How to get ahead or at least stay afloat in the rare book trade

After three decades in what's not quite a proper job, I don't have any formula for success. But I have had some instructive experience

I've been a dealer for over 30 years, and I still don't understand, quite, how the rare book trade works, or how so many of us make a living from it. A customer of mine, a super-accountant of apparently unlimited means, once observed to me that "whatever book dealing is, it isn't a business."

"What is it then?" I asked.

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