If you look for books online with any regularity you know who they are.
Their names show up on almost every search you do.
Their prices, for the most part, are completely out of whack with the other listings for the book.
Their descriptions are more often suited for the selling of commodities than books.
Oh, and they don’t own the books they are selling.
A colleague of mine refers to them (and the online sellers who offer books for a penny) as the “termites eating away at the foundation of bookselling.”
Now it seems that one of these mega-listers, Anybook, has taken this insanity a little further. According to Paul Allen in his piece for ibookcollector (registration required) Anybooks are harvesting the “wants” people leave on Abebooks and matching them up via ISBN number. They are “putting a complete set of ISBNs on ABE, the matches get quoted automatically, and Anybooks get to know the contact details and interests of everyone who responds.”
I emailed Abebooks some time ago asking them how come they don’t have an ignore feature, similar to the ones found on many message boards, so that their users can block out these type of listers. I never did hear back from them but I did see that they tested a feature (which has quietly disappeared) where you could refine your search (after your initial search) by a “Rare Book Specialist” parameter through the”Features” drop down menu. It refined the search to ABAA booksellers only. I trust many of their other sellers were not fond of this approach and it disappeared.
What it tells me is that the stock of professional booksellers is rising and the more these flagrant ethical violations are exposed the sooner Abebooks will have to act. The longer they wait the greater the chance that traditional booksellers will jump ship and then what would they be left with?
For a good explanation of what a mega-lister is see Shawn Purcell’s piece Defining Mega-Listers for the IOBA. Also Gwen Foss’s piece The Bane of the Online Book World: Mega-Listers is worth a read.
Thanks (again) to Stephen J. Gertz at David Brass Rare Books for the lead