FAP offers two valuable services for publishers who wish to participate in co-operative marketing of their books:

• Co-operative Marketing
  
  
• Book Fulfillment Service
  
  

Co-operative Marketing

Since 1998 we have been holding regular, highly acclaimed and very successful co-op mailings, on a quarterly basis (March, June, September, December.) Fliers submitted by our partners are sent by First Class mail with an attractive commemorative stamp, four per envelope, to Acquisition Librarians by name or to Professors teaching specific courses utilizing the best lists available. This quality approach assures the mailing reaches the correct ordering librarian, avoiding a pre-sifting (and often disposal) of fliers that takes place by mailroom staff when large numbers of fliers arrive to a generic library address in one Third Class envelope. After your flier reaches the individual who does the ordering¾your flier will have to win its battle for orders on its own merits. We ourselves participate in every mailing.

We also offer a b/w Xeroxing service if the master copy of your flier reaches us a fortnight before our mailing dates, as our copy shop’s .07 per click could make it cheaper to have your job Xeroxed here especially if you have to ship heavy cartons across the country. If interested remit the following additional charges: .07 per side, 7% FL tax, plus $20 for two hours labor (one side, $30 if the flier is double-sided) for the 1000-1500-page jobs, or $40 or $50 for the 3,000 flier jobs. (These jobs are done on the default white paper; Ultrabrite paper is $12.99 per ream more; Xerox pastel colors are $5.99 per ream, all plus tax.)

We accept Amex/Visa/MC and do not deposit checks or charge cards until a foursome of participants (a circuit) is completed. The "prepayment" requirement is the only mess-free way that we know of assuring circuits have a foolproof guarantee of going out. None of us would like to hear just before a mailing that we counted upon, that it couldn’t go out because a listmate who hadn't prepaid changes their mind. Being a co-op effort, the total cost of a mailing is divided by four, and that is the price of participation.

Fliers may be single or double-sided, black and white or color, on coated stock or not, but not of heavy 100 pound stock. If in doubt on weight send us a sample flier or a page of the stock. We will try to accommodate you as well as we can, but remember that there are limits as to what a 41-cent stamp can carry! Ship the fliers flat unless you can get them trifolded for free.

If you’d like some pointers on flier design, we have assembled assortments of twelve fliers we have handled in the past that we can mail you for fifteen .41c stamps, or twenty-four fliers for twenty stamps. If you specify the kind of flier that interests you (e.g. fiction/non-fiction, or col/b&w) we’ll try to match your desire as best we can.

The following are the core mailings we undertake every quarter:

1. Public Libraries: the largest/richest (min. $100,000 in their non-reference book budget & a $800,000 overall book budget). Only main library HQ’s—i.e. no branches are included. 1125 fliers, $350 (Do NOT join this mailing if you are planning to join the larger No. 2 below.)
   
   
2. Public Libraries: the nation's largest 3,000 libraries. (Only main library HQ’s--no branch libraries are included). 3,000 fliers, $675. Do NOT join this one if you will be mailing to No. 1 above. This mailing offers a comprehensive marketing to the library world.
   
   
3. Senior College Libraries: all four-year universities and the 160-odd largest junior Colleges in the nation minus specialty colleges (Bible colleges, Dental/Medical schools etc.) 1250 fliers, $400.
   
   
4. Junior College Libraries: all those with over 1,000 in student registrations. The top 160-odd community colleges are not included here - see (3) above. 1,500 fliers, $375.
   
   
5. Canada & Overseas university/college libraries: 320 fliers, of which 150 are mailed to Canada, the rest to most institutions in the UK, Europe, Israel, Asia, Africa and Australasia, $200. NOTE: This mailing requires lightweight fliers (20-24 lb. stock max.)
   
