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Publishing House Research - Resource Guides
Publishing Industry Resource Guide - Books
American
Book Trade Directory
published by Information Today
This Bowker publication profiles more than 25,000 retailer and antiquarian
U.S. book dealers, as well as a thousand-plus book (and magazine) distributors,
wholesalers, and jobbers. It provides data such as contact info, specialty
and size, organized by geography and type. In addition, there is an
index to exporters, importers, wholesale remainder dealers and paperback
distributors.
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Association of American University
Presses
This is a membership organization of university presses and the not-for-profit
publishing divisions of scholarly organizations, very largely American.
Its publications include aggregate statistics of the operations of scholarly
presses, available only to member organizations, and information on
individual presses, available to the public. Its directory, which can
be purchased by non-members, lists the organization's 120 member presses,
with a subject guide indicating discipline and a staff index. A listing
of all of AAUP members, with links to their Web sites, is available
on the site.
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Association of American Publishers
The AAP, the primary trade organization for the U.S. book publishing industry, works in a wide range of areas from First Amendments rights and government regulations to compensation surveys and postal regulations. Its concerns cover the various market sectors for books, including educational, consumer and professional, as well as social issues, digital policy, etc. The AAP is the source for many of the statistics distributed through other organizations, and its membership includes U.S. subsidiaries of European parents.
The AAP collects sales statistics from publishers and publishes them
in Annual Industry Reports, available for a fee. This is the authoritative
and finely categorized data on all market sectors, book types, geography,
etc. Preliminary estimated net sales for the past few years, by major
market sector, are available at no charge on the Web site. For a fee,
users can subscribe to monthly reports on domestic sales or education.
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The Book Industry Study Group is central to the book publishing industry, largely because of its print-only statistical studies. The Consumer Research Study on Book Purchasing concerns the trade-book purchasing behavior of U.S. consumers. This research includes a study of the business environment, an industry overview, and focuses on adult, teen, and children's books. It provides product and sales information by consumer segment, as well as demographics. Book Industry Trends provides sales statistics for the US industry by market segment, comprehensive and well-classified. Major categories include: trade publishing; mass market; professional, religious and university press; educational publishing; and library acquisitions. In addition to historical stats, it offers projections for five years.
The Web site also offers material on industry standards, such as ONIX,
and information on such industry issues as ISBN and barcoding.
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Books in Print
published by R.R. Bowker
This is the prototype of databases for books published in the U.S.,
available by subscription. It can be searched by keyword, author, title,
or ISBN. Users can also browse by subject, title, author or publisher.
There are nearly five million titles included. Entries provide a complete
bibliographic description and may include reviews, author biographies,
notes on stock availability, and other industry notes.
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Although this site is primarily focused on the British industry, it
is valuable for news of the international book trade, and particularly
for the European trade. The latest news is available for free; a weekly
email digest of news is available by free subscription. A paid subscription
will deliver a daily news email and allow users access to other areas
of the Web site -researchers can search the site for archived news articles.
There are areas with rights deals, charts of stock movement, notes on
the careers of executives internationally - and an industry crossword!
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The
Bowker Annual Library and Book Trade Almanac
published by Information Today
This print-only annual is most important for its collection of book
trade statistics on U.S. sales and import/exports from The American
Association of Publishers and The U.S. Department of Commerce (including
The Census Bureau). It also has tables with book price data, listings
of U.S., foreign and international book trade organizations, a summary
of legislation, and discussions of many other industry topics.
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The Cataloging in Publication Program
The Library of Congress
This is the program that catalogs books before publication, allowing
the publisher to print the information on the book's copyright page.
The service is available only to books likely to be widely purchased
by U.S. libraries.
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Global Books in Print
published by R.R. Bowker
There are nine million English-language and Spanish-language titles
in this database of books (as well as audios and videos) from the U.S.,
Canada, the U.K., and the other primarily English-speaking countries.
Material listed may be in print, out of print or forthcoming, and it
can all be browsed by subject, title, author or publisher. Its complete
bibliographic entries may include additional content such as price,
availability or reviews. It is available by subscription.
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International ISBN Agency
http://www.isbn-international.org
This is the Web site of the International ISBN Agency. Here users can
locate the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) agency in each
country, and it is these national or regional agencies that assign ISBN
Publisher Prefixes. The various areas of the site explain the system
thoroughly. Researchers can also find the annual ISBN Newsletter here,
free, and the Publishers' International ISBN Directory, for sale. The
latest edition of the ISBN Users' Manual clarifies ISBN-13, and the
site includes and ISBN-13 Converter that lets us convert a series of
10-digit ISBNs to 13-digit ISBNs and Bookland EAN-13 numbers.
