THE AT-HOME BUSINESS OF BUYING AND SELLING USED BOOKS

In Business, May/June, 2004, Vol. 26, No. 3, p. 17

When it comes to organic farming books, if Keith Crotz can't find it, then you don't really need it.

George DeVault

WHAT DO YOU DO with a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois, a double major no less, in botany - and the history of science? If your name is D. Keith Crotz, you add a master's in botany from Southern Illinois University, then go right to work at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
That lasted just one whole year. “I found that I wasn't suited for sitting behind a microscope, six days a week, eight hours a day. I was looking at mosses and small Australian plants and naming them,” Crotz says. “While a prestigious job, it didn't pay diddly-squat. I was scheduled to get married, and while my future wife had a good income, I didn't.”
His fiance, Mary Ann, was a secretary in the Law Department of the Santa Fe Railway in Chicago. Crotz soon ditched the museum and began working for the railroad. He was placed in the Damage Prevention Department. “I worked on fruits and vegetables, freight claims, how to properly load and protect railroad freight, which included everything from car parts to toilet paper to bagged dog food.”
Before long, Crotz was transferred, first to St. Louis, then to Philadelphia. The couple bought a house in nearby Delaware. “It was in Delaware that I first started buying and selling books. I had collected books on botany and plants and had begun trading those in the late 1970s and early '80s,” Crotz says. “The railroad job, with all of its travels, gave me a chance to get the pulse of the trade. I bought, sold and traded different authors and genres.”
Then Reaganomics derailed his job with the railroad. Crotz was laid off. He sold photocopiers, door-to-door for three months. “It was the most god-awful job I ever had in my life,” he says.
A CHANGED LIFE
It also happened to change his life. Crotz sold a copier to a man named John Ballinger, owner of the Book Press in colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. The two men became friends. And Ballinger became Crotz' business mentor. At the time, Crotz was merely dabbling in the book business, selling a few titles on one subject, a few more on a totally different topic. There was no advance planning, no long-term strategy. Crotz' only real focus was on “first editions,” simply because he had a vague hunch that the first copies of any book to roll off of the press were the only thing that collectors really wanted.
“Boy, was I naive,” he says. “John sat me down and said, 'There is no one in the world who knows botany and the history of science like you do. Why aren't you doing horticulture, gardening, agriculture, and plant-related books?' I said, I don't know. Hadn't thought about it.”
Jobless, the couple moved back to the Chicago area. Mary Ann got her old job back at at the railroad. And Crotz got serious about the book business. In the spare bedroom of a third floor walk-up apartment in Brookfield, Illinois, he launched The American Botanist Booksellers in 1983. “American Botanist specializes in out-of-print books on agriculture, horticulture, olericulture and their history,” his brochures proclaimed. “We maintain a large stock of books and can locate unusual books for you in these fields.” Crotz also offered his services as a specialty book appraiser and sales agent. “If American Botanist does not have or cannot find your gardening book, then you don't really need it!” To reinforce that claim as THE authority in the field, Crotz adopted a woodblock logo of an early American botanist in Colonial garb - complete with tricorner hat, waistcoat, knee breeches and large-buckle shoes - standing in front of an antique apple tree with an open reference book in his hands.
“The logo came from a contest I had in my second or third catalog,” Crotz says. “I offered $50 to whoever designed a logo that best incorporated early American history, gardening, agriculture and books. It was a lot cheaper than hiring a graphic designer.”
Four years later, the couple moved to Chillicothe, Illinois, a town of about 6,000, 18 miles north of Peoria. The Crotz family ancestors settled in Chillicothe in 1858. “We aimed to pursue vegetable gardening and book sales on a full-time basis,” Crotz says. The couple bought a ranch home on the edge of town. It came with a 725 square foot wood frame cottage 20 feet from the front door. That little “white house” became the new home of American Botanist. The house was less than five miles from his grandfather's farm, which they viewed as a haven in troubled economic times.
The vegetable gardening is still a work in progress, but both the family farm and the book business flourished. In good years, the gross from book sales is comparable to Crotz' railroad pay. Once the cost of health insurance is taken out, the net comes closer to his museum pay. But the “intangibles” of being your own boss are “priceless,” Crotz adds.
