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What is a publication date?
A lot of confusion exists around the concept of “Pub Dates.” Some people think pub dates are unnecessary or have no impact on your publishing strategy, but we disagree. First, let us remove the confusion of terms. “Publication date” is not the same as “sell-in date,” “bound book date,” “warehouse date,” or “ship date.”
“Sell-in date”
Let’s begin our discussion of dating with the all important “sell-in” date. This is the date that your sales representatives will begin previewing your titles to key booksellers. All of your sales materials should be prepared by this date. Typically this is six months before your book will reach retail outlets.
“Bound book date”
The “bound book date” refers to when the book comes off the bindery line. This information is most important for the warehouse. They will be anticipating receiving stock and preparing to cut invoices for the first releases.
This date can also be important for the publicity department. Reviewers and producers want to see finished books and publicists want to ship out the review copies as early as possible. They may request that finished copies be shipped directly from the bindery to the publicity office thus eliminating the delay of going through the warehouse process.
“Warehouse date”
The “warehouse date” refers to the anticipated date books will be received at your warehouse for shipment to accounts. Your printer should provide you with these delivery dates. This information is particularly important if you are creating corrugated displays or if your orders require special picking and packing. The warehouse needs to know when to expect inventory so they can schedule any special service details necessary before shipping the bulk of the orders.
“Ship date”
“Ship date” refers to the day your warehouse releases backorders and begins to ship your title to bookstore accounts, including wholesalers. If you are working with a distributor, “ship date” still refers to when orders start getting filled, but you need to be sure to supply your distributor with sufficient stock as soon as the books are available.
“Publication date”
The “publication date” acts as a signal to booksellers, reviewers, and producers that your books will be in stores and you will now begin marketing directly to consumers. At the publication date you should begin to advertise; media appearances should begin airing and display promotions should be up in participating stores. Another term you may hear is “on-sale” date. These two terms are virtually interchangeable.
Buyers note the publication date of your book at sell-in. If there is any significant delay to the publication of your title, you should notify your sales people immediately so they can contact their accounts.
How do I decide on a publication date?
The ideal publication date, which will maximize your sell-in process and support your marketing and publicity efforts, is six months after you first formally announce the title to your sales team. Once you have established your manufacturing schedule, you can establish a specific publication date—typically four to six weeks after the books have been released from the warehouse.
What is the best time of year to publish?
From late spring to late summer all eyes are on the very important fall selling season. Sales conferences, Book Expo America, and the fall catalog all point to high expectations for the entire list of brand new titles. Yet when the colors of the season have passed, the winds of winter become evident. If too much emphasis has been placed on the fall list, the winter will be long, hard, and cold indeed.
As December turns to January, bookstores and wholesalers feverishly begin to pack up overstocked books for return to sender. If your list of new titles is sparse come winter, you may experience a significant cash flow squeeze. Therefore, it is important to spread your list of new publications over the whole year. January and February, for example, are strong months for finance and self-help categories; gardening titles sell well in early spring. It is always important to plan from a financial as well as a marketing perspective.
Do book jackets matter?
The obvious answer is that book jackets matter because they are the best and cheapest advertising vehicle you will have for your book. However, the obvious answer is not necessarily the only answer. You need to have a high-quality book jacket in order to be competitive. Does a good book jacket help get the book into bookstores initially? The answer is a definitive yes. The reason is clear to those who sell books everyday because we see the stacks and stacks of book jackets sitting on the buyers’ desks ready to be accepted or rejected. Yes, in this environment, your book is judged by its cover.
Why are jackets important for the sell-in process?
Ideally, your sales team is selling your book six months before it is printed. However, you may feel your jacket concept just isn’t quite right. Even though it might not be your final choice, prepare a “mock-up” of the most promising design for the sales presentations.
When your sales team presents your book to key book buyers it is important to have some “mock-up” of what direction you are going with the jacket art. This serves two important functions: First, the buyers have confidence that the book they are considering is going to be published. Having a mock-up jacket demonstrates that you are well along in the production of the book. One complaint we hear from buyers involves all the preliminary work they must do to order a book only to find out at a later date that the title has been cancelled. A mocked-up jacket gives them reassurance.
