A comment posted to the Observer on the subject of postal strikes

In response to the Observer piece about the effect the postal strike is having on eBay sellers.


I've been selling online for six years, on a variety of sites, and this is the first week I've ever received two "where's my stuff" messages in the same week. I don't know if this strike is more disruptive than previous ones, or simply less well publicised. Items arriving late can be a worry when they're sold via eBay, because of the impact negative feedback can have on your visibility there, and because the black art with which eBay generate and use DSRs is so lacking in transparency. I also sell things at eBid.net, and prefer the clarity and transparency of the system there - no DSRs, no complicated four-part star ratings, just a simple pos/neg/neu and a factual comment. Best of all, the feedback can be changed as the situation develops, so an irate customer who's book's held up can go back later and switch a negative to a positive when the situation's resolved. Buying and selling online involves a great deal of trust on both sides, and we all have moments when we think the worst and suspect we've been had. So any system that allows one to rethink, and adjust, that initial reaction seems good to me. Things like postal strikes will always be with us. Or disruption due to weather, acts of God, or acts of man. A seller's reputation should not be open to damage by such vagaries.

A book review of sorts - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

It's probably a strange idea to review a book so long after reading it. It might be a little odd to take the time to review a book I found so utterly unintelligent as the bad, but some sort of warning seems only fair. It's probably most strange to review a book I haven't read. And not just one book I haven't read, but lots of non-specific books I haven't read. But hey, we're not scared of strange, are we?

The Good

Some time ago, a few months I suppose, I read The Gone-Away World, by Nick Harkaway. I read a lot of books, so the mere fact that this has been nagging away at the back of my head saying "write something about that" is significant. It's good. No really, it's very good.

The cover blurb promises many marvels. It promises a story of "...among other things - love and loss; of ninjas, pirates, politics; of curious heroism in strange and dangerous places; and, of a friendship stretched beyond its limits. But it also the story of a world, not unlike our own, in desperate need of heroes - however unlikely they may seem." And if that all sounds like your idea of fun, then go ahead, because it delivers.

The story is beautifully structured, giving just enough knowledge to keep you this side of desk-chewing frustration, but withholding more to keep you turning pages. You don't know where it's going next, or how it's going to get there, but you really want to be along for the ride.

Nick Harkaway achieves the first essential, he makes us care about the characters. He does it without schmaltz or sentiment; he simply draws interesting, flawed but likeable people, and lets us get to know them as we rattle along.

The Gone-Away World is full of ideas - challenging, amusing, and scary in turns. It doesn't fit into any pre-packed genre, but doesn't feel like a patchwork quilt - the different turns all work, and the ninjas a pirates do need to be there, unlikely though that might sound.

The Bad

I love a good, old-fashioned whodunnit. Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, and Patricia Wentworth have been my staple reading for many years. So when a few like-minded readers recommended the Agatha Raisin stories I was naturally keen to find myself a new author. The first one I tried was The Potted Gardner. I read it, reported back that I'd found it dull, stifled my disappointment, and moved on. Then recently another came my way and I wondered if I'd been harsh. Or perhaps the book I'd chosen had been written before the author got into her stride? I say "her", I haven't been interested enough to discover the sex of M C Beaton, but I'm guessing from the sex of the main character and the nature of the writing.

And so, this week, I read Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam. By this story I think it's safe to assume that Ms Beaton has reached whatever stride she's aiming for, and I feel confident in asserting that I just plain dislike her books. Sorry ma'am. Agatha Raisin is possibly the most unpleasant, and unlikable, amateur sleuth of my experience. Described optimistically in the text as prickly but charming, she's rude, tactless, gossipy, jealous, insincere and hopelessly dim. And she couldn't detect an elephant in her fridge.

The Fairies of Fryfam has no discernible plot. Somebody unpleasant gets bumped off (not, alas, Agatha Raisin). The murderer(s) (I can't believe I'm bothering to disguise this to avoid spoilers, but one has standards!) is or are immediately apparent, and the only thing left to hope for is that he, she or they will go on a rampage and wipeout the village. In the meantime some sub-MillsandBoonesque romancing takes place in a rather coy and clumsy manner. I only made it to the end because it's so slim as to make not finishing look just too wussy to bear.

So, if you want an enjoyable classic whodunnit... buy The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and save yourself the pain.

The Ugly

I don't know who first said "don't judge a book by its cover", but there's something about the phrase the really bugs me. As a metaphor for life, it's fine if rather clichéd now, but taken literally... pah! Of course you judge a book by its cover. How else are you going to cope with the thousands of titles that confront you in a shop or library whenever you visit?

And so we get to... the ugly. I don't buy ugly books. I have several times picked up a paperback with a scary picture of a strange looking boy... but I've never brought myself to buy it, because the scary boy would be in my house then. I can't even remember what it's called now. Perhaps you recognise the description. Those staring, wide-open eyes that tell you to put the book down and back away right now?