GETTING INTO “CERTIFIED ORGANIC”
The farm's traditional corn-soybean-wheat rotation quickly disappeared as wheat prices plummeted. Fifty tillable acres now produce certified organic soybeans that sell for $12 per bushel, nearly triple the conventional market price. His beans are bought by the Japanese for tofu. Oats/clover replaced wheat in the farm's crop rotation to add nitrogen to the soil and allow several mowings to keep weeds from setting seed.
But neither success came easily or quickly. “I'm a city kid. I didn't grow up on the farm. I was only on the farm on weekends and occasionally in the summer while growing up,” Crotz says. “Today, I can do tractor repair, fix diesel engines, change hydraulic lines, stretch fence, birth lambs and goats, and bale hay, the whole works, much to the credit of my tenant farmer Jim Hicks who taught me so much with enduring patience. I take all of it to heart.” Crotz jokingly refers to himself as an “Amish-reformed farmer. I shall use no tool that does not have a seat and a diesel motor.
“The book business was a roller coaster of income and outflow. The best collections and books always came along when you didn't have any money and so I took a job teaching general biology at Illinois Central Community College in East Peoria. It allowed me the freedom to have a regular cash flow for the between-catalog- times.
“I was issuing five catalogs a year. There were four regular catalogs. That meant I had to buy 800 books four times a year. I would sell 65 percent to 70 percent of the books in every catalog. The fifth catalog was a midsummer discount catalog - 50 percent off every book. The idea behind the discount catalog was to allow me to clean the shelves, reduce inventory and put aside a nice little cash purse that would allow me to take four buying trips a year.” His travels took him throughout the Midwest, to New England, the Pacific Northwest and even to Europe - three times.
PROFITABLE MAILING LISTS
To keep things manageable and profitable, Crotz held his mailing list at about 1,000 names. He sold catalog subscriptions for $2 each. After one year, subscribers who did not buy a book were dropped. His list of customers grew to include avid gardeners and farmers throughout the country, as well as corporate executives interested in organic farming, professors at land grant universities, authors and journalists such as New York Times writer Michael Pollan. Other customers included Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute, and the late publisher Robert Rodale. Gene Logsdon routinely refers people to Crotz for copies of Logsdon's out-of-print titles. He also has done private book appraisals and consulted with historical gardeners at Monticello, Old Sturbridge Village and Seed Savers Exchange. He has sold books to the Smithsonian, National Agricultural Library and various botanical gardens and arboreta as far away as Thailand, Guam, Austria, Australia and Japan. Mainly, his customers are a whole lot like Crotz, everyday people with a passionate - practical - interest in practicing organic agriculture.
Crotz became a regular exhibitor and speaker around the country at organic and small-farm conferences, meetings of specialty vegetable growers, herb growers and direct marketing associations.
Long a friend of Kent Whealy, founder of Seed Savers Exchange, Crotz became a fixture at the group's annual summer campout at its headquarters near Decorah, Iowa. It was there in 1994 that he met Wendell Berry, the famous poet-author-farmer from Kentucky. “Mr. Berry was the keynote speaker that year. I had a copy of his “The Unsettling of America” in my display of books. He said, 'Wow, I haven't seen one of these in years.' And as he signed it, he asked what the book was worth. I said, 'Oh, probably $50.' When he finished signing, I said, 'Now it's worth $75.' I have never sold it, even though it has a price-clipped dust jacket.”
It has a what? “A price-clipped dust jacket,” Crotz says. “A signed first edition of some of Stephen King's titles could be worth $1,000, but if that signed first edition has the price snipped or clipped from the dust jacket, something as simple as that reduces the price substantially. The philosophy of book collecting is to possess a copy as it would have come from the publisher, unchanged and unaltered. Age is unimportant in the value of a book. The three most important things are condition, condition, condition. When you're collecting books you have to ask yourself, will you be happier with a price-clipped dust jacket or will you wait? Buy now,” Crotz advises. “Upgrade later.”
