Add your books to viaLibri – No matter how your site is built
One of the parts of viaLibri I’m proudest of is our Harvest service, which allows any dealer in rare and antiquarian books to add their own website to viaLibri’s search database. It’s the part of viaLibri where what we believe in and what we’re good at come together: we think independent booksellers deserve to be found by collectors worldwide, and we’ve built the technology to make that happen.
By signing up to Harvest you can get your books in front of the thousands of serious collectors who search viaLibri every day. If they see something of interest, these collectors will come directly to your website. No middleman. No commission to pay. Just more eyes on your inventory.
Today we’re formally announcing that Harvest works with any bookselling website, regardless of how it was built.
How does it work?
When you sign up for Harvest, we connect to your website and automatically import your listings into viaLibri’s search results. Your books appear alongside those from the world’s major bookselling platforms (AbeBooks, Biblio, eBay, and many more) but with one important difference: every listing carries a “Direct from Seller” link that brings buyers straight to your door.
Inventory changes are picked up automatically every four hours. Add a book to your site in the morning; by the afternoon it’s searchable by collectors worldwide. Remove a sold item and it disappears from our results just as quickly.
Your listings are matched daily against almost 200,000 active wants saved by over 7,000 viaLibri users through Libribot, our automated search agent. Harvest subscribers get preferential treatment here: matches are sent immediately to all users, regardless of their subscription level.
It doesn’t matter how your website is built
We have direct integrations for popular platforms such as Shopify, Bibliopolis, ChrisLands, WordPress and WooCommerce. For sites that don’t fit those categories, our system can scrape and extract listing data directly from your pages. It doesn’t matter whether you use Wix or Squarespace, or you’ve got a hand-coded site from the early 2000s. If your books are listed on a webpage, we can harvest them, whatever platform you’ve chosen.
Harvest is designed for individual booksellers with their own websites. If you run a multi-dealer site or auction house, get in touch. We’d love to talk about other ways to list your items on viaLibri.
What if my books are already on a marketplace like AbeBooks or Biblio?
If your books are already on a marketplace like AbeBooks or Biblio then they’ll already be included in viaLibri’s results. But when the customer buys through the marketplace, it’s the marketplace that owns that customer relationship, not you.
With Harvest the customer comes directly to your site to see what you have to offer. Maybe they’ll browse and see what else you have. Maybe they’ll sign up to your mailing list. Maybe they’ll become a reliable customer for years to come. They’re not just buying a book; they’re starting a direct relationship with you as a seller. That’s the relationship Harvest is designed to foster.
There’s also the cost: you’ll pay a commission to the marketplace for every sale you make. With Harvest, there’s no commission to pay, just a predictable monthly fee.
What does it cost?
A Harvest subscription is $25 per month for up to 10,000 items, with an additional $5 per month for each extra 10,000 items. Pay annually and you get two months free ($250/year). You can cancel at any time with a refund for the unused portion.
Every Harvest subscription also includes free exhibitor registration for our Virtual Showcase book fairs (normally $75 per event) and the Standard tier of viaLibri Premium Services, including 100 daily Libribot searches.
How do I start?
All you need is a working bookselling website. Sign up for a Harvest subscription and we’ll guide you through connecting your site. For most platforms the setup is straightforward, and our team is here to help if anything needs a closer look.
Your website is your shop front. Let us bring more people through the door.
A change of leadership at viaLibri
After more than 18 years as head of viaLibri, the time has come for me to retire and step back from the day-to-day grind of being CEO. Someone younger, smarter, and more energetic needs to move forward and take my place. Fortunately, my long tenure has also given me the great good fortune of knowing exactly who that person should be: our long-standing CTO, Alasdair North.
Booksellers who have worked with Alasdair already know that the viaLibri-dependent parts of their business will continue in excellent hands. His deep technical understanding and commitment to our mission make him the ideal person to lead viaLibri into its next chapter.
As for me, fear not. I have no plans to disappear completely. While Alasdair will be taking over my former role as CEO, I’ll be moving into a more congenial position as retired founder and Chairman of the Board. I’m entirely at ease knowing that the operation of the company I founded is being left in such capable hands.
A special thank you is due to the many booksellers, collectors, and librarians who have taken an interest in viaLibri over the years and helped to make it what it is today.
The viaLibri Blog will continue as before, and I hope to make an occasional appearance there when I have something new to say. I also hope to see new voices join the conversation, making it livelier and, I trust, more frequent.
Jim Hinck
You can find more details in our press release, or leave a comment below the blog post.
eBay auction data is now available through viaLibri
We are pleased to announce that, as of last week, live eBay auctions are now covered by viaLibri’s search engine. This is in addition to the “buy it now” listings which we covered already. viaLibri now fully covers all book listings on eBay.
The time sensitive nature of auctions means that they pair particularly well with our saved search service, Libribot. If you add the details of an item to your Libribot wants list then we will check several times a day to see if any matching eBay auctions have started. We’ll then email you details of the new listing.
Ready to get started? Simply search as usual. eBay auction results will now appear seamlessly alongside our other listings from more than 170 sites worldwide.
What We Learned From Our First Three Showcases (And What To Look For Next) Next)
Just in case you had been wondering, we thought we should let you know that another viaLibri Virtual Showcase will be happening again soon. Preparations have already begun.
When we first began back in December we weren’t at all certain how booksellers and collectors would respond to seeing yet another virtual event claiming space on their already crowded calendars. Now that much helpful feedback has been received we are ready to apply our lessons to showcase number 4.
After our third showcase, we heard a similar concern from several booksellers: “I love your website, but what if I don’t sell anything?” It’s a fair worry. Trying a new sales channel involves risk, especially when dealing with rare or specialized items that need patience and effort to sell. That feedback set us to thinking: What could we do to eliminate the risk?
To answer the question we decided to try something different. At our next showcase you will only have to pay $75 to be an exhibitor and will be able to display up to 60 books for sale.
The twist? If nothing sells, that’s all you will pay. Only when you actually sell something do we charge a small commission (4-10%), invoiced after the showcase has closed.
Additionally, if you are one of our Harvest Level Premium Subscribers your savings will extend even further and you will pay no registration fee at all. For everyone we say, “Try us out. See what happens. If it doesn’t work for you it costs you nothing.”
We have seen great books find eager buyers at every showcase so far. Serious bibliophiles are highly motivated in pursuit of their interests. Selling should not be hard. The only thing needed is for the right book to meet the right collector. We also understand that building a new marketplace takes time, and not every book finds an immediate buyer.
Our new marketing model reflects that reality. We are confident in our platform and our growing community of book lovers, but we also want our booksellers to feel secure in the possibilities we aim to offer on our site.
Whether you’re a showcase veteran or someone who has so far only been curious or cautious, now feels like the perfect time to give our showcase a try. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? You only need to showcase some of your choicest and freshest books to an engaged audience. If you sell nothing it costs you nothing. And who knows whom you may meet in the process.
In the meantime we recommend that you sign up for our mailing list so you don’t miss the chance to register for the upcoming showcase.
