Bookseller and Publisher Cooperation Sought to Keep Online Handbook Up to Date

The launch of the Book Buyer’s Handbook online on April 25 has enabled ABA to add new data and to change incorrect information on an ongoing basis to provide booksellers with a comprehensive source for accurate, timely information about publishers’, wholesalers’, and distributors’ trade terms. In order to maintain the data’s accuracy, the association is seeking the help of booksellers, as well as publishers, in alerting handbook staff to new or changing terms.

To make it easy for booksellers to alert handbook staff to these changes, on the handbook search page at http://handbook.bookweb.org/view/index.jsp there is a New and Changing Terms Alert Form. When booksellers notify ABA of new terms that have come to their attention, or information in the Handbook that is incorrect, ABA staff will contact the companies to verify or request relevant data, before the companies’ listings are changed.

Publisher-editing features, which will allow companies in the Handbook database to submit changes to their listings at any time, as well as to provide information on special offers, will become active in mid-July. At that time, ABA will contact publishers’ designated respondents by mail with identification numbers and access codes, which will allow only that person to submit changes.

Presently, both companies in the Handbook and booksellers can notify staff of changes by sending an e-mail to handbook@bookweb.org.

Prior to the launch of the online Handbook, all publishers, distributors, and wholesalers in the database were asked to review and update their data. Since the online Handbook launch, ABA has made the changes outlined below in the online database in response to alerts from booksellers and information provided by publishers. On a regular basis, Bookselling This Week will include a list of the most important changes to the handbook data, and handbook users can call up a list of companies whose listings have been changed within the last 60 days online at http://handbook.bookweb.org/view/recent-updates.jsp.

ABA is providing booksellers, free upon request, a booklet containing key contact information, including the main office address and phone numbers for all companies in the Handbook database, as of May 2002, when the data was sent to the printer.

ABA is currently taking orders from bookstore members for a print-on-demand edition of the 2002 ABA Book Buyer’s Handbook, at a cost of $50 per copy. Orders must be received by June 24. For an electronic order form for both the free Key Contact Information Booklet and the print-on-demand edition of the Handbook, click here. An explanatory letter with an order form, which can be faxed to (914) 591-2720, was sent to all booksellers last week.

American Bar Association: Phone number for bookstore orders: (312) 988-5471; Fax for bookstore orders: (312) 988-5528. E-mail for orders: sharronjones@staff.abanet.org. Sharron Jones has been added to the staff listing as Bookstore Representative.

Baker & Taylor: Discount for orders of 500 or more units has been updated.

F & W Publications: New office and ordering address: 4700 E. Galbraith Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45236. New fax number: (513) 891-7185.

Harvard University Press, MIT Press, and Yale University Press: Order processing for the three publishers has been consolidated. Customer service e-mail address for all three publishers is customer.care@triliteral.org. PUBNET ordering SAN is 631-8126. Harvard University Press and Yale University Press have changed their address for orders to: Triliteral, c/o Customer Service, 100 Maple Ridge Dr., Cumberland, RI 02864. MIT Press address for orders remains the same.

L.E.A. Book Distributors: Discount for books published in Spain and Mexico has been changed to "Up to 40% off the U.S. imported price." Overstock returns policy has been updated.

LexisNexis Matthew Bender: Prepayment plan has been deleted.

LongHill Partners, Inc., which includes Jewish Lights Publishing, SkyLight Paths, and GemStone Press, has a new warehouse address: 28 River St., Windsor, VT 05089.

Lytton Publishing Company: E-mail address has been changed to jlpayne@netw.com.

Little, Brown and Company: Address for damaged/defective or overstock returns has been changed to 322 S. Enterprise Blvd., Lebanon, IN 46052, Attn: Returns Dept.

McBooks Press: Distribution is now being handled by National Book Network, Inc.

Random House, Inc.: Names of key sales personnel have been added.

Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing: Simon Pulse has been added to the Imprint list. General office phone has been changed to (212) 698-7000.

Stackpole Books: Stackpole Books has begun distribution of BMC Publications, Aerial Perspective Publishing, Airlife Classic, and Quiller Press Limited.

Trafalgar Square: Electronic ordering is through Pubeasy, not PUBNET.

University of Michigan Press: University of Michigan Press has changed its distribution to the University of Chicago. PUBNET SAN is now 202-5280. Address for orders and address for returns have changed to Chicago Distribution Center, 11030 S. Langley Ave., Chicago, IL 60628. Key phone contact information has been updated.

New Publishers Added:

• Diane Publishing
  
• Encounter Books
  
• Mountain Media/Privacy Alert
  
• Small Beer Press
  
• Woodstock Arts
  

Cross-listings have been added for AOL-Time Warner and Holtzbrinck Publishers. Terms of sale are provided under the separate divisions of each of these companies.

The Bookmen has been deleted.