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Project Lead: Allen Firstenberg
The Bookbuyers Handbook is possibly the most utilized publication the American Booksellers Association provides to their membership. Even in its print form, the Handbook was valued by booksellers for the time it saved them in tracking down publisher contact and terms information. The decision to bring the Handbook online was sparked by a desire to reduce the massive amount of paperwork involved in the once yearly update, to provide new publisher information to members as soon as it became available and to reduce printing and shipping costs.
The new system needed to be as comfortable for booksellers as the print version of the Handbook. In fact, in order to encourage booksellers to use it, it needed to improve on the print version. It needed to be searchable, easy to use and easy for the ABA to update.
OCI developed an online version of the Handbook that is highly searchable. We also made certain that the ABA can manage the information easily. Updates to publisher information can go live as often as the ABA chooses, meaning that if a major publisher changes terms or moves, members can have access to the most current information immediately.
Once a year, contact and term information was collected via mail and telephone from hundreds of publishers. Publishers are busy doing the work of publishing and distributing books. And mailings got lost. Mailings that required thought and needed to be sent back on a deadline got put on the guilt-pile and lost until the reminder shows up. Phone calls landed in voice mail. Tracking down the publisher information every year was a significant investment of ABA staff hours and resources.
All in all, it was a relatively inelegant and cumbersome system. Because it was so labor-intensive, there was no way for the ABA to provide updates to the Handbook more than once a year.
If a publisher moved soon after their listing was updated, it was a full year before the handbook with new information reached the hands of booksellers. For bookstores, this translated into time lost tracking down the publisher information. For the ABA, this meant phone calls to their Member Services Department looking for the current information. In both cases, it was time that could have been better spent on other things.
The Bookbuyers Handbook was just that -- a book. And a rather sizeable one at that. The cost involved in printing a copy for every qualifying member was significant. And with shipping costs rising yearly, it was becoming more expensive to get the books to bookstores once they'd been printed.
With any technology, the new Handbook Online project had to used to be worthwhile. If any step of the process was too cumbersome to be used by the intended audience, the project would fail to meet its goals. Bookstores had to find it appealing and accessible. The process for publishers to update their information had to be fast and easy. The management process for updating and maintaining the information in the Handbook had to be simple, easily learned and simple to follow through on, because if the ABA found it too awkard to use, information wouldn't be updated frequently and the value of the project to the members would diminish.
Make it easy for publishers to update their information. If the information is being collected throughout the year, the workload is spread out across the calendar instead of focused in the months or weeks immediately prior to publication.
A web-interface allows publishers to update their information at their convenience. There is no need to fill out and mail a form or catch somebody at the ABA during office hours -- if a publisher feels compelled to provide his updated information at 3 am on a Sunday, he can. Fewer reminder mailings or phonecalls are needed. This saves postage and long distance costs.
Make distribution instant rather than tied to the calendar year -- our tools make it easy for the ABA to update the Handbook. Members know they are getting the most recent information the ABA has access to.
By making the bookstore interface clean, friendly and comfortable, we ensured that booksellers are going to use this system. The search function means they can find publishers with far less information than they would need using the print version. We save them time and as we all know, time is money. Especially in an industry as lean as independent bookselling.
Saving them time and making the online version an attractive alternative to the print version makes it viable to phase out the print version without upsetting members or cutting services.
By moving the Handbook online, the ABA was able to improve member services by saving members time and providing vital information as soon as it changes.
Additional benefits include decreasing the operating costs of the organization and allowing for the introduction of new services.
November 21, 2002 -- Handbook Usage Shows 140% Growth
October 31, 2002 -- New Tool Encourages Publishers to Update Handbook Entries
June 19, 2002 -- Use of Online Handbook Grows
June 13, 2002 -- Industry Cooperation Sought in Keeping Handbook Up to Date
April 25, 2002 -- ABA Launches Handbook Online
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