Anthony Marshall's take on internet selling

I am no longer an internet bookseller. It’s over, finished, done with. And I am delighted. I can’t help wishing that I’d taken the plunge years ago. But to everything there is a season –  and a reason.

Most of my bookselling life has been a lonely business: waiting for trains, scouring shelves of dull books in the hope of finding one good one. But for five years I had a shop, and that wasn't lonely at all.

It was in one of the world's best spots for a bookshop: London's Cecil Court. We had some serious customers; some serious thieves; and some world-class time-wasters. In fact, when I finally sold the lease, I wrote the names of the worst ten on a piece of durable cardboard, so that I could take it out and look at it if I were ever again tempted into retail. (It hasn't been needed). Dr O---, Mr S---, Ms G---: have no fear, your secrets are safe. (Unless you should make any attempt to contact me via the Internet, in which case I will zap you into outer cyberspace. You have been warned.)

All bookshops used to have a cheap box out the front to clear stock and tempt passers by; sometimes they were more profitable than the goods inside.

Some in the book trade may remember M, a chancer with a good eye for business. One day M comes into the shop and says, "Do you know a novel called We? By some Russian bloke."