Crotz practices what he preaches. His personal book collection includes 20 titles by or about gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and some 80 Rick Bass books, periodicals and manuscripts. Collecting has rubbed off on his two children, who were raised at book sales, auctions and garage sales. His 19-year-old son, William, has a large and fine collection of Star Trek memorabilia, while 15-year-old Genevieve has a collection of signed Clive Barker first editions.
AT-HOME ENTERPRISES
“Collect a subject that you like and, before you know it, you will have a bookcase full,” Crotz says. That's why he believes collecting is one of the best at-home businesses there is. “Any subject that you can generate a central theme about or around will work and work well. People collect books about marbles. You can collect books on any imaginable subject.
“In order to succeed, you must also become THE authority on a subject. Any subject. It will take some time to do the research. When I started collecting books myself, there came a point in time where I actually had to know more about the subject than the experts. They had the connections for finding and acquiring books. I had to tell them what to look for.”
The advent of the Internet, Google, Amazon.com and eBay have drastically altered the book business and direct marketing. “The Internet allows you to contact people more rapidly than the antiquated postal system of generating business. But even trading on eBay, you really need to know your subject. With 20-plus years of experience in just horticultural books, I have a decided advantage over most people in buying on the web. On eBay the other day, there was a copy of L.H. Bailey's 'The Nursery Manual.' It had a dust jacket. In 20 years, I have seen two other copies of Bailey with a dust jacket, so I bought it because the price was meaningless. Whatever price it was at, I could sell it for more. It was a rare book because of the dust jacket. There are gardening bibliophiles who will pay for that level of completeness. That same approach would apply to anything.”
Other areas Crotz says are worth exploring for a possible book business include: Frugal living or living simply. That is an area that people are starting to explore now; Feng Shui. Some books back into the 1930s would be quite valuable now. Budding collectors might discover books on the topic far older than anyone would recognize; and Wabi-sabi in terms of design might be interesting in terms of collecting.
“You could also be a book scout. There are people who make a living being book scouts. It's not like it used to be, of course. Many mom and pop storefront bookstores have closed. Why pay rent when you can do the same thing from home without increased overhead? Many out of print and used book stores are not in business for the selling to the general public, but for the finding of books that they could sell to established clientele. Like most book dealers, I have a 'want list' of titles that are sold the moment they are found.
“Every bookseller has a story about what walked through the front door one day.” For Crotz, that day came a few years ago at a Peoria book fair where he was offering free book appraisals. “A little old lady tottered in. Her husband had brought a few things back from the war in Europe. One was a 1514 illuminated manuscript, a breviary or prayer book in Latin. It is worth probably $20,000 to $25,000. She still has it. I know someone who will buy it.”
If it sounds like Crotz has thought carefully and considerably about the book business, that's because he has. He taught a college course on buying and selling used books. In 1995, he even wrote a book on the subject. “Used Book Sales: Less Work and Better Profits” sold 5,000 copies. The 80-page paperback is now out of print, but sells on Amazon.com for $7.50 to $10.50, depending on condition.
PURSUING A PASSION
At age 50, Crotz is poised to pursue his passions for both organic farming and the very best books on the subject with a vengeance. He sees both as essential keys to establishing national food security - what he calls “true homeland security” - in the 21st century.
“My focus, more and more, is on esculent vegetables. It seems criminal with the price of oil and the cost of transportation that we import a significant amount of our food in this country ($41 billion worth in 2002, a five percent increase from the year before, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture), while much of the same product could be grown here. In fact, it was grown here not too long ago. Would it be a lie to say that farm chemicals that are illegal to use in the United States are exported for use on vegetables that then are being imported to this country? Not at all. And it makes no sense whatsoever. That is why I am becoming so passionate about food which is grown, sold and consumed within a 50-mile radius. It wouldn't break my heart if gasoline were to rise to five dollars a gallon.”

D. Keith Crotz can be contacted at American Botanist Booksellers, P.O. Box 532, Chillicothe, IL 61523. E-mail: agbook@mtco.com or visit www.amerbot.com.

Copyright 2007, The JG Press