The opposite works for me too. I will sometimes buy books I'm dubious about, simply because the attractive packaging has sucked me in. I think the jolly pastoral scenes that adorn Agatha Raisin stories have a lot to answer for. Interestingly, I read about The Gone-Away World before I ever saw it. Would I still have bought it if the cover had been poorly designed? I honestly don't know, but there's a possibility not.

I don't believe that new authors have much say on how their babies are dressed for the public. But if you reach that thrilling moment of being consulted about your cover art... ask somebody shallow to look at it for you, they'll choose pretty over meaningful and your sales will climb.

Happy Reading,

by Kimbo! xx

Adding to my Aphorisms

Now and again I have a thought that takes a certain shape and weight and sits in my mind staring back at me. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does I try to pay attention. The first of these was not original, not startling, but it was significant. It was "life's too short". That's a roaring cliché, but if you actually look back at it's unblinking stare, it's pretty damned profound. I filed it away, all those years ago, and I've lived by it ever since.

It's sent me off on yachts across the South Pacific, seen me quit unsatisfactory jobs, take a crack at flying helicopters, spend time kicking around the Formula One paddock, and move hearth and home across the country for love - of people, of places, of a way of life... of whatever called.

Of course, it's also seen me skint, scared, bored or battered from time to time, but it's never once left me thinking "I wish I'd tried..."

Some years later, when working with a particularly gloomy but interesting co-worker, between us we came up with "you're born, you move stuff about, you die". As a definition of a life it was faultless, in our view, and it focussed the mind in a similar though subtly different way to "life's too short".

I vowed to be fussy about what I moved. Not to move stuff I didn't have to. Then to accept that moving stuff is just what life's about, and not to make too big a deal out of it. Like the first one, this aphorism has stood me in good stead.

Last night a new one popped into my head. Presumably the result of some mysterious alchemy taking place in the back of my head for a while now, brought to its chemical conclusion by the presence of a warm bath and white tiles - as so many thoughts are. :o)

The new thought is "everything good is about balance". I think I know what that means. But I suspect I've still some discoverys to make. I think it's a phrase you can live by. I'm going to give it a go, and see where I end up. After all, life's too short.

Happy reading,
by Kimbo!

Breast Cancer Care Charity Cookbook

The eBid forum members' cookbook is finally launched - hurrah! Pleased to have been a part of this - along with a great team. Nice to work with people who actually do stuff instead of sit back and wait for somebody else! :o)


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Book review: The Fig Tree, by Aubrey Menen

I am currently reading The Fig Tree by Aubrey Menen. An old orange Penguin, original price 3/6. I love old Penguins. Not read this before and like very much. Funny story about a man who accidentally invents aphrodisiac figs. Since it's all about, effectively, GM crops it's also strangely up-to-the-minute! Written in 1959 before the phrase "GM crops" existed.

It's set in Italy, and is reminiscent of (but better than IMO) the Don Camillo books. I always find the Camillo stuff a little twee, but this avoids that trap. It's whimsical and clever, and puts a smile on your face.

Happy reading!

The Fig Tree


And a short post-script connected to nothing in particular... I've only just discovered how to publish reader comments. Luckily there was only one, but I apologise to the patient reader who commented last year. Oops. :o)

Tide's still out

Meva' harbour


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Sun's out and so's the tide

Mevagissey harbour at low tide.


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Beware the Abbot, by Hugh Burnett

Bought this, read it, laughed out loud and now moving it on...


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Fabrics chosen for glasses & phone cases

Chosen this girly pink fabrics for my cases from @babsnray


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Sunny spell in the harbour

Testing my new phone, to be honest!


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Currently reading

It has finally occurred to me, somewhat belatedly, that as a bookseller it would be relevant if I blogged what I'm reading myself. It would be nice if, at some stage, this could even become a review... but let's not get too ambitious. So, starting with the simple things, here's what I'm reading now.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, by Joanne Fluke

And here's where I'll keep my list.
Reading list, by Kimbo!
And I'll try to back-date that a tad so that recent reads are on there too. It's a start!

Happy reading,
by Kimbo!

eBid.net billboard

If anybody tells you eBid doesn't advertise! :-O that's a whopper!


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Free Twitter background

First free Twitter background for @ebidwidgets - need to get a few more made and decide where to home them


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Magpie History of Food

Picked up at the weekend... can't decide if I should keep it or sell it!


