palmer.william wrote:

As far as I am concerned--and the following comment
is limited to situations where customers cannot see
and touch the books they are buying--an ignorant,
ungrammatical bookseller is about as attractive
as a toothless, habitually-drooling chef.

Oh, I don't know. I did quite well buying from a lady selling a copy of
something she called "Under the Milk Weed" by Dylan Thomas and - among other
finds - I have several times picked up for just a few dollars 19th century
works of which there are a dozen or fewer copies listed in libraries
worldwide. The fact that the seller cannot spell the title of the book he or
she is selling, or do the rudimentary amount of work needed to see whether
it might have some scarcity or collectible value is part of the attraction
of eBay.

Sellers who cannot write a book description very often know next to nothing
about books. Of course, some of them are idiots who think their 1924 Grosset
and Dunlap edition of Great Expectations is worth hundreds, if not
thousands, of dollars, but they are easily ignored. The ones to keep an eye
out for are the ones who've listed a first UK edition of a Leonard Cohen
book in the poetry section, rather than as a collectible book, neglected to
mention that it *is* the UK first, or that it is actually the hardback
version, not the paperback that usually circulates, or that it is in a very
creditable dust jacket (to give another recent example of a book I bought
and resold on eBay).

In such cases, one or two questions just to sort out the basics - Who is the
publisher? Are all the pages present and attached to the book? - or to clear
up issue points - What is the price on the dust jacket? Does it have an
advertisement for such-and-such at the back of the book? - and, hey presto,
a sleeper has been awoken.

Of course, sometimes the questions can alert the seller; asking whether the
misprint on line 23 of page 147 is present could make even an ignorant
seller aware that It Might Matter. But that's all part of the game.

Mr. or Ms. Internet Bookseller, you will either
describe your listings in grammatical English
using the standard terms of the trade or you
will not get my business.

Well, but I hope you will try googling and checking sellers' descriptions on
ABE, just to make sure those impeccably-written descriptions haven't been
lifted lock, stock and barrel from someone else - a popular sport among many
eBay sellers.

I buy from articulate and well-informed buyers as well, of course. But God
bless those sellers who don't know their colophons from their elbow!

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com