Completing a New Title Form

The New Title Form can be found at http://www.atlasbooksdistribution.com/publishers/customer_info_ab.htm

If you are an existing customer, you can access a shortened form (excluding publisher setup information) from your online stats page. It is listed as New Title Form under Help and Settings.https://stats.bookmasters.com/ssl_proto/login.php

Completing the new title form completely and accurately is very important to the success of your book. Corrections take time, cause confusion with book buyers, and will cost you.

BookMasters/AtlasBooks requires all title/marketing information to be submitted online or by acceptable electronic format. To submit a large number of titles, you may request a spreadsheet format that must be filled out as it is, with no missing information. Other methods may result in additional data entry charges.

Only one title per new title form please!

New Title FAQ's

Who is my Sales Representative?
This person is your point of contact for setting up an account or using any of our parent company BookMasters’ services, including printing, design, and composition.
Link to Customer Service Directory.

What Company/Pub Name should I use?
Your company or publisher name should be the same as the name registered to your ISBN or ISBN block. If you bought your ISBN from someone other than Bowker or someone printed their ISBN on your book, you must buy your own ISBN, registered to your publisher name and have it stickered on your book. An ISBN or block of ISBNs can be purchased through Bowker, or you can contact your Sales Representative for help obtaining an ISBN or block of ISBNs.

Why do I need 10- and 13-digit ISBNs?
Starting in February or March, Bowker will begin to issue 13-digit ISBNs beginning with 979-. At that time, we will no longer need 10-digit ISBNs, as the 979- ISBNs will not have a 10-digit counterpart. If you have a 13-digit ISBN beginning with 978- please fill out both the 10- and 13-digit ISBN. This helps to catch any errors in ISBNs. If you do not have an ISBN assigned to your title yet, do not fill out a new title form!

Where do I put my Canadian price?
The foreign trading partners that we use create a foreign price based on the US dollar retail price of the book. Per AtlasBooks’ foreign trading partner agreements, publishers cannot set a foreign price.

What if I don’t know my Carton Quantity yet?
If you do not know your carton quantity yet, 30 is the standard number AtlasBooks uses. Whenever your book comes into stock at the AtlasBooks warehouse, we will automatically update to the correct carton quantity at no charge to you.

What if I don’t know how much my book weighs?
The standard that AtlasBooks uses is 12 ounces for paperback and 15 ounces for hardcover. Whenever your book comes into stock at the AtlasBooks warehouse, we will automatically update to the correct book weight at no charge to you.

Why do you ask for eBook ISBN and eBook price?
AtlasBooks does not market or present eBooks. As part of our Direct-to-Consumer Services, consumers may contact AtlasBooks to order an eBook.

Who is my audience?
For the majority of titles, Trade/General should be your audience. For children’s book, please choose Children/Juvenile or Young Adult according to the correct age group. (For children’s titles, please include an appropriate age range in the description as well). Only use the categories Primary/Elementary, Secondary/High School, College/Higher Education, Professional/Scholarly, ELT/ESL, or Adult Education for technical titles to be used in a scholarly setting. For example, a book on how to paint with watercolor would not be Adult Education. Choosing these categories limits your market to only academic markets, while as a trade title, your title can cover the trade market, as well as have possibilities in an academic market.

When is my publication date?
Please refer to the Atlas Timing Sheet.

Why do you ask what name the ISBN is registered to?
Please see explanation for Company/Pub name. This question is an extra step to ensure that you own the ISBN.

What is a Library of Congress Control Number?
The Library of Congress Control Number is a unique identification number assigned by the Library of Congress. The benefit of having an LCCN is that librarians use the LCCN to access the associated bibliographic record in the Library of Congress's database or to obtain information on various book titles on other databases. However, most libraries no longer require that a book have an LCCN. To obtain an LCCN, please ask your customer service representative, or you can obtain one from the Library of Congress.

Why does it matter if my books have ever been sold to a bookstore or wholesaler, or if I have had a previous book distributor?
Knowing this information helps AtlasBooks to better present your title. Titles that have never had exposure to the book trade would be presented differently than a book that has already been presented to the book trade.

Why do you want to know the contributor’s hometown?
Buyers like to buy books from people in their area. Knowing a hometown can help AtlasBooks to sell more books. Do not list more than one contributor in a cell. That is why there is an option to add another contributor.

How do I know what category to choose?
Categories are important to determine where a book will be shelved in a bookstore. Please see the tips below.

Quick notes about categories:

Body, Mind & Spirit is not an appropriate category for Christian (or CBA) titles. This category is for titles suited to the New Age market. It is also not appropriate for technical Health titles.

Drama is not an appropriate category for Fiction titles, unless the fiction title is set up as a play. Drama does not mean that it has dramatic elements, it is only for dramatic works written for the stage.

Humor is not an appropriate category for titles in other categories that are funny. This category code is only for individual works of humor or collections of humor.

AtlasBooks only asks for basic category headings. The categories can be broken down to be more specific, but at this time, not all of our trading partners accept these specific codes.

For more information about BISAC categories, visit the official website at http://www.bisg.org/standards/bisac_subject/major_subjects.html

Why is there a 300 word limit on the title description?
There is a limit in order to create consistency and to force a clear, concise description. In most cases, even 300 words are too many. Your description should be as short as you can make it while still making your point. While the description should be persuasive, you should not make outrageous claims. Writing something along the lines of “This book is the next Harry Potter. Everyone should read it!” discredits the book.

Why is there a 150 word limit on the author bio?
An author bio is not the place to write everything about the author. The author bio should only include those things that lend credit to the book. Information that is useful: a short summary of educational background, previous titles, experience relating to the subject of the book, and other writing and publishing endeavors. Hobbies, number of pets, etc. should only be included if they are relative to the book subject.

What kind of reviews should I include?
Only include reviews from credible sources. We cannot use reviews from Jane D., Colorado. These are fine to list on your website or on consumer related marketing, but they just distract from more important information for trade buyers. Credible sources include a review from reputable reviewers such as Midwest Book Review. You may also include reviews from well-known people in the subject area. Please include the reviewer’s credentials.

How do I know what is a competitive or comparable title?
You should choose (a) title(s) that is the same subject, in the same price range, and has similar marketing. A good way to determine such a book is to go to a local bookstore and look in the section where you would hope to find your title. You would not want to choose a best-selling title from a major publisher with a massive marketing budget unless you have a similar marketing budget with a major national marketing plan.

How should I fill out Media Appearances and Media Campaign?
For past events, you can briefly summarize. As a distributor, we cannot do much with past publicity. Detailed future events will help us to determine where and how much stock we should suggest the wholesalers to order. We have broken down publicity into different categories to help you organize your campaign. You can fill out any miscellaneous marketing that wasn’t covered by the other categories in Other Publicity Items. This could include anything from galleys to promotional items such as t-shirts.

Why are the image specifications so detailed?
The image specs. are so detailed because we deal with a range of trading partners that ask for different specs., and we print a high quality catalog. We do not accept anything less than these specifications. For proper presentation of your title, you must include an image to meet our standards.

Why do I have to check the Required Acknowledgement?
This is a final check to signal that you realize that this information is important and is the information that AtlasBooks will send to trading partners. Making changes to this information takes a lot of time, so for any change you make after submitting the new title form, you will be charged $65 per hour (1 hour minimum).

Please hit the Submit button only once. It takes a while to process, so please be patient. Clicking it multiple times will submit it multiple times and could cause errors when the information is entered into the AtlasBooks system.