There was plenty of buzz in the book blogosphere back at the beginning of December when Forbes released their special report on Books
In reading the special report and spending some time on Forbes.com I was struck by the absence of anything to do with the non-new book market. The articles in the report dealt with the many different aspects of book culture but none ventured into role of the secondary market in book culture.
When I checked the Forbes.com website I noticed that the collecting segment of the ForbesLife contained very little if anything on book collecting.
Finding this omission a little troublesome I sent an email to their marketing director who then forwarded it to the section editor.
Here is a snippet:
I notice that the Collecting segment of ForbesLife does not include much in the way of information on collecting books.Book collecting is a legitimate pursuit and a pastime of many of your existing readers as well as a segment of your target audience. Is there someone I can talk to about providing content in this area.
Though I never heard back it is good to see that the have given some coverage to this part of the book world.
The lead story, Piece of the Week, from ForbesLife -Collecting covers the private sale of a rare 1860 copy of the beloved poem ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas “The handwritten sheet passed from a private collector to a Manhattan-based media executive for the sum of $280,000”
There is also an article in their Technology section “The Ten Most Expensive Books of 2006” which talks about the rare book auction world and gives some good information on what determines a books value.
They also talk with William Reese (who they mistakenly call Robert in the story), who is one of the leading American antiquarian booksellers of our time. When talking about the recent auction trends toward maps and illustrated books Reese offers this astute observation:
the rare-book market has seen a general trend toward the visual, with photography and books of illustration also growing in popularity. “I think the taste of modern times tends to be visual rather than literary”
Why they place an article like this in the technology section deserves, some day, to be explored as well but for now let’s just say any coverage is good coverage.
Ah, the taste of modern times!