Since the 1990s I have frequently bought books online through ABE Books and Amazon Marketplace. The former, by the way, is owned by Amazon as is Book Depository in England. My experiences buying books in cyberland have been contradictory. Given this I thought perhaps some of you other book buyers in cyberspace might like to know what I have found during my sojourn in cyber book buying land.
2Vbooks (provided no tracking information)
5B Celebrations
AardBooks
Abrilbooks
Ahab Books (provided no tracking information)
Alplaus Books
Ann Arbor Books
Archerbks
ASquaredBookks
Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop
AZPlusBooks
Berkeley Library Friends
Between the Covers Rare Books
Blackwell's
Book Booth
BookOutlet 1
Bookbarn International, Bristol, England
Bookfeathers, LLC
Booklegger's Fine Books
Bookmarc's
Books from California (Simi Valley, Ca, USA) (provided no tracking information on one occassion)
Books_from_California
Books Do Furnish a Room
Books etc._
booksXpress
Brandeis National Committee, Tucson
Brenner's Collectable Books
Brier Rose Books (provided no tracking information; this concern seems to be run by a grumpy old fart who appears to have the same messiah complex as Donald Drumpf. Beware of the prickly thorns herein)
Brotherton Books
Bucks County Bookshop
CalliopeBooks
Calumus
Cape Cod Booksellers
Carlson Turner Books
Cath' n Williams Books
Chapter 1 Books
Chestnut Hill
Chicago Book Trader
Chuck Price's Books (provided no tracking information)
Circular Books
Comic World
Copper News Bookstore
CrossRoads Supply
CS Booksellers
Driftless Books and Music
Ecoslsnc
enough 8
Eric265
Fast and Friendly Shoppe
fumaxiu
Gil's Book Loft
Goodwill, Charlotte
Grendel Books
H&G Antiquarian Books
H4o Books International
Hand Picked Books
Hawking Books
Holly's Book Rack
hfofstuff
Ink Paper Glue
Jay W Nelson Bookseller
Jean Michel Books
jenzbookbiz
KathyandGeorge
Kennys Books
Kitsch.Maven
Labyrinth
Larklaugh Signature Books
Library House Internet Sales
Linbarb S
lilah2
Longhouse Publishers and Booksellers (provided no tracking information)
Lucianas
LV_Store
Magical Mystery Shop
Maddenbooks
Mad Hatter Books (provided no tracking information)
MaidenBooks
Market Books
Market Square (provided no tracking information)
Matthew 952
Midtown Scholar (recently sent me an ex-lib not described as ex-lib; unforgiveable first strike)
mistymorninbooks
Monroe Street Books
Montana Book Company
Montclair Book Center (provided no tracking information)
Murray Media
Nerman's Books and Collectibles
New Creek Books
Owl Pen Books (provided no tracking information)
Paperbackshop-US
Piscataway and Potomic Group
PJ Grill Books
PineLike
Plumcircle Books
PorterHouse Booksellers
rare-games
Rare Reads (provided no tracking information)
RBRMedia
Recycle Bookstore
Red's Corner
Redux_Books (provided no tracking information)
Riverton Fine Books (provided no tracking information)
Robotic GradStudent
SBCelebrations!
SeldonBooks2
SecondStoryBooks
ShopBook
snowcrowley 2
stars_and_stripes
Steve Thorson, Bookseller
Steven Edwards (provided no tracking information)
Tabletopart
Tacoma Book Center
TBookss
Vachon lsland Books
Virtual Booklovers Books
Voyager Book Shop
Wayside Collector
Wood Thrush Books
Yellow Mum
Ziesings (provided no tracking information)
I moved Oriental Research Partners from the Good to the So-So category after purchasing a second book from the seller. The second book, it turns out, was sent to Washington state; I, however, live on the East Coast. Then the seller refunded me for the first book I bought from him and received. So instead of a $12.72 refund he refunded me $11.09. This experience, I guess one can say, was one that was both thread though with incompetence and slyness at the same time.
Far too many misdescribed books, books described as underlining or highlighting free but aren't. Sell books to Powells Portland at your risk and for a fraction of what they are worth; Powells Portland pay you only in Paypal or Powells credit. Demoted from the good because of misdescribing books.
On most occasions a very good bookseller who sells at reasonable prices. However, there can sometimes be a bit of inconsistency in their descriptions of the books they have for sale. Sometimes a book described as good is very good and sometimes it is good minus. On three occasions an ex-library book was not described as ex-lib.
What, some of you might be wondering, is Amazon doing in a blog that rates used book sellers? The reason is simple, Amazon, when packing books, treats them like bars of soap, so when they arrive they often look used with their bruises, their bumps, their bent or foxed pages. There is no seller I am familiar with that is uglier, skankier, and slaggier than Skankazon.
BookmanOrange (yet another flim flam company that has description deficit disorder, a disorder which manifests itself as an inability to describe an "ex-lib" book as "ex-lib)
Books 247
BreakTimeBooks
HiddenGemsBooks
Julies-Bookshop-UK (described a book with bumping on the edges, a cover that looked like it had been used as a punching bag, and a title page with ink blacked out with black marker as "like new")
Katie'sBooks (inaccurate description of book condition)
Momox
Nana Anna (did not note book ex-lib)
Newsboy
Onc1958
Southern Maryland (inaccurate description of condition of book)
UHR Books (Did not put the fact that the book they sent me was ex-lib in the description of the book and provided no tracking information)
Waterworks, NYC (described a book with significant underling as vg and made, of course, no mention of the underlining)
Westcott and Company Books and Fine Prints (said book was clean; wasn't)
WorldofBooksUSA
WordSmyth 2
Conclusion: The ugly tend to, in my experience, have several things in common. They sell cheap. They are the ones at the top of the Amazon list of used books for sale. They seem to be supremely challenged in what has apparently become a difficult art to master since the 1990s, the accurate description of a book. The ugly commonly describe a book they are selling with the verbs "may" or "can" as in this book "may" or "can" have underlining or highlights or this book "may" or "can" be ex-library. They tend to describe books as in better condition that they actually are in. In the rhetoric of the ugly, a good book becomes very good book and very good book becomes a like new book. Whenever a potential book buyer sees any of these clear markers I would recommend that the potential buyer immediately flee and look for an alternative seller who has a firmer grasp of what the book being sold looks like in reality. Whether these sellers are just incompetent, Machiavellian in their appetites for profit at all costs, or both remains an open question.