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All of a Twitter

I've been introduced to Twitter. I do hope this turns out to be a Good Thing. I fear it might be slightly addictive. Though not as time consuming as Squidoo, my other recent compulsion. At least with all these networking toys, one knows one's not alone out there on the virtual High Street. It can feel a cold and lonely place when nothing's sold all day. :)

If you're not familiar with Twitter, I hope you'll take a look and think about joining in. It's a great way of checking what your chums are involved in, letting folks know when you've been busy updating, adding stock to your stores, making new stuff. Once there, you get to "follow" others, and you'll be welcome to follow me... it's not as creepy as it sounds!

Spread your eggs about in hard times

There's little doubt that many of us are feeling the pinch at the moment. That times are hard is hardly news. But how to cope?

I've spent the last five or six years happily pottering along being a classic second-hand bookseller, keeping more than I sell, parting with volumes only when the price made it irresistible, lacking only the dusty shop premises and marmalade cat. But irresistible prices are, understandably, harder to come by at the moment.

My own response to this has been three-fold: 1. working harder to promote those places where my books are offered for sale, in an attempt to drum-up more buyers; 2. using more places, trying every available outlet that presents a professional front (and ignoring the rubbishy ones!) 3. doing a few more things other than selling books.
All of which comes fairly under the heading of "not putting your eggs in one basket".
In part this suits me very well, in that it chimes perfectly with my belief in "slow living" and harks back to older values. No hard-charging career path, but a mixed bag of bits and bobs - doing what needs doing, keeping the variety going, working at whatever job presents itself. A few decades ago I might have been looking at child-minding, taking in laundry, helping out in a local shop or doing a spot of cooking... in these less hide-bound times the range of things a woman is able to put her hand to are rather different, but it comes down to the same thing: do a bit of whatever you can!

I've found I'm spending more time doing techy stuff - more akin to the IT career I left behind those half-a-dozen years ago. And the nice thing is: I'm really enjoying it. Doing it on an ad hoc basis, and at a pretty low level, I'm getting all the fun, and none of the stress. Admittedly, the income's rather different - but then, I've got used to that! I've also been indulging my creativity a bit (always pleasing). Combining those two aspects, I've been putting together some auction templates, banners etc,and having a lot of fun doing it.

So, if you're finding things are pretty tough right now, think about what skills you have - have a trawl back through that old cupboard of experience, and see what else you could be turning your hand to. And good luck!

eBid alternative auction site - remember when selling was fun?

When it comes to selling books I don't mind admitting to being a bit of a site-tart. I'll sell my books via any outlet that looks like it will do the job. But some sites make it more fun than others, and some seem to have lost their sense of fun and community altogether.

Like most small-scale online retailers, I started out on ebay. Five or six years ago it was pretty much the only place to be. But as you probably already know, in the last year there's been something of a sea-change at ebay. A place that built its reputation on small business sellers flogging a few widgets, and hobby sellers emptying their actics, decided that wasn't the reputation it wanted after all. Bits and bobs, odds and ends, interesting rarities were not the way it wanted to be perceived. Nope, ebay wanted to be the world's biggest box shifter. Pile 'em high, but not necessarily sell 'em cheap... after all, we've all learned something from Gerald Ratner, no?

Don't get me wrong, ebay's a business and they're entitled to take whatever business decisions they choose. They're still market leaders, and they still get the greatest foot-traffic of any of the alternatives, and I'm still making sales there, thangkewverymuch. But by squeezing the small seller, upping fees, increasing the prohibitive rules (you must offer paypal, you must ship DVDs free, you mustn't link to your own site, you must not pass go or collect 200 pounds...) they've made selling there a less than gigglesome experience. And frankly, I like a bit of a giggle now and again. So what's the alternative?

Well, the good news is, there is one! eBid.net is the alternative auction site, recently voted best ebay alternative by webuser mag', and is growing exponentially as more and more sellers depart ebay's shores - if not forever, then surely for a break to test the waters elsewhere. But there's the rub, it's the sellers that are leaving, not the buyers. The browsers just aren't there in vast numbers yet. But I look at it this way: you don't get shoppers in a mall when it's still a pile of bricks. Now, ebid's well past the "pile of bricks" stage and is a working retail outlet where buyers and sellers are getting together every day and money is being made. But there's no denying it's much s l o w e r than other more established outlets. So I'm going with "build the shop, and they will come".

What are the advantages? Mostly it's the people. All ebid users, buyers or sellers, will appreciate the friendly and helpful forums, especially if they've ever strayed into the bear pits that exist elsewhere. On the whole, the community is helpful and supportive, and stupid questions (yes, there are such things, I don't buy the alternative theory ;o)) tend to get answered with patient understanding... or maybe just a small amount of sighing and the occasional leg-pull... nobody's perfect! Rows rarely develop, and when they do, they tend to get quashed pretty quickly by the management. And there's the next advantage...

eBid is run by a pair of entrepreneurs (and a mysterious and shady bunch of sidekicks that are neither named nor numbered) known collectively and affectionately as "da boyz". Mark and Gazza, to give them their real if informal titles, set up eBid together some years ago and, incredible in this day of anonymous mega-corps, can still occasionally be seen flitting about the site. Requests for changes to category structures for listing will be pounced upon by Gazza in category-blitz mode from time to time. Announcements about planned outages (always helpful, never accurate!) are made in person. When users with problems post their woes on the forums, a "can you give us the item number?" from Da Boyz is not unusual. They're human, they're present, and they show every sign of actually caring about their customers. How extraordinary!

