When publishers began offering listings of new titles on disk, booksellers welcomed the chance to cut down their order entry time. Inputting orders for large houses like Random House dropped from as much as a day and a half to two hours. But when Consortium Book Sales & Distribution in St. Paul, Minn., tried to take book listings on disk to the next level by handing out a CD-ROM containing its fall/winter 2002—2003 catalog, bookseller response at BEA was decidedly less enthusiastic.
Given that this year's show was a month earlier than usual, the CD-ROM was, at least in part, a case of necessity being the mother of invention for Consortium. "We knew that we weren't going to be able to get out a print catalogue in time," Julie Schaper, president of sales and marketing, told PW. Since Consortium normally uses PDF files to send catalogue copy to its clients anyway, it decided to put each house's PDFs, plus the front and back matter together on a single disc, which contained 63 files. "The CD-ROM was really fast; we got it done in a week," said Schaper, who conceded that the result "wasn't fancy and it didn't have an index with searchability. Booksellers like to have the catalogue to pass around. It's not convenient to sit around the computer with the staff."
On the other hand, Consortium did give away 400 lilac-colored CDs in jewel cases at BEA and nearly another 400 at ALA, at least a hundred more than in the past. Sales and marketing director Jim Nichols attributed the bigger distribution to two factors: reduced weight and greater portability. "We had more take-aways at this year's show," he said, "and we think fewer catalogues got left in the trash can. It's a net positive. We like the concept. Eventually, booksellers can do keyword searches and find books they might have missed in the index."
For Carole Horne at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass., PW's 2002 Bookseller of the Year, providing catalogues on CD simply doesn't work. "I rip up my catalogues and send them around to let people know about an author we might want to have for our author series. I can't do that with a CD-ROM. I can send a catalogue downstairs [to the sales floor] , but they can't read it on CD-ROM. There isn't a terminal."
Buyer Paul Yamazaki at City Lights Books, which publishes a list of books that's distributed by Consortium, greeted the concept more warmly. "As head buyer, the CD-ROM was useful to me to get a quick review of the list," he commented. At Lenox Hill Bookstore in New York City, which doesn't use a computerized inventory system, buyer Jason Meagher called the concept of a catalogue on CD "a deterrent. It would be weird when you sat down for a rep meeting, and you'd have to cozy up to a computer screen"
Consortium will not abandon print catalogues any time soon. Currently the company prints 8,000 catalogues a season and next year will begin printing them in full color.