   
6. Bible Colleges (500 fliers, $140.): Bible colleges are not included in (3) above.
   
   
7. Children's Book Collection Librarians (by name) in Public Libraries 3,000 fliers, $675.
   
   
8. Our college Profs mailings vary slightly from quarter to quarter. Write in for an up to date list. But we usually mail to: (a) 1000 professors teaching American Literature (b) 1000 teaching US History (c) 1,000 teaching Parenting in General Psychology courses (d) 1000 teaching Business Studies (e) 1000 teaching Teacher Educatin (early Childhood) and (f) 1000 teaching American Politics. Also (g) our biannual 650 professors in African/Africana Studies. All the above are $275 each. If you have not marketed to Professors before, note that apart from ordering for themselves they also do for their college library, and for class use. One class adoption can cover your entire mailing cost, but conversely you may fail to make a single sale! We are often asked how often one should mail to libraries. There is no set answer, though we would argue at least two mailings at a minimum IF you have correctly identified libraries as a prime market for your book. Based on our experience, and that of many of our mailing partners, repeat mailings (even of backlists) trigger new sales, and these inexpensive co-op mailings are ideal for marketing purposes. Needless to say, not every participant’s marketing efforts will trigger a flood of library orders and you should have realistic expectations of your book’s prospects, but we have had members who have scored over 20% order rates in the June 2004 mailing one member scored over 25% orders, and another reported more sales than in the past ten years.
   
   

Foreign publishers are more than welcome. To date we have handled publishers from England, Croatia, South Africa, Italy, Netherlands, Israel, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. (I do not consider Canadian publishers as “foreign” J ) I’d be happy to assist anyone with personal advice about the idiosyncrasies of US libraries, college and public.

Bookstore Mailings

In 2001 we initiated several mailings to independent bookstores (i.e. not to the chains, such as B&N, Borders, BAM etc. that select/order books for their stores in a different manner) and have continued them since. Penetrating bookstores is far more difficult than selling to libraries, but with Ingram clamping down on small publishers these mailings are one of the few options available to you. Two of our partners attained spectacular success in our March 2004 mailing, one selling thousands of books solely as a result of the mailing. Be aware, though, that I am sure that many others have not placed a single title of theirs in bookstores…

The mailings are (a) to the 1,500 largest independent bookstores, and cost $375 and (b) to 150 Canadian Indies at $100, with fliers for the latter on thin stock please. We offer the same Xeroxing facilities as with fliers aimed at the library market.

Preregistration and Payment

If interested in participating be aware that we close registration at least a month before the mailings are scheduled. Contact us immediately with details of the mailings you are interested and your credit card details. Time allowing we are happy to accept also checks.

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Book Fulfillment Service

Florida Academic Press also acts as fulfillment agent for a number of small publishers, domestic as well as foreign. We offer an extremely economical and competitive service.

Services That We Offer

• We accommodate small (or partial) press runs of a publisher’s books in air-conditioned facilities for purposes of filling orders. A basic axiom is never to print more stock than one can realistically expect to sell in one year. We accommodate stock on that principle, and ask that you send as many or as few as you expect to sell through us in one year. If necessary, and purely as a service to our partners we can make provision for larger press runs. Note, however, that in the latter case we are really providing you with storage facilities, and not fulfillment services.
  
  
• We do not request exclusivity in filling orders for you. You can promote your books as much as you wish with your company address, as well as fill orders yourself.
  
  
• We man toll-free phone lines, and accept orders via fax and E-mail from individual buyers, libraries, on-line and brick & mortar bookstores, and wholesalers and jobbers, and via a shopping cart from your own web site. You insert our Email and Tel/fax numbers in your catalogs, sell-sheets, fliers, and news releases, and publicize our toll-free numbers during signings and seminars.
  
  
• As payment for such orders we accept checks, money orders and credit cards¾Visa, MasterCard, American Express¾and in the case of direct orders from public and college libraries (ONLY), we also accept, and follow up, on Purchase Orders.
  
  
• In accord with our own publishing business model we do not extend credit on your behalf (in the form of open orders), and with the sole exception mentioned above (most libraries are prohibited by law from prepaying for purchases) we request prepayment from all customers. Returns are only accepted in the case of defects.
  
  
• We can also ship books from the stock we hold on your behalf, at your request, as when you have received (or will receive) payment directly from a customer, bypassing us. Our commissions will be the same, but please note we cannot process credit card payments for orders that we do not ship ourselves.
  
  
• All orders are expertly filled and dispatched within 24 hours, by normal surface mail, unless the customer expressly requests, and pays for, a different mode of delivery. Shipping is normally added to the cost of the order.
  
  
• We maintain separate, detailed ledger accounts for each partner, and issue statements of sales made, together with payment for these sales minus commission and shipping costs, on a monthly basis no matter how small the sum may be, six weeks in arrears.

