Q&A: Where can I outsource my book database maintenance?

QUESTION: I have a PDA with a database book pricing program on it. I have a difficult time trying to download the program onto the PDA. I've e-mailed the manufacturer twice, but no help.

When I get my program to work, it works well. I would like to outsource the task of getting this program onto my PDA every month. How can I find someone for this small job? People usually outsource to foreign countries, right?

ANSWER: Two likely places to try are Guru.com and GetAFreelancer.com. On these sites, you post a job, and volunteers bid on it. It's a reverse auction -- the lowest bidder gets the job (after you check out their credentials and references, and give the OK).

For work that can be done via e-mail, these freelance networks are a great way to find affordable expertise. Many of the workers who bid are overseas and they're willing to work cheap. Earlier this year, I posted a job on GetAFreelancer and got about 50 bids, many of them at rock-bottom prices.

But just because someone's willing to work for below minimum wage doesn't mean it's a good deal for you. One thing you've got to watch out for: Some of the people who respond will have very limited English skills. You want to find someone you can communicate with, of course. So take a good look at the writing they've posted on their profiles, that will give you a hint on their language skills.

Amazon surveys sellers on third-party tools

If you've taken a look at your seller account page recently, you might have noticed this yellow box at the top. Amazon wants sellers to answer a series of questions regarding third-party software tools for managing your "Amazon sales channel."

Unlike some previous surveys, this one doesn't offer an Amazon gift certificate.

Here's what they want to know:

1. Do you use third party software to sell on Amazon?

2. Please select the Amazon websites that you sell on?

3. What is your Amazon seller name?

4. What is the name of the software that you use?

5. What is the contact information (Name, E-mail and Phone) for your primary contact at the software company?

6. What is the name and website of the software company?

I'm a bit curious as to why Amazon is after this information. Do they want to develop their own software tool and put everyone else out of business? Or perhaps they want to inform these software makers about changes ahead at Amazon.

Should hoarding be banned from book sales?

I received this note from Sandra Adamson at Acquired Books and I think it makes a great editorial:

I went to four library sales this weekend, and at every sale there were a couple of teams hoarding all the books.

I think it is high time that we as an online bookselling group begin together to make a united effort to have hoarding banned from booksales.

It is bad enough that some sellers have access to the books before the sales and the sales themselves have been thoroughly picked over, we then have to deal with rude sellers who now have teams and take practically all the books of the shelves/tables.

They are not buying all of them they just want to look through them at their convenience in a corner and removed them so no one else can have access to the books before they can decide if they want the book or not.

The library sales are not private sales and some people pay to get in a preview sale!

If you take a book from a shelve/table you should buy it PERIOD!!!

No taking books and putting them aside or under tables and throwing tarps/blankets on top unless you are definitely going to buy them!

I think sellers should contact their libraries and start asking to ban hoarding. If you have a scanner stand at the tables and scan the books in place and put the books in your bag.

The sales are becoming a place of rudeness and chaos. Is this the image we want the public to have about booksellers in the community??

I would love to see a letter posted here that seller could paste and copy and send to all their local libraries asking to ban hoarding just like pushing for a legislative bill, there is power in numbers!

What do really think about this epidemic?

Thanks, Sandra, I couldn't agree more. I recently raised this on BookThink and posed the question "Will Technology Kill the FOL Sale?" My point was that it's gotten a lot worse out there because of scanners, but the major culprit is simply bad behavior by some dealers who are intent on hogging all the books.

What do you think?

Q&A: Should cellphone price-checking be banned at book sales?

QUESTION: I just learned that one of the biggest Friends of the Library sales in the country, the Gainesville FOL sale, has banned the use of "scanning devices." Is this a good idea, and is it getting to be common?

ANSWER: I haven't run into this personally, but I'm hearing about it more and more -- price-checking being banned at book sales.

Back when I started selling some six years ago, there was no such thing as ScoutPal. You just had to go with your gut, and learn to pick books by experience. I've always bought a ton of books whenever I'm at a library sale. (I infrequently use cellphone price checking at big sales because it slows down how fast I can grab books. On the other hand, I don't have a scanner, I have to key in the ISBN. Maybe if I had a scanner I'd check prices more often.)

So I have mixed feelings about this. Even before there was such a thing as cellphone price-checking, I remember getting lots of dirty looks from FOL volunteers, simply because I was buying lots of books.

Why would people get mad at you for buying lots of books at a book sale? Three reasons, I guess --

• It creates more work for the FOL volunteer who has to total your bill and box up books.
• Some people resent it when they realize you're buying books to make a profit.
• Aggressive book dealers can make it harder for "regular" book sale attendees to find good books.

My reaction has always been, "Hey, it's a book sale! Sorry to be such a pain, but isn't this the whole point -- you want people to buy books?"

I guess from the point of view of the FOL volunteers, "dealers" can keep the rest of the public from finding good books at sales -- and that scanners have made that problem much worse. And that cellphone and PDA price-checking have made it so much easier to identify "dealers."

I'm sure we've all seen example of the rudest behavior on the part of book dealers who knock people over grabbing books, block off big stacks of books, scan them, then leave piles of books unsorted. Those few bad apples are the reason scanners are getting banned from more and more sales. That's too bad.

I'm curious if other people have run into this also.

Q&A: What type of scanner do you recommend for booksellers?

QUESTION: Can you recommend a good source for a light/scanner pen? I use Homebase for my inventory on a Windows 2000 based-system. About 90 percent of the books I enter into Homebase have ISBNs and currently I key in all the numbers manually. It sure would save a lot of time and also help ensure accuracy if I could scan the barcode from the book with a light pen and have the ISBN appear in the appropriate field in Homebase.

ANSWER: I've tried two different scanners, one which didn't work well, and one that has worked just fine.

My first scanner was a Cuecat. You can still get these for a few dollars on eBay, but I don't recommend them. Often it took me three or four passes before the Cuecat would spit out the numbers. I could type the numbers faster than that.

After that experience I decided to get a more reliable piece of equipment -- a presentation scanner, which sits on a base. Since you wave the barcode in front of the scanner, you have a free hand, since you don't have to point the scanner.

The one pictured here is the one I use, it's a Metrologic Orbital, and has a powerful, reliable laser. I found somebody who had a good deal on them at an eBay Store and it was a great buy. It's been a few years so I can't remember the name of the store. But there are several Stores who have this type of equipment on eBay with excellent feedback. Another place to get scanners is POS Guys.

If you don't mind using a handheld scanner, you can get a used one for a song on eBay. You might want to get a used one on eBay just so you can try it out before spending a lot of money.

Just make sure you buy one that's set up as a "keyboard wedge" output. That simply means that it plugs into your computer's keyboard port, and the output appears just as if you typed it.