''AAIHS'', September 19, 2016.
*Lister, Anthony, 'William Ford: the Universal Bookseller' ''The Book Collector'' 38 (1989):343-371.
*Thomas, Alan G. (1979). "Solomon Pottesman."''The Book Collector'' 28 no 4:545-553.
External links
*
ttp://ilab.org The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB)br>
The Independent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA)
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