Visit the BFE Fall 2015 catalogue on CataList.
For years, Books For Everybody (BFE) has published twice-a-year lists of highly recommended titles from independent booksellers. Each spring and fall, BFE offers up a selection of upcoming titles so indie retailers can review, place advance orders, and prepare in-store promotions and sales strategies. This year, we used our digital catalogue solution CataList to build a handy 2015 BFE catalogue. Take a look and order your copies today!
There’s also a BC-specific list, and you can see the catalogue for that here.
Protip: working with catalogues featuring 1+ distributors
One of my favourite of CataList’s many talents is that cross-supplier catalogues can be created and published to the site. This offers libraries and retailers a broader view of available titles that isn’t limited to a particular publisher, imprint, or distributor, which is useful when looking at titles relevant to a specific audience (e.g., First Nation Communities Read) or ones nominated for an award (e.g., Governor General’s Literary Awards, Canada Reads, or the Forest of Reading).
That being said, any seasoned retailer worth their chops knows that one must be savvy and segment orders by supplier to avoid seeing the dreaded “not our title” line on a packing slip or POA. Here’s how to do that on CataList:
1. Start a new order by clicking the “Start new order” button from any catalogue or Title Detail page.
2. Fill in the required fields and click “Start Order” to set up the new order. Repeat this step to create a distinct PO for each supplier you plan to order from. (I recommend ordering by distributor, not by publisher or imprint, to more quickly reach minimum order requirements.) When you’re done, return to the catalogue to begin adding titles to your new POs.
3. When working with cross-supplier catalogues, my favourite workflow is to display the catalogue in grid view (more on catalogue views) and sort the titles by Canadian Supplier (by clicking the “Canadian Supplier” column header in the grid). I like this way because it allows me to review the titles grouped by distributor, saving me some time when I have to research publishers’ suppliers. The BFE catalogue, however, is already organized by publisher, so if you’re on top of your publisher/distributor relationships, you may prefer to leave the list as is (i.e., without sorting) and stay in the default thumbnail view.
4. As you browse the catalogue, you will be “working” in one of the POs you set up (meaning that titles will be added to that PO should you choose to “add to order”). To change the order you’re working in, click on the “CHANGE” link that appears next to the name of the current order and select another from the dropdown menu.
5. To add titles to any order, use the provided “Order” fields. In thumbnail view, they can be found in the righthand panel, and in grid view, there are columns dedicated to order quantities.
For further details on ordering, you can visit the CataList Help Manual.
Want to take it further?
Retailers who are registered with CataList can make their own custom catalogues from any ISBNs available in the system. Plus, it’s easy! Creating custom catalogues is a great way for retailers to use the rich bibliographic information available in CataList to make spin-off catalogues that can be shared online or printed for in-store distribution. All you have to do is create a custom catalogue in the system, export it as a PDF, and you’re done!
Protip #2: Want a personalized PDF of your catalogue to share in your store? Use one of the standard PDF exports offered in CataList (whichever tickles your fancy) and use any program that can edit PDFs to add your own design elements, edit fonts, append a custom cover, etc. Re-save and you have a custom catalogue that reflects the branding exactly as you’d like it: your catalogue, your way!