The selling forms and setting up of defaults is simple to use, though it's unfamiliarity can cause problems for those not used to change. Sellers can have up to five stores at no extra charge. Listing prices start at nothing for those with the most expensive membership (and that's just fifty pounds for lifetime membership - it's even cheaper outside the UK). Small fees are payable for extras, such as additional photographs or gallery listings. Listing formats are flexible, allowing a range of durations, automatic reposting, free scheduling and many other clever options. And six times a month eBid uploads details of current listings to Google, for added exposure. Payment methods are more varied, and far more flexible, with sellers being able to make their own choices about what is and isn't accepted.

There are problems, beyond the smaller buyer-base: the site reliability is definitely not all that it could be, with occasional planned and unplanned outages. Invoicing to buyers is somewhat erratic, although issues when raised do at least get addressed. Facilities for bulk-uploading are limited, and rely to some extent on willing ebidders providing third-party solutions. The help files are terse, and tricky to navigate... though the forums provide excellent support on a volunteer basis.

Which brings us back to the start again. What makes eBid special? The people. Why not come along and meet them? You can pick up a bargain while you're there.

Happy reading (and happy shopping!)

Letter to the Editor, The Times listens!

Yesterday, The Times newspaper printed an article claiming that Internet Booksellers were killing the art of browsing shelves. Well, I couldn't let that go unanswered! Not least because the person most quoted was Margaret Atwood... now I'm sure she's a lovely person, but I've always found her stuff completely unsellable, I'm afraid -- she's just the sort of mass-produced paperback author that's filling the modern chain bookshop shelves (not to mention the dreaded supermarket), and flooding the secondhand market to the detriment of serious second-hand sellers. Sorry Margaret! Anyway, The Times decided to print my letter (most gratifying) so I got to have my say. Resaid here:

Sir, The solution to the problem of the “death of browsing” in bookshops is the same for today’s internet buyers as it always was for the high street shopper (report, April 23 ).

Eschew the glossy megastores, packed with shelves of identical bestsellers, and head for the secondhand backwaters. The evocative scent of musty pages might be missing, but browsing through “shelves” of books by genre, style or author is still very much alive. A good seller will still be happy to chat about particular writers, will provide photographs of the item for sale, make recommendations and seek out special titles for their customers, all of which will take place without the buyer being rained on, incurring parking fees, or even having to change out of one’s dressing gown.

That link should work to take you to the original article that got my dander up.

Incidentally, they edited out the final line, where I admitted that sometimes the seller was in his or her dressing gown too. Too racy for The Times, eh? ;)

Happy reading!

New Year, New Look

I'm always thinking about ways to improve the bykimbo site, and to make it an easier and pleasanter experience for my visitors. With the hope, of course, that this will turn visitors into customers! It seemed to me that somehow over the last few months I'd lost sight of that a little bit... I'm very pleased with how the site looks, and all the terribly useful information that in now holds. But actually buying a book was starting to get a bit complicated! So I've had a bit of an early spring clean, and put the stocklist details right there inside the front door. After all, the priority for all of us -- whether selling or buying -- is to get to the books as soon as possible, right? So I hope you like the new look and layout, and I hope it will help you to find that little something you can't live without reading. Happy New Year, and happy reading, by Kimbo!

The sad thing about being a bookseller

There are moments when being a bookseller is a terribly sad thing. Mostly it's wonderful spending all day every day surrounded by beautiful volumes of pearlescent prose and stunning illustrations... and then you have to sell them! I recently was lucky enough to find a really lovely pair of rebound Gilpins. Namely "Remarks on Forest Scenery 1791 1st in2vols VGC" as the auction headline had it. These have now sold, to a buyer not a million miles from me in the New Forest, so at least they've stayed close to their original and spiritual home. But I have to admit that whenever a book (or set) as nice as that comes through the door, it's not always easy to remember that I'm not just buying for my own enjoyment. That said, I do find it hugely satisfying to send a nice book off to a good home. I know my customers are all real book lovers (I don't sell Jeffrey Archers after all!) and it's always clear that the books are going to be loved and read with great enjoyment. Especially so when you take the trouble to let me know. I particularly enjoy those little notes that say "my wife's going to love this", or "I remember this from when I was a child". Half the fun of books is the memories they leave us with. And I get to share your memories as well as enjoying my own.