Chairs in the Aisles

It’s like crocuses in the Spring. After every New York book fair come weeks of emails on the ABAA chatline concerning the show, arguably our signature event and one of the biggest, richest, and most spectacular of its kind. New York’s where the money is, always has been.

What interests me is the shift in tenor of this annual barrage of New York Book Fair posts.

When the chat line first began, our concerns were somewhat different, at least as reflected by email content. One of our major issues back then was that – despite all our best efforts – the ABAA and the trade in general appeared to be ageing out. Not to mention our customers! Initially this was mostly the concern of the middle-aged cadre of ABAA members. We still had years to go in our careers, and we didn’t want to see the book biz dying before our very eyes. Eventually, the entire Membership picked up on it. Now we have “Discover” shelves, and courses and contests for young book collectors.

I don’t know if it was anything the ABAA did, if any of those “best efforts” had a lasting effect. Certainly, it is the natural course of things that the old move on and the young move in. Does anyone today worry that there’s not enough new blood in the trade or that the younger crowd isn’t interested in our wares?

There was another issue that used to come up – that the show wasn’t “fair” because booth rents were exorbitant. You still hear a little of that, but the question of “fairness” seems to have morphed into a discussion about whether or not the Sandy Smith International Peacock Show is “worth it.”

This is mainly the concern of newer dealers, many without comfortable assured incomes, for whom the show presents a huge outlay and considerable risk. I’ve aged out of that group, but for at least the first third of my three decades at the Armory (I never broke into six figures but was in the 90s once. Last show I did, in 2019, reaped a cool $3160), I was one of those younger dealers. And for me there was never any question that the New York fair was “worth it” – whether I made money or not.

My last Armory show, 2019. Total sales $3160

That’s because the Big Show is a tribal initiation, a ritual of suffering that ultimately confers upon participants the right to be “real” antiquarian booksellers. All those meals and conversations people write about, all their triumphs, frustrations, their sad and funny stories, all their buying and selling and winning and losing, and yes, even this year’s supercharged debate about CHAIRS IN THE AISLES… All those concerns for the future – valid as they may be – are secondary to the sense of inclusion that surviving the Big Show confers upon us. And it’s not just the little fish. I once asked Bill Reese if he’d had a good show, and he rumbled, “Any show I survive is a good show.”

Somehow we’ve survived chairs in the aisles. This is the Armory in 2017. Ten Pound Island grossed $48,500 that year, a little better than average. But the buying was lousy. Only $6500. Maybe it was all those chairs.

2012 was a more organized year for chairs. We only did $20,700 that year, but buying was excellent, bringing our total close to $50K. Is there a relationship between chair placement and sales?

So all this current email chat about wine bars and branding and the invasion of Europeans, and even the history and propriety of chairs in the aisles… I read the subtext as

Yes! I survived. Now I belong. Now I’m one of the gang!

That, friends, is a wonderful feeling, and one I will always cherish. I don’t need to be doing the Big Show to enjoy that sense of belonging, because I feel I’ve earned it.

A good thing, too, because I can’t even go in the Armory anymore.

PTSD