Here are eight places to find interesting current information about collecting, buying and selling antiquarian and rare books using social media and the internet.
1. DISPATCHES FROM THE RARE BOOK TRADE - Scott Brown
Scott “Downtown” Brown writes Dispatches from the Rare Book Trade on Substack. Read him at https://downtownbrown.substack.com Brown is based in Portland, OR. He’s a good writer and an enjoyable read on a variety of topics including the business side of bookselling and related topics including comics. This is one of the better places to find the real nitty-gritty of 21st century bookselling and the specialized knowledge that goes with it. See his archives of recent and not so recent posts at https://downtownbrown.substack.com/archive
2. REID MOON is an antiquarian book dealer and pop-culture collector, widely known as the owner of Moon’s Rare Books in Provo, UT. Dubbed “a museum disguised as a bookstore” he’s well known for his Mormon inventory. https://moons-rare-books.myshopify.com/
His shop features ancient Bibles, first-edition classics, and historical artifacts. In business for many years, Moon considers storytelling his forte. He began daily sharing on social media in 2022. This approach expanded his reach to a world-wide audience. His current claim to fame is 1.4 million followers on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/moonsrarebooks.official/ He is also active on YouTube, TikTok and Facebook.
3. TOM W. AYLING is a UK book dealer who is an accomplished user of social media. He is widely followed and reputed to have grown his business to seven figures in only two years by having top material to offer and aggressive use of social media. Find him on Instagram, Facebook, X, Substack and TikTok where he has over 400K followers. He also hosts a YouTube channel with more than 300 videos and 336K subscribers. Here’s a recent article, The Business of Being a Rare Book Dealer, that focuses on Ayling and fills in most of the blanks. https://downtownbrown.substack.com/p/the-business-of-being-a-rare-book-dealer To find his other accounts Google his name. He is prolific and effective.
4. REBECCA ROMNEY is one of the internet’s most active and visible social media antiquarian book mavens. She’s articulate, informative, user friendly, and top of mind both to prospective buyers, collectors and members of the trade. Her home page is https://www.rebeccaromney.com/ Visit it to find links to the Jane Austen Bookshelf, Rare Books 101, and her own high profile bookshop Type Punch Matrix, located in Silver Spring, MD, open by appointment.
Romney is also active on Instagram with 277K followers. https://www.instagram.com/rebecca.romney/ Find over 300 bookish videos from Romney on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@rebecca.romney
5. RARE BOOK HUB Weekly Auction Report
The Rare Book Hub publishes a free weekly auction report and update. Visit the home page at https://www.rarebookhub.com/ and then click at the top on the purple bar with the heading News and Reports and pick Weekly Auction Update. These reports include information on what sold in the most recent week and a calendar listing of next week’s auction here and abroad. The URL changes each week so bookmark the home page to find it easily. Readers can sign up to have the weekly auction report emailed to them directly every Sunday.
6. SPENCER W. STUART files a weekly book auction report on his YouTube channel, the Antiquarian Outlook. So far he seems to have only a handful of followers, but these reports definitely deserve a wider audience. He offers a quick video review of what’s sold each week, as well as some of the items passed over. He’s not as well known as some of the others, but his auction reports are consistently interesting and useful. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaQVo9d3lrQhbPyI-EVISSQ
7. The Ex-libris List
The Ex-Libris list is a strange animal; it’s an old fashioned list-serve well populated by academics, institutions, libraries and archives, also dealers, collectors, auction houses and the like. Think of the librarian stereotype and you’ll be right at home. There’s not much chat, but a tremendous amount of antiquarian information is posted here. It’s definitely useful if you come from or do business with any of these worlds.
As far as the trade is concerned the most attractive features of Ex-Lib is the free Tuesday “Commercial Post.” The number of booksellers who have taken advantage of this feature has steadily increased in recent years, so it’s become a really good place to offer new inventory and view a cross section of what’s available from better sellers from around the world on a weekly basis. Be aware if you do sign up you will receive dozens and dozens of Commercial Posts on Tuesday.
It is strongly suggested that those who are new to Ex-Libris lurk for a while before posting and FOLLOW ALL THE RULES or risk expulsion.
Link to subscribe is https://list.iu.edu/sympa/info/exlibris-l This link has the rules. READ THEM. Reach the mods at exlibrismods@gmail.com
8. REDDIT: If you’re an older dealer or collector you probably aren’t lurking on Reddit. But should your tastes be eclectic and run to authors currently popular with younger fans, it’s worth creating an account. Reddit is notable for its huge traffic volume and hive mind approach. Unlike most of the other social media platforms which showcase the individual, Reddit has thousands of different subject categories known as subs. Many of them are book-map-photo-ephemera friendly and have a decent amount of traffic ranging from hundreds to many thousands of views and comments.
Some of the Reddit subs worth checking out are r/rarebooks, r/bookcollecting, r/mapporn, r/science fiction, as well as a diverse list of subs devoted to individual authors as varied as r/Jane Austen, r/JRR Tolkien, r/Cormac McCarthy, r/HunterS.Thompson, r/StephenKing r/PhilipKDick and many more.
Antiquarian book enthusiasts on Reddit tend to be young, male and keenly interested in monetary value. Even with the emphasis on the quick flip, there’s a surprising amount of very solid information passing through this platform, even if it tends to be scattered, screwy or at times wide of the mark.
Each sub-Reddit, has its own moderators and its own rules, and some of these rules are very vigorously enforced. Don’t be surprised to have a post taken down, ignored, vilified or mocked for no apparent reason. It’s easy to get permanently kicked out of different groups for relatively innocent rules violations, so read the rules for each sub before posting.
This is essentially an anonymous space and a very good place to get wide exposure for individual or specific items with minimal effort or expense.
Repeat: it’s good to lurk a while and become familiar with how Reddit works before posting – Read the rules for each sub.
Warning: Reddit is much more than books. It’s addictive, truly international and it can eat up a great deal of time.
