The online bookstore can save you time and maybe money. Perhaps you are looking for a specific book or you just want to browse for titles. You don't want to pound the streets and hit all the local bookstores looking for it. Where do you go? Connect to the Internet, and surf to an online mega bookstore or specialty independent. Twenty minutes later, your book is paid for, gift wrapped, and shipped. Where are these virtual bookstores you ask?

Online bookstores are getting better with more selection, more reviews, more features, and sometimes better discounts. The price comparison sites are especially useful for finding best terms. We've updated this popular newsletter a second time for links and description of services, and added some new recommendations. (February 22, 2001_

The Big Guys

The first and most obvious place to turn to is one of the mega online bookstores: Amazon., Barnes and Noble, Borders in the United States, Chapters and Indigo in Canada (soon to be one), and BOL (Bertelsmann AG) in Europe. With the exception of Amazon, these stores are all divisions of huge chains that existed physically (and still do) before they became virtual presences on the Internet. These sites use secure server software and encryption to ensure secure commerce transactions.

Amazon (www.amazon.com):

Amazon advertises itself as "Earth's Biggest Selection TM of products, including free electronic greeting cards, online auctions, and millions of books, CDs, videos, DVDs, toys and games, and electronics." After your first visit you are greeted by name, and Amazon recommends titles based on your previous purchases. To date, Amazon leads the rest of the pack with its many personal features - recommendations, alerts, and reviews. In now (Feb 2001) sells used books as well. Of course, if you are Canadian, the downside of shopping at Amazon is the exchange rate!

Amazon.com in the U.S. will ship to anywhere but people in the United Kingdom and Europe may prefer the selection and service at www.amazon.co.uk.

You may also shop for more than 1.1 million books in Japanese at www.amazon.co.jp; or you can shop at www.amazon.fr and "find millions of products, including every book, CD, DVD, and video for sale in France, plus 700,000 U.S.titles"; or you might want to shop at Amazon's German online store at www.amazon.de.

Barnes and Noble (www.barnesandnoble.com):

The B&N claims "the largest in-stock selection of any online bookseller, period." It has always been the exclusive bookseller to the New York Times web site (www.nytimes.com). You can read the review at NYT and buy the book at B&N. Just like in the real store, B&N has a bargain book table, and another for top picks, or you can check for out-of-print. B&N has long been known for its ability to locate hard to find and out-of-print books; happily, they will still do so. Other sevices include New and Used College Textbooks: you can buy new and used textbooks or sell them back your used textbooks and B & N will even pay for the shipping costs.

Chapters

Chapters has been Canada's largest bookseller and main owner of Chapters Online Inc., the company behind Chapters.ca (www.chapters.ca) and Villa.ca (www.villa.ca). In January 2001, Chapters was bought by Trilogy Retail Enterprises, thereby joining it with Indigo (see below). Together they account for about 30% of the market in Canada for books. People interested in the battle of the book titans will want to read the CBC Bacgrounder (2000-2001)

Chapters.ca sells books, magazines, videos, music, electronics, software and gifts to Canadians. . (Side note: Villa.ca is devoted to home and garden products). It has also extended its book department to include bargains, out-of-print, and magazines.

Chapters.ca and Amazon are consistently in the top five retail sites for Canadians shopping online according to measurements by Media Metrix Canada.

Indigo.ca (www.indigo.ca)

Indigo is the dominant step-sister to Indigo. Online and offline it aspires to be "a cultural haven" and "stress free".

Indigo is the world's first cultural department store committed to being your most complete and trusted resource for books, music, gifts and much more. And it is our goal to inform, inspire and indulge you; to connect you to the thinkers, writers, musicians and provocateurs who are defining our moment in history. (From Indigo About Us)

Indigo has been the exclusive bookseller for @HomeCanada and Sympatico.

BOL (www.bol.com)

BOL is the international e-commerce arm of Bertelsmann, offering thousands of titles in five languages. It has virtual stores in eleven European countries ( U.K., Germany, France ...) and five East Asian (Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore). BOL provides personalized book recommendations, articles and selections by authors, a newsletter, live chat with authors, and order checking. It has also expanded into music, videos, DVDs, and gifts.

Other Possibilties

What if the book you are looking for is out-of-print, not in stock, not at the mega store or belongs to a specialty genre that you know nothing about? What to do?

There are solutions. There is a myriad of small, specialty online booksellers catering to specific audiences. The following is a list of a few sites to give you an idea of what is out there on the Internet.

While Barnes and Nobles is known for its ability to find out-of- print books, you could go straight to the source. The Advanced Book Exchange (ABE at www.abebooks.com) is "the world's largest network of independent booksellers". ABE is a Canadian company located in British Columbia. Barnes and Nobles chose ABE as their official out-of-print search engine at the end of 1998. It is possible to search by author, title, publisher, keywords, and you can specify which bookstores you would like to search as well as what binding you prefer, and attributes such as first edition, and price. There are over 25 million listings! Learn more about book collecting through the ABE seminar as well.

