The National Association of Independent Publishers Representatives, which has supplied title information to booksellers for 15 years via Frontlist-on-Floppy and then Frontlist Plus, is introducing a new service, Frontlist Plus Universal, which is Internet-based and aims to provide publishers and sales reps, both independent and in-house, "with a one-stop catalogue-order data-management system that includes file-format translation compatible with a variety of proprietary inventory-control systems and other industry platforms." The impetus comes as many publishers are beginning to switch to electronic catalogues.
Frontlist Plus Universal will go live in late January to accommodate fall 2009 lists from three-season imprints, followed closely by fall 2009 lists from two-season publishers. The service is free to booksellers and will work on inventory control systems used by trade, college and Christian bookstores, including Anthology, Booklog, Books-in-Store, Bookstore Manager, Information Partner (IRT/IBID), Square One, TBM Book Manager and WordStock. Data may also be exported in ONIX, MS Excel and ROSI-104. (Previous iterations were done with WordStock.) The service enters new-title data in catalogue order from participating publishers and primary distributors, who pay nominal per-title fees, allowing booksellers and other buyers to avoid hours of redundant data entry from a range of systems and data platforms. For accounts not connected to the Internet, sales reps will be able to download their bag to a diskette, CD-ROM or USB Flash drive.
Buyers will be given a user name and password that will admit them to the system to view available publisher catalogues and to maintain their profiles, which will include contact information, type of operating system, file format type and preferred method of import. Buyers will receive authorization seasonally from reps that will allow them to unlock a particular catalogue or set of catalogues. Buyers will then be able to export an entire catalogue (or just titles they select) via FTP or dial-up connection for import into their store system and to create a seasonal new-title purchase order.
Frontlist Plus Universal is an exclusive service of NAIPR and was developed with Adam Gwosdof and Steven Kang. For more information, contact Paul C. Williams, NAIPR executive director at greatblue2@rcn.com or 646-414-2993.