[Genealib] Re: Seeking distributor/vendor recommendation

[Carrie Cook]

Like Craig Scott's publishing company/bookseller and many other genealogy-centered vendors, The Gregath Publishing Company offers a wide variety of books from other publishers. 
   
  Costs are a factor, as is the abundance of quality research material that is published in "local" size quantities (12-200 total). Authors and groups who publish, many times don't have the resources to publish thousands, nor be able to market in such a way that everyone knows the book is even available to the public.
  
 
  We offer books for quite a few other publishers, groups, and authors, but the cost of this service shows up in our shipping costs. This is one reason that you don't find lots of genealogy books at the major distributors - they want their cut. In the "standard" publishing world, this is "a drop in the bucket" as these costs are included in their cost of producing millions of copies. However, most genealogy publications are not done on this scale. Even some large publishing houses that have produced several quality publications, from leaders in the field, are not continuing to keep titles in print. Thus we are back to costs... 
   
  By ordering from one company, you are paying for the convenience of not having to order through several. You are adding at least one layer of business that needs to make a profit on that sale. Unless you have unlimited funds, the genealogist in me suggests you buy as many of your books and materials directly from the original publishers/suppliers or Copyright holders. That way the only extra expense comes from FAX or postage fees to order. Gregath items (in this regard) are marked with order numbers with G (Gregath owned and distributed) or R (Royalty program book - we have non-exclusive contract with Copyright holders). All other books and items we carry are for others and may or may not have done the actual publishing.
   
  Part of the shopping should be evaluating if the titles are an asset to your collection. If you have an acquisition policy that deals with genealogical material, take those guidelines to google (or your fave SE), this list, support organizations, etc. to find what is available to you to add to the collection.
   
  My 2 cents,
  Carrie Cook, Publisher
  http://www.gregathcompany.com/catalog
genealib-request at mailman.acomp.usf.edu wrote:
  Message: 4
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:04:01 -0800 (PST)
From: Cynthia Van Ness 
Subject: [Genealib] Seeking distributor/vendor recommendation
To: genealib 
Message-ID: <978133.38425.qm at web84106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Hi, gang,

For a small special library with a local history collection and
a tiny budget, can any of you suggest a distributor or vendor
who is likely to carry small press, genealogy, and local history
titles from multiple publishers? One stop shopping, so to
speak?

Otherwise we make out laborious purchase orders for each title,
unless we're lucky enough to need more than one title from the
same publisher. Then we get shipping quotes. I had to go back
for forth for days with one major publisher because they don't
offer a shipping rate schedule on their website and their
customer service representative couldn't even find the title I
wished to order in their catalogs, even though I found it in
BIP. Then we fax in the order and maybe their fax machine works
and maybe it does not...you get the idea.

Shopping for new books should be more pleasant than this!


*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-*
Cynthia Van Ness, MLS, bettybarcode AT yahoo DOT com
http://www.BuffaloResearch.com

Carrie's Corner 
carriescorner at yahoo.com  
http://www.carriescorner.com 
     
    “Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or to keep one.”—Robert E. Lee



       
---------------------------------
Never miss a thing.   Make Yahoo your homepage.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.acomp.usf.edu/pipermail/genealib/attachments/20080128/3c960482/attachment.html