Not only are the ugly intellectually challenged when it comes to describing books, they also generally have awful "customer service". For example, I asked the con capitalist firm of WorldofBooksUSA (which now goes by the awful name of WOB) for a description of a book (The Movie Book of Film Noir) they had for sale. The company's customer service representative, a term I use very loosely, said they couldn't tell me anything about the condition of the book beyond what they posted. Let's hear if for corporate customer service whose motto seems to be you pays your money and you takes your chances. And the award for worst of the worst goes to WorldofBooksUSA. But hold on, When I asked Hippo Books the same question, I got the same response.
Better World Books
These three booksellers, Book Deals, Ergodebooks, and GlassFrog Books, told me, in emails, that they sell mostly ex-library books. They don't generally tell you this in their descriptions of the books they sell, however. That these three booksellers don't provide customers with this important information tells you how slaggy and skanky they are. They are the book selling equivalent of snake oil capitialists. Caveat emptor.
One thing to keep in mind about companies like Better World Books is that they also sell books under other names. One "company" they sell books under the name of is Books Unplugged. One real bookseller from Cleveland refers to this as book juggling. I ordered a book recently from Books Unplugged in New York and received the book I ordered from Better World Books of Mishawaka, Indiana. Books Unplugged, which advertises itself as an "independent bookstore" seems, in other words, to be a front for or is somehow related in some shape, way, or form, to Better World Books. Apparently one now has to explore the links between bookstores selling online in the same way one has to explore corporate interlinks. By the way, Books Unplugged, in patented Better World Books fashion, sent me a ex-library book that was not described as an ex-library book. And it had the gall to describe this book as "very good", something, given the markings in ex-lib books, it simply cannot be.
Julian's Books, New York City
This "bookseller supposedly sent me a book from NYC, I say supposedly because he did not put up tracking information so I could follow the books progress. It was supposed to travel two and one hours north by 28 April. It never arrived raising the question if it was ever actually sent. I sent the seller several emails because the seller was unresponsive to emails asking about tracking information and a refund. It simply doesn't take over a month for a book to travel two and a half hours north of NYC. I finally got a grumpy email from Julian's and eventually a refund Avoid like the plague.
Monkey Books
Monkey is right. Another incompetent and lazy bookseller. Monkey Books classified a "good" book as "very good". It did not classify the book they sent as "ex-library", but it, of course, was. And that means, by definition, that the book is not "vg" given the stamps and other garbage on ex-lib books. Additionally, this braniac posted his 1961 edition of the book on the page of a later revised edition. Finally, the book of over 600 pages was poorly packaged and arrived severely damaged. Anyway, I am sick and tired of these incompetent flim flam snake oil "booksellers".
I purchased A Hero of Our Times from this "bookseller", a term I use very advisedly, via ABE, which may be even skankier and slaggier than Amazon but then it is owned by Skankizon. The item as pictured and the ISBN as listed was for the OneWorld translation of Lermontov's classic. What did this skanky and slaggy bookseller send me? Well they did sent A Hero of Our Time but in the Dover edition. Apparently this "bookseller did not know the difference between the British publisher OneWorld and the US thrift book company Dover. What can you say about a bunch of skanks and slags who don't even know the books they are selling or who don't give a shite about them them other than that they must be capitalist flim flam men who worship the almighty dollar regardless of how they get it? One thing I can say about Murray and ABE is avoid this scam artist and the service that aids and abets scammers like the plague.
Zeke's Books
I have ordered four times from Zubal in Cleveland and each successive time I ordered was worse than the previous time I ordered. On one occasion the seller did not note the underlining in a book described as vg. On the second occasion, an ex-library book was not described as ex-library, as it should have been by any good bookseller. Apparently the proprietor of Zubal is constitutionally unable to state the obvious, namely that a book he has for sale is a former library book or an ex library book. For these reasons I have moved Zubal from the good to the ugly category in this blog. I will not be purchasing from Zubal in the future. I advise you to avoid them as well.
After further analysis I have decided to move Zubal from the bad to the slaggy and skanky after they sent me this sophistic response. "Hardcover, minor sticker residue to front pastedown, hand stamps to page edges else text clean binding tight in a chipped and worn dust jacket". As I noted, firstly, as any good bookseller knows, ex library books must be, at least by an honest bookseller, described as "ex-library" or "ex-lib" or former library book. You did not note that critical fact. Second, when ex-lib is not noted, hand stamps can refer to personal hand stamps such as John Smith. Third, a John Smith can and sometimes does hand stamp on the edges of books. Fourth, pastedown can refer to book plates which are pasted in and then removed. To conclude, there was ambiguity in your description because you did not note what any good and competent bookseller would, namely that the item was a discarded Chicago Public Library book.
Finally, let me note that Biblio, the book selling service I used to buy this skanky book, aided and abetted Zubal in screwing this consumer and has apparently decided not to hold that flim flam "business" accountable for its fake and inadequate descriptions. I will no longer be using that service. It really says a lot when ABE books, which is owned by Amazon, has superior customer service to the "independent" Biblio.
Epilogue