Museum and historical association papers and documents as high quality books.

The old journals, meeting records, pictures, maps and "out-of-print" books that are a museum's or historical association's treasured assets can be made into high quality, professionally printed books for purchase by visitors, members and other important constituencies.    Book printers such as Poughkeepsie, NY-based NetPublications can turn these valuable assets into new revenue inexpensively and quickly by bringing "out-of-print" books back into print or printing new ones.  Whether old maps, journals or recipes that visitors have found interesting or "out-of-print" books that have been waiting to be reprinted, a book printer can produce high quality books similar to those found in bookstores and libraries.

You have just completed your book...now what?

You have spent months, if not years, researching, writing, designing and editing your book. It is now finished and ready for sale.

Congratulations!

Now what?

You undoubtedly want your book sold and in the hands of readers. You want it distributed through retail channels, online outlets and other avenues that sell books.

Many options exist to distribute your book through these diverse channels. Each offers its own advantages and disadvantages and understanding and choosing the correct one for your particular needs can be overwhelming. 

Traditionally, books have used a distribution channel consisting of book distributors and wholesalers.

Book distributors actively sell books to bookstores, retailers, libraries and online stores, usually from a catalog. Personal sales calls and visits can also occur as long standing relationships typically exist between a distributor and retail outlets. Distributors offer a full range of services to stimulate demand and sell books through the distribution channel.

Book wholesalers make books available to retailers but do not typically engage in actively selling books to the retail market. They process orders and ship books but do not generally create demand for books. They do not offer the full range of services that distributors provide. Publishers and authors still have to pitch, market and sell books to book retailers. But wholesalers might offer a relatively inexpensive method compared to distributors to have books made available to a multitude of potential buyers.

With the growth of self published authors has come a viable alternative method for authors to reach potential book buyers…directly online. Social media and single focused book sites offer book reviews and relevant articles and the opportunity to sell directly to readers. For example, bookhitch.com allows authors and readers the opportunity to “meet,” sell and buy without having to go through distributors or wholesalers.

                                                                                               

And, should authors choose to sell books from personal websites, companies such as NetPublications’ NetSource distribution service can establish a shopping cart connection allowing the fulfillment of orders and processing of payments placed via authors’ websites.  

Each of these methods offer a unique value proposition and each must be thoroughly considered and evaluated to understand which offers the best distribution route, and value, for an individual’s particular situation.

But, ultimately, they all allow authors the opportunity to put their books in front of an audience of potential buyers after the solitary time spent writing and completing their books.

www.netpub.net

Your books cannot earn revenue if your books are not in print.

Over the years, museums, historical societies and cultural sites have published town histories, event books, documents, journals, meeting records and cookbooks.

While these printed books and documents serve to preserve history and to offer insight into past lives and events, they also represent an opportunity to create needed revenue for these institutions.

Now, however, many of these publications are either out-of-print or exist in very low quantities. And, if these books are not in print, they are not available for sale.

Today’s printing technology allows for these “old” and treasured books to be reprinted quickly and easily while permitting the printing of books for the very first time.

Digital printing provides the ability to scan pages of previously printed works and put them into digital image formats. A case in point was the reprinting of a book that was out-of-print for over fifteen years and has now resulted in sales of $1500 a year for one historical society.

Real-life nostalgia articles on "how it was back then" can be reformatted as books. Fragile and fading original documents can be preserved and protected, and their reprints utilized for museum and store displays or sold on-site at the gift shop or at special events. Books and documents can be printed as needed, in small quantities, ordered online with excess inventories stored and fulfilled by an outside vendor.  

Museums, historical societies and cultural sites can take the first step to uncovering overlooked and potentially valuable documents by conducting a thorough inventory of their books and documents to identify those that will be in demand and capable of generating additional revenue.

Summer and the tourist season are upon us. Now is the time to start preparing to generate revenue from books and documents that can easily and quickly be reprinted.

NetPublications Historical Publication Services

ISBN - What Is It and Why Do I Need One?

Thinking about writing a book? Thinking about selling the book that you're thinking about writing? Then it's time you started thinking about an ISBN number.

ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number and it is required if you intend to sell your book at a retail store or through a wholesale distributor. If you give away your book to friends, or sell a title to an individual, you may not need one. An ISBN is like a VIN number for a car - it distinguishes YOUR book from all the rest. It is a unique identifier that no other book, in any other format, may have. It is yours and yours alone. 

This is beneficial for two main reasons:

1) Searchability - Any wholesaler, retailer or individual will be able to type your unique ISBN into any search engine. As long as the book has been registered with an ISBN, it will be searchable for purchase, or to obtain general information about your book.

2) It avoids confusion - Your title, "The Greatest Book Ever Written" is available for purchase, but searching by book name only may result in 100 or even 1000 books with the identical  name. How would a potential buyer know the difference, other than scrolling tediously through countless titles? With a unique identifier (your ISBN), there would be no question that YOUR book belongs with that ISBN.  

It is important to note that each different published format of your book (print hardcover or paperback, digital, or audio) will need a separate ISBN.  Your publisher can issue an ISBN.  For self-published authors, you can purchase one through www.bowker.com, which is the official source of ISBNs in the U.S. 

Your book is unique!  Assign it an ISBN and it will forever be recognized this way!