Not a single book
It seems the ABAA has accounting issues or money problems or both.
A while back there was a kerfuffle on the ABAA chat line concerning the annual budget. Apparently there were serious losses in some areas. Further communal agita led to the disclosure that all this might just have been due to discrepancies or inaccuracies in our accounting system. Pom Harrington said he’d look into it and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
Shortly thereafter the ABAA bookfair committee announced that members of the Ephemera Society of America were being invited to exhibit in the Boston show, and the chatline blew up again. Some felt the quality of our professional organization would be diluted by the inclusion of an org. outside our trade group. Nickel-dimers pointed out that our annual dues are ten times greater than those of ESA. Doesn’t that make them ten times less worthy? The legalists went back and examined bookfair rules and came up with convincing arguments pro and con. The majority, I suspect, didn’t much care one way or another. They were simply interested in finding affordable venues in which to peddle their wares.
Then this week I received my comps and advertising material for the Boston Book Fair, and was surprised to see that they were charging admission all three days – $25/$15/$10 for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Admittedly, at this end of my career I don’t pay a great deal of attention to ABAA goings on, but I have a distinct memory of the Boston show a few years ago when, for the first time ever, they suspended admission charges. Everyone could get in free! Attendance records were set, more dealers had good shows, and everyone seemed happy. Those halcyon days, it seems, are long gone.
Escalating real estate expenses and increasing scheduling difficulties have put both LA and SF on the float, with shifting venues every year, and the future of both the Hynes Convention Center in Boston and the Park Avenue Armory in New York seem uncertain at best. So where does that leave us?
I dunno.
Back in the day, strong provincial fairs like Trinity or MARIAB played significant roles in our commercial grind, and I notice the Johnsons, Eve and Ed Lemon, and even the ABAA have experimented with promoting events that seem more like provincial shows of old in size and scope, rather than expensive and complex full-on international book fairs. Non-US dealers are free to participate, but “international” doesn’t figure much in the publicity for these events.
Years ago I ditched Park Avenue in favor of the Shadow or my hotel suite. These days LA and SF are more like vacation/buying trips. Boston is in my back yard, so I can’t not do it and the Shadow, which makes for a busy weekend!
But more and more my attention is on shows like Seattle, or off market events like Allentown. And I will refrain from harping on the irony that one of the best shows on the calendar is the Ephemera Society show each spring – you know, that unsanctioned gang of papermongers who only pay 1/10 the dues we ABAA experts pay. Why, they don’t even have their own lawyer!
Thanks for your continuing work in explaining current aspects of the rare book trade. I’m sometimes asked if I’d like to get back in the trade, and while there are many aspects of it I miss, the trade has moved on without me, and I can’t picture myself getting back on that train. And I’m happy not to get dragged into a debate on the relative merits of trade associations based on annual dues.
Not so far as Ed, and not so close as Greg to the madding crowd. I often mordantly quip that it’s better to be nearer the end than the beginning, but I could change my mind. What we tend to forget is that the trade before us was a different place, and the trade that follows will also be a different place. I could speculate, predict and guess on its nature, but another thing forgotten is how magazines (remember them?) featured us living carefree lives in our flying cars. Aside from their commercial benefit and social aspect, fairs held some excitement, a little electricity, a wee bit of the unknown or undiscovered that could be just one aisle over.