Art Stock Books offers a complete range of US and Canadian distribution services for European publishers of books on the fine arts, architecture, photography, design and erotica. Publishers wishing to sell their books into these markets need not necessarily place their entire line with Art Stock Books. They can make available only selected titles that they think will do best in the North American market. All that is required is that these titles be new to the market (meaning that they have not been distributed in North America or published there in an English language edition) and that they meet the standards of Art Stock Books’ distribution program.

Distribution Service Art Stock Books offers a full set of distribution services, including listings in Art Stock Books’ attractive, full-color catalogue; presentation of new titles at the US’ largest book fair, Book Expo America; and a listing on Art Stock Books’ new, state-of-the-art website. In addition, Art Stock Books also offers optional marketing opportunities, such as press and advertising services, and publicity events such as readings and exhibitions.

The Sales Sales activities are carried out by the 35 members of Art Stock Books’ sales groups: Continental Sales (CSI) in the US and NBN in Canada. These well-known, established sales teams visit all the most important accounts at least twice a year to present new titles. Their accounts include the giants of the US and Canadian bookselling industry: Chain stores: Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books a Million, Chapters; Independent bookstores and museum stores; Wholesalers Ingram, Baker & Taylor, and Bookazine; General merchandise chains and clubs: Target, Wal-Mart, Urban Outfitters, Sam’s Club, Costco; Online bookstores: Amazon.com and BN.com; Specialized mail-order and internet companies and other outlets.

Fulfillment Service Order fulfillment for Art Stock Books is handled via CSI by NBN in Blue Ridge Summit, PA, a full-service warehouse that specializes in a variety of services. NBN invoices bookseller customers with each shipment, collects payables, and, most importantly, guarantees bad debts. This provides Art Stock Books’ client publishers with an invaluable guarantee of payment for their products. Payments to publishers are made at 120 days after the end of the month in which the stock is sold. NBN provides monthly reporting on all sales activity for each title. All that is needed to set up the basic fulfillment service, is opening stock of between 50 to 300 copies of each title the publisher wishes to sell, along with approximately ten copies to provide samples to the sales representatives.

The Fee The average discount to the trade is 52%. Art Stock Books deducts the fee for its services from the monthly payments it receives. Art Stock Books’ fee covers the range of its basic services, which includes freight of stock from UK to NBN, fulfillment charges, cost of returns, delivery charges, stock holdings, catalogue listings, sales commissions, and exhibition of frontlist titles at the BEA. The fee is 45% of the client publisher’s net. Once shipping costs to UK included, the total cost of distribution services is about 70-75% of the US cover price.

The Price Book prices are set by mutual agreement between the client publisher and Art Stock Books, with careful consideration of prices for comparable titles already in the US market. Book prices in the US are frequently higher than in Europe. For example, when the price of a book in Europe is € 39.50, in the US, it can frequently be $ 59.95 or higher. A book that sells for € 19.95 in Europe will often retail for $29.95 in the US. After additions for US shipping costs and deductions for European VAT, the average discount comes out to about 55-60% of the European market’s price.

Art Stock Books Ltd & Co KG
European Office
Agnesstrasse 6, D-70597 Stuttgart
Tel. +49-(0)711-327 5550, Fax +49-(0)711-327 5551
E-mail: info@artstockbooks.com
www.ArtStockBooks.com