The Book Shop buys, sells and trades books at its physical location in Iowa City Iowa, and globally online via the internet. Our roots in the book trade and distance selling date back to 1963. Since 1997, we've been offering select books and guaranteeing customer satisfaction on such book venues as ABE, Alibris, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Biblio.com, Biblion.com, Borders, Choosebooks, eBay, Half.com, ZVAB.com and our own website. This is the newest but by no means the first form of distance selling.

The definition of distance selling is the offering of products for sale to potential buyers who are not able to hold the three-dimensional items in their hands. In our early days in the book business, distance selling was accomplished by catalog, an itemization of books in a rather compressed and specialized vernacular, made available to a relative few who came to learn of us by word of mouth or ads placed in specialty publications.

Today, in a miraculous evolution of distance selling, we can offer our books to the entire world. We create what are called listings, or database records, in a computer program called HomeBase. A unique listing is created for each book, each of which describes every detail of a particular book, including the book's specifics and condition.

Due to the surprisingly wide range of skills involved in creating database records, it may honestly require weeks, even months of training to begin to become proficient at the entire body of work necessary to create flawless, accurate and cost effective book listings to our very high standards. There is a great deal to learn. (Even better, in this business, one never stops learning.)

Therefore, rather than ask our staff to train indefinitely, and to allow each of our database staff members to become productive quickly, The Book Shop divides the work of creating a listing between our Initiators and our Listers, both of whom contribute to every listing, or database record.

The Lister, as we never tire of saying, is our purest customer advocate. The Lister is responsible for entering book-specific data into several data entry fields, bringing to completion each listing, or database record, per our guidelines and style sheet. Studying and stating in clear English how each examined book differs in condition from a brand new one, the Lister's most important job is to honestly, accurately and thoroughly describe the condition of each book to fulfill our commitment and guarantees to our online customers. This requires learning and using book terminology in what is typically the most concentrated form of writing the Lister has every attempted. The Lister finishes work with each book by uploading, or publishing, the database record to one or more online venues.

The successful candidate for the Lister position will possess:

The Book Shop is an equal opportunity employer. Employees of The Book Shop enjoy opportunities for personal growth and advancement, while engaged in rewarding and challenging work in a people-oriented environment.