Rare Book Monthly

Articles - November - 2010 Issue

Risk Management for Booksellers

Risk management applies to dangerous and mundane fields alike.

Risk management applies to dangerous and mundane fields alike.


by Renée Magriel Roberts

Example of risk management: A NASA model showing areas at high risk from impact for the International Space Station.

I first ran into the concept of Risk Management when I wrote my first book with my first husband (so many books, so many husbands, so little time), Backgammon. Backgammon is not just a game of luck, but a strategic game, used by many individuals in the financial services industry - as well as game players - to better understand risk.

Simply put, you want to increase the probability that something good will happen to you and decrease the probability that something bad will happen to it by positioning your checkers around the board, deciding when to attack and when to play it safe, and making decisions about the stakes.

Managing risk means that first of all you have to identify the effect of uncertainty on your objectives, whether they be gaming, or business, or life, and then follow up that identification with action to either minimize risk or, on the flip side, maximize your opportunities.

While bookselling seems like a relatively safe occupation, I'm sure we can all recall instances where businesses have completely imploded: from death, from illness, from natural disasters, and from competition (bricks-and-mortar and/or internet). Play it too conservative and you can wake up to find yourself without moving inventory; play it too risky and you can lose your shirt.

We have an internet-only business. This basic decision - for us - has done quite a bit to minimize risk, not the least of which is that I can't be fired. It also means that we are reducing our overhead, and eliminating store traffic, which I once had and did not like. In-store theft is not an issue (we don't do book fairs either). This is both a personal decision and the kind of risk I don't want to manage.

Because we began the business with our own collection of books, it has the strength of our own interests: biographies, children's books, twentieth-century literature, medieval studies, music, and books about science. We've been in business eight years now, and have increased our holdings to other related categories, but not specifically into areas in which we have little or no knowledge. We want to be able to have a reasonably intelligent conversation with our customers.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
  • Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: ALDROVANDI, Ulisse (1522-1605) - [Opera omnia]. Bologna: Bellagamba, Benacci, Bonomi, Tebaldini, Ferroni, 1599-1668. €22.000-€28.000
    Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: [CANALETTO] - VISENTINI, Antonio (1688-1782) da Giovanni Antonio CANAL (1697-1768, detto 'Il Canaletto') - Urbis Venetiarum prospectus celebriores. Venezia: Giovanni Battista Pasquale, 1742-51. €7.000-€10.000
    Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: LA FONTAINE, Jean de (1621-1695) - Fables Choisies. Parigi: Claude Barbin, 1668. €7.000-€10.000
    Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: MERCATOR, Rumold (1545-1599) - [I continenti] - Europa; Africa; America Sive India Nova; Asia. Amsterdam: S.d. [ca. 1633]. €2.000-€3.000

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