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Literary Marketplace/International
Literary Marketplace
published by Information Today
LiteraryMarketPlace.com is a directory of the U.S. and Canadian book
publishing industries; The International Literary Marketplace, on the
same Web site, is a larger international directory, and the two can
be searched together. Searchable listings include publishers and agents.
Publishers can be searched by a number of fields, including geography,
subject, size, and publication type (e.g., mass market or trade); the
names and addresses are available to anyone with a free registration.
There are also alphabetical listings for industry service companies
in the many subindustries of publishing such as manufacturing, advertising,
distribution, etc. Detailed information for publishers and agents is
available only to subscribers, but there is a reasonable weekly subscription
option.
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Nielsen BookScan US provides point-of-sale information on US retail
books. They monitor sales of more than 300,000 titles from about 4,500
booksellers, and their online database dates back to 2001. Users can
search by title, publisher, author or other elements. Nielsen segments
books into over 3,000 categories under four broad headings. Sales data
can be delivered by channel, geography and other parameters, and users
can compare sales to sales of related books.
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The Preassigned Control Number Program
The Library of Congress
This program of The Library of Congress assigns Preassigned Control
Numbers to books that are likely to be added to LOC's collection in
advance of publication so that the publisher can print the number on
the copyright page of the book. The PCN is an LOC catalog card number
that also links the books to records created by other entities.
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Publishers, Distributors
& Wholesalers of the United States
published by R.R. Bowker
The indexes in this directory, which concern book publishing, cover
professional and trade associations, as well as the organization types
in the title. It includes an Imprint, Subsidiary & Division Index,
a Geographic Index, and an index for Inactive and Out-of-Business Publishers.
The Names listing includes contact information (including Web site addresses),
ISBN and SAN numbers. It also identifies companies as divisions or imprints
of the parent. The Field of Activity Index categorizes companies by
subindustry. The entire annual, in print only, is very inclusive, listing
even the smallest publishers.
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Independent Publishers Association
Formerly The Publishers Marketing Association, this is a trade association
with a membership of over 3,000. Benefits to members include marketing
services such as direct mail, distribution and advertising. In addition,
it arranges discounts in the areas of marketing, operations, insurance,
etc. Its white papers are available to non-members for a fee, including
The Rest of Us 2003, which is a survey of independent publishers, and
a 2002 marketing survey. There is also access to an online newsletter
with a searchable archive.
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Publishers Weekly is the weekly trade magazine for the book industry,
with news scanning the industry landscape. Subscribers also have access
to the Web site, including the magazine's online archives and excusive
Web material. Its free daily newsletters, for members, cover publishing
news, bookselling, rights, and religion books. Access for non-subscribers
is limited largely to the job board and tour calendar, but it includes
short, pithy abstracts of the archived articles.
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Subtext
published by Open Book Publishing
Subtext is a bi-weekly newsletter on the trade, educational and professional
book industry. It presents and analyses information, covering all functions
from mergers and acquisitions to import/export, financial life, consumption,
etc. Its charts, rankings, tables and discussions, often based on data
from its own surveys, reports on the business from every perspective.
Its companion, BookMonday, is a weekly newsletter reporting on industry
concerns.
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Subtext Perspective on Book Publishing
published by Open Book Publishing
This is a comprehensive annual review of the worldwide book industry,
measuring in dollars and in units sold, and offering company profiles,
raw statistics and analysis, historical trends and projections. The
industry is divided into the three segments of consumer, educational,
and professional, and subcategorized as appropriate. The report examines
the year's partnership and acquisition activities, with sales multiples
for the large deals. Tables examine alliances as well as acquisitions,
and profitability as well as revenue. The book ranks corporate industry
leaders in various categories, and offers demographics when needed.
In short, it is a thorough industry examination.
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The U.S. ISBN Agency assigns ISBN (International Standard Book Number) publisher prefixes to U.S. publishers (publishers that have offices in the U.S. and publish their titles within the U.S.); R.R. Bowker has "stewardship" of the organization.
On the same Web site are two other standards agencies in the industry
- the SAN Agency, which assigns Standard Address Numbers to organizations
in the publishing industry, and the U.S. ISMN Agency, which assigns
International Standard Music Numbers to printed music publications.