Services That We Do Not Offer

• We do not offer manned 7/24-phone service and unlimited lines (highly unnecessary, and that by itself increases the cost of fulfillment by over 50%). Our operating hours are 09:00-18:00 EST weekdays, and 09:00-noon Saturdays. After hours orders are handled via voice mail that is monitored and processed every few hours. Orders arriving after hours or on weekends are STILL filled by the first weekday.
  
  
• We do not accept orders that are not accompanied by prepayment, except in the case of libraries and their Purchase Orders, or by special requests from publishers who have made direct sales on their own. Normal commissions and postage accrue in these cases.
  
  
• We prefer not to accept print runs over 1,000 unless a publisher reasonably expects to sell at least half of this stock within the following 12 months.
  
  
• In case of larger deliveries we need a longer lead-time to arrange for the placement of your books, and it is possible that our facilities may be full, so contact us a.s.a.p.
  
  
• Should you need primarily storage space (for a larger run than you can expect to sell expeditiously) let us know of this openly since we are able to secure alternate and cheaper facilities for you (also air conditioned and insured) though storage costs would have to be paid quarterly and in advance.

Our Fees

• We have a one-time set-up fee of $125 to cover all the phone, stationary, ledger, printing and other changes involved when a new Press joins our fulfillment operations. (This set-up fee is per publisher, irrespective the number of books or titles you place with us.) Apart from this fee we have absolutely none of the small nuisance extras, such as pallet charges, monthly fees, restocking or warehousing extras etc. that easily build up into a hefty monthly charge with other fulfillment agencies. The only other charge is the fulfillment commission.
  
  
• Our commission on all books that we ship out of our facilities (whether on orders received by us, or at the request of the publisher) is only 20% of list price per book, with a minimum of $4.50 in case of books priced less than $19.95. In the case of very expensive books (over $50.00) we have a sliding scale commission.

Additional Conditions

• The shipping and handling charges are $3.75 per book (paperback or hardcover), with $1.75 for every subsequent copy. These charges should be listed in your marketing materials, and will be invoiced in all orders received.
  
  
• In case of publishers who wish to extend to customers free shipping, the fore-mentioned shipping and handling charges will have to deducted from the publisher’s accounts receivable.
  
  
• We know the limitations that many publishers face in marketing their titles, and hence do not impose any monthly “inactivity” charges. However, since our fixed costs are the same irrespective the number of orders placed for a title, and to prevent our services from becoming purely warehousing ones:
  
  
• We require a minimum level of sales per month to cover our costs through the commissions we levy. The minimum number of orders required of all accounts is a truly low 20 copies per month. To accommodate spikes and lulls in sales we are happy to average out orders over two months.
  
  
• Publishers who do not attain this level of orders (40 copies every two months) will have to be assessed monthly storage charges for their stock, to be deducted from our monthly payments for their sales. (The fee depends upon the size of the print run we are holding for you, the larger the stock, the higher the fee.) Truly slow-moving stock may well trigger payment requests on our part rather than payments from us to you.
  
  
• This condition does not apply to press runs we accept as “storage accounts” since stock is held in a different facility. Your only charges here would be the monthly storage fee to which credits would be applied as sales accrue.
  
  
• A publisher whose sales are lagging might wish to spark additional sales by participating in one of our quarterly (March, June, September, December) co-op mailings to public and college libraries, or to Indie bookstores and professors. New Fulfillment customers benefit from a 20% discount on our popular mailing to 3,000 public libraries if they register for the next mailing immediately upon joining our Fulfillment Services.

How to Join

Should you wish to utilize our fulfillment services, send us a letter/fax or Email. Include such data as your full contact address, and details about your books, list price, trim size, if they are paperback or hardcover, approximate weight and the date you are thinking of having stock transferred to us. We will then contact you and suggest a time for a phone discussion so that all your queries can be addressed.

Prior to shipping your books to us we would appreciate receiving four copies of your book for insertion in the staff catalog our fulfillment people refer to whenever a customer requires additional information about any title that we carry, and for customizing our padded shipping envelopes. The books should be shipped together with the set-up fee, if possible two weeks before the main shipment arrives.

The agreement to have us as your Fulfillment agents can be freely terminated at ten days notice, except in the case of “storage” customers who may need to provide 90 days notice on their 3-month storage contracts.