Second, buyers will give constructive critiques of the direction you are heading and will give invaluable advice on a number of book jacket elements such as: straight type versus an image jacket, colors, font style, etc. Don’t miss this opportunity to solicit feedback from key buyers on your jacket concept. They enjoy helping in the publishing process and their expertise can be the difference between a so-so cover and a cover that really sells.
Does my book jacket need to be the best-produced?
Your book is in direct competition with books published by all the biggest publishers. If your cover design does not measure up to the best, then the likelihood of it ending up in the buyers’ rejection heap increases dramatically. So you need to have a professional designer produce more than one design concept for your consideration. It’s also a good idea to talk to your distributor’s sales people early in the process so that mistakes are minimized before those mistakes become expensive.
How do I find a good jacket designer?
Good designers are out there for you to find just like good editors. Jacket designers are often credited on book jackets. Many are independent contractors and might be available for your project or they can be an excellent resource for networking within the creative community. Use Literary Market Place™ or ask around; your salespeople, your editors, and even your printers will be able to give you some names.
It’s the spine
The same discipline, care, and concern you take in creating a selling cover needs to be applied to every aspect of the jacket. Although we all believe that our books will be shelved face-out, the reality is that most titles, unless they are best-sellers or in a promotion, are shelved spine-out.
So how should your designer respond to this reality of bookselling? What should be the most prominent information featured on the spine? What will resonate most with the consumer? Are the author’s name and reputation of key importance? Make certain that you can spot that author’s name across a crowded room. Do you have a clever title? Make that the prominent feature. Go with your strengths. Take every opportunity to deliver your message.
EAN barcode
In today’s world, books must be scannable. An EAN barcode allows for this. Make sure you get the barcode right. An incorrect barcode costs money to fix and causes lots of headaches. Also, many national accounts require the retail price to be included in the barcode.
For a list of Bookland EAN bar code providers, visit the R.R. Bowker Web site: www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/us/barcode.asp
Do I need to include library codes?
Library codes are required for books to be considered for review and purchase by libraries across the country. We recommend getting into the routine of requesting all of the appropriate retail and library bar codes for every title. By making this part of the production routine, you can be assured that your titles will have the opportunity to be considered for large, small and even special library collections.
For more information about the Library of Congress catalog card number contact their
Web site: http://www.loc.gov/loc/infopub/.
Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Data is a Library of Congress bibliographic record prepared for a title that has not yet been published. The publisher includes the CIP data on the copyright page. The CIP data facilitates book processing for libraries. For more information contact: http://cip.loc.gov/cipfaq.html.
BISAC codes are another important tool in the bookselling and cataloging environment. For more information about the use of BISAC codes, contact the Book Industry Study Group at: http://www.bisg.org.
Three basic rules of printing
When deciding on the quantity of your first print run, there are a few general rules to follow.
First, be conservative. You can always reprint if there is sufficient demand, though you should be sure your printer can efficiently and dependably deliver your reprints in a timely fashion. This is particularly important during peak print times—especially during the late summer and early fall.
Read the printing and binding agreement’s fine print regarding the over/under delivery of the requested print quantity. If the agreement has a 5% to 10% over/under clause, you want to make certain that you won’t run out of stock if you are short-printed. Establish a printing order that is “no less than…” so that you are guaranteed to receive the minimum quantity that you will need to not only cover back orders but also sales rep and account samples, publicity review copies, author special orders, and other bulk purchases and reorders.
Second, if your book is aimed at the bookstore market, never print more than six months’ anticipated supply. If you are reprinting a predictable backlist title, you might want to print up to a year’s worth of inventory, but remember, you are tying up cash.
Third, use the sales history of similar books to judge your needs. Ingram’s Ipage is a great reference resource for such purposes. If you have a distributor, they can provide you with access to key data.
Establishing the retail price
There are countless variables to consider when establishing the retail price for a book: category; trim size; page count; hardcover or paperback; consumer or academic market; manufacturing costs; and royalty costs and payment structures. Marketing variables include promotions, advertising and publicity. The general rule of those working at major publishing houses is to price against the competition. Another rule is to use a multiple of the manufacturing cost. The best approach is to ask your key sales reps because they have the best information from the major retailers and wholesalers who will play an important role in the success of the title.
