IM Printing Ltd

Academic sales perform with specific characteristics in a book printing company. They forces are smaller than those of consumer book publishers. Reps visit a limited range of bookshops, such as campus stores, which stock their titles, and may call on specialist mail-order booksellers and library suppliers which supply books to home and export markets. Additionally they may visit campuses in order to identify courses and the lecturers who make the decisions to recommend textbooks. While to a limited extent they encourage academics to order personally, or through their library, monographs and reference books (and sometimes journals and online services), their main thrust is to secure textbook adoptions. Using the promotional material and occasionally bound copies, they present the most relevant texts to individual lecturers who, if interested, are followed up by email and are sent inspection or gratis copies.

They may also demonstrate any supporting electronic resources, arrange for password access for the lecturer, and promote any customization possible of the company titles. The major publishers employ specialists to conduct technical demonstrations. The rep also undertakes market research, such as looking at reading lists to check new and old adoptions or recommendations and discussing with lecturers trends in subjects generally and particularly in relation to the firms and competitors titles. Sometimes they pick up new ideas and potential authors, to be developed by editors. There is a great disparity amongst publishers regarding the proportion of the reps time spent visiting booksellers and campuses. Many firms rely on direct mail promotion and reps devote most time to booksellers, whereas the reps of the larger textbook publishers may emphasize college calling. Owing to the difficulty of combining bookseller and college calling cycles, they may separate the activity. The busiest time of college-related shops (which derive 70 per cent of sales from five months of the year) is from the start of the academic year through to Christmas, followed by a secondary peak in the New Year to serve semester course starts. Thus the reps key period, from mid-summer onwards, is the run-up to September. Although good booksellers forge links with lecturers and solicit reading lists around May, reps alert buyers to adoptions from information gathered from campus visits and from inspection copy reply cards and inform librarians. There are online reading list services such as the one run by Blackwell.