Everyone loves a good mystery. A Compleat Mystery Bookshop (www.compleatmystery.com) has a searchable catalog, reviews, and a list of recent arrivals. Located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the bookshop ships to Canada and other international destinations. Avid mystery fans might prefer the Poisoned Pen (www.poisonedpen.com) for its booknews newsletter, reviews, recommended readings, conference listings, and collector's corner for the rare finds. Added Feb 22, 2001

Do you like to cook? A good resource (and Canadian too!) is The Cookbook Store located at www.cook-book.com. Browse by category or check the bestsellers. Titles by Canadian authors are flagged. Staff will answer questions over a toll-free line.

Nanny's Web Books for Children (www.nannysweb.com) is an interesting source for used and out-of-print books. Finding a specific book depends on what they have in stock. Although Nanny's doesn't have the fancy shopping carts of the bigger books stores, it is still possible to order through email using a major credit card or postal orders.

Textbooks

There are several sites in North America selling used and new textbooks to colleges and university students. These usually offer a wide range of goods and services to the 18 - 24 year-old market.

Bigwords.com: "The premier online college textbook store. Discounted new and used college textbooks." Based in San Francisco, it has connections with 350 colleges and universities. Ships free in the U.S.; minimum charge of $14.95 for shipments to Canada. Emma Smith, founding president of Canada's Wired Women Society, described it as "full of attitude and books".

efollet.com: Follet has new and used textbooks. It claims to have an inventory of 16 million books and links to 1,000 college campuses. Search by school within state (or Canada as a whole), by book, or by subject category. There are some giveaways for buyers too.

Best Prices

You needn't check all the sites for the best prices. There are several comparison shopping services. Of course, there are the shopping services at the portals such as Yahoo, Excite and Lycos, but the following sites specialize in books.

Addall (www.addall.com): Addall will compare selection and prices across forty online bookstores for new and used books. It also allows you to choose the currency for quoting prices and will ship anywhere in the world.

Allbookstores (www.allbookstores.com): All Book Stores will search out Oprah picks, College prep textbooks, medical texts, best sellers and anything else with its round up of over 30 stores - including the Canadian Chapters and Indigo. Added Feb 22, 2001

Bestbookbuys (Bestbookbuys.com): Searches 24 bookstores including the regulars - Amazon, B&N, Borders, Powells - and also FatBrain. Customers rate service and delivery.

Bibliofind (www.bibliofind.com): This is a site for collectors. Bibliofind searches over 20 million used and rare books and periodicals at thousands of stores. Join the mailing list. Added Feb 22, 2001

Bookfinder (www.bookfinder.com): Bookfinder is a mega-search engine. Through its relationships with several major vendor networks such as ABE and Amazon, Bookfinder can search across the collections of nearly 10,000 bookstores. Search on name, title, keyword, or price range. You'll find new and used in the display of titles, stores, and price. Read the Help page for search tips and more information about this excellent site.

DealTime (www.dealtime.com): One can comparison shop for anything at DealTime. Select Books and search for title or author or use Dealtime's Advanced Search for more options. Dealtime has versions for the U.S., U.K. Germany, Japan. Doesn't ship to Canada. Changed from DealPilot Feb 22, 2001

Directory Sites

Often the easiest way to find a bookstore or service that will meet your special needs is through a directory site.

The Books and Reading section to The Digital Librarian (www.digital-librarian.com) is a tremendous, hand-picked list of specialty bookstores, search engines, and book-related sites. The entire site is the creation of Margaret Vail Anderson, a librarian in Cortland, New York.

4Bookstores (www.4bookstores.com) is another guide to the "best on the web", covering booksellers, publishers, genres, and book clubs. You might be drawn into a chat room.

Publishing.about.com has a page that lists major directories to bookstores in the U.S., Canada, India. (publishing.about.com/arts/publishing/cs/bookstores) There is also a section for just Online Bookstores. Added Feb 22, 2001

Some other directories to consider:

• Open Directory (dmoz.org) > Shopping > Publications > Books. The subcategory, Searches, lists several book search services.
• Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) > Business and Economy > Shopping & Services > Books.
• Looksmart (www.looksmart.com) > Lifestyles > Books > Bookstores

Conclusion

The online bookstore can satisfy many needs. The collector can track down a rare title, the researcher can get an overview of a topic through a listing of titles and stay up to date through notices about new books; the person in a rush can get the best price and shipping terms and have the book in a week or less; the holiday shopper can stock up on books for vacation; the author and the readers can meet and discuss. Online bookstores have been popular from the earliest days of the Net and poll after poll shows books as the most popular product to buy online.

Happy bookstore surfing!

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