PubFight, publishing’s favourite pastime, is not all fun and games. It takes a hard-working Marketing Manager to pull together the master list for the Fakefurt Book Fair. I know, that sounds easy—but it’s not! It’s a pain in the butt, and I blame the printed catalogue.
I have to go through countless printed catalogues splayed out all over my desk and then all over the boardroom table. Then the whole staff gets together and goes through them again, making sure we haven’t missed anything. We tear out sheets and I have manually enter them (uh…) into an Excel file and double check that I haven’t missed anything. After squinting over fine print and dealing with everyone’s different interpretation of proper catalogue layout, I’ve made a list of about 130 books.
But then I’ve got to double check the information because the catalogues are at least a month old. Pub dates have changed, prices have changed, new information has surfaced. I’ve got to go through each record (uh…) and hope I’m getting the most up-to-date information elsewhere.
But despite my efforts, I have missed something: A book is cancelled. I just heard about it, someone mentioned it in an email about something else. A hot new book has just been dropped in. I heard about it from a coworker who was reading mediabistro.
If only there was a way that catalogues didn’t clutter my desk and other office surfaces, and at the expense of trees.
If only I didn’t have to retype everything.
If only catalogues were updated everyday and I could get notified when a title is cancelled, delayed or dropped in.
If only someone would create an online catalogue system that was easy to navigate and could be searched—
Oh, wait! We are. It’s called BNC CataList and it’s going to make next year’s PubFight and many of your lives a heck of a lot easier.
Stay tuned for more about this wonderful invention and the impending improvement of your daily lives.