Pricing pitfalls—what to look out for
The retail price may or may not make a decisive difference with the book consumer, but bookstore buyers and buyers at the major book chains are very aware of price and often are very reluctant to commit to a title priced higher than its competition unless there are significant additional features, e.g. much longer page count, inserts, two color, etc., that warrant a higher suggested retail price and give the consumer added value.
Bookstore buyers are also much attuned to the marketplace and sensitive to the better selling formats within a genre. You may plan to publish a title in hardcover, but the bookstore buyer may suggest that the title might be better served in another format. Ultimately the decision rests with the publisher. You need to weigh the importance of the source of the information, as well as reactions from other accounts, and then make the best decision for your title. If you do decide to change formats and prices, notify your sales group immediately. Make all necessary changes to online and other industry source materials, and make certain that all bar codes and other price indicators have been updated before the book goes to press.
Pricing a title too high can hurt a book even before it is out of the gate. Also, remember that if a book becomes established and goes into a second, third, or fourth printing, it is possible to raise the price on a reprint. This is done quite frequently, but only if the book has an established market.
Who should sell my book?
Getting to the right buyer, at the right account, at the right time, and with the right materials is the key to a successful sales call. But the selling process only begins there. At the major accounts, most sales presentations don’t end with an order in hand. Your sales team will get estimates while the buyers navigate through their company’s purchasing procedures before they cut an order. The sales team will follow up—making certain that the orders are in-house for timely shipping and then monitoring the sell-thru process. They will stay on top of the sales, communicating important marketing information to their buyers to maximize every selling opportunity.
For independent publishers, it often makes more sense to hire a distribution company. These companies not only handle all aspects of the selling process, but they have the contacts and reach to access all of the major sales outlets nationwide. They also ship, bill, collect, and handle customer service. These “back-office” operations are essential to the entire selling process and are best serviced by experienced professionals steeped in the bookselling process and retail and wholesale service requirements and expectations.
What is a book distributor?
Book distributors represent the interests and activities of book publishers. There are two primary functions of a book distributor: sales and distribution.
Why are distributors important?
Because of the explosive growth of the independent publishing community within the trade publishing industry, the role of distributors has become ever more crucial. There are several reasons for this: first, certain key wholesalers have decided to stop working directly with smaller independent publishers. Second, certain chain retailers insist that independent publishers use third party distributors as the way into their stores. And third, several distributors have become very professional in providing important selling and fulfillment services to client publishers.
Managing the back office
Running your own shipping, storage, and returns processing warehouse is both costly and difficult. In addition to managing the selling process, book distributors perform these warehouse duties for you, and have efficient systems for billing and collection in place.
Strength in numbers
In addition to their two primary functions, book distributors provide marketplace clout because they effectively represent many small independent and self-publishers in the marketplace as one entity. Unless you are doing more than $5,000,000 in annual book sales, you should seriously consider the distributor option.
What should I look for in a distributor?
As in any business relationship, you need to find a distributor whose practices and attitudes match your own. When you contact distributors, ask for the telephone numbers of some of their existing member-publishers. You want to have the most comprehensive picture possible of your potential business partner.
Visit their booths at trade shows like Book Expo America. Are the booths well managed? Are the sales representatives knowledgeable? Find the right partner, and you have a much greater chance for a successful and profitable relationship.
What would make a distributor turn my title down?
There are really only three major causes behind a book distributor turning you away at the door. We think of them as the three “P’s” of prospective book projects: pricing, packaging, and positioning. A large majority of the prospective book projects we see come to us with bad jacket and interior design, ill-conceived pricing, and no marketing plans. Distributors are not magicians and cannot take something poorly executed and turn it into a bestseller. Weak projects will most likely receive a “no” without further comment.
You are the publisher and responsible for the ultimate look and feel of your titles. You alone determine the pricing, packaging, and positioning. If you are willing to rethink these elements, consider some changes, you might be able to turn a “no” to a “yes.”
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