AtlasBooks Distribution Blog

A few weeks ago there was a post on the BookMasters’ blog (our parent company), about understanding the various selling programs that Amazon offers. This week I want to get more specific about how AtlasBooks works with Amazon and what that means to our distribution publishing partners.

How does AtlasBooks sell to Amazon?
AtlasBooks sells to Amazon via the Amazon Advantage program. We are able to do this because we are the vendor of record and per the AtlasBooks agreement with publishers, we have distribution rights for these titles, which is a key factor in selling to Amazon through the Advantage program. For this reason, publishers are not able to maintain an Advantage account for the titles distributed through AtlasBooks if they already had an account set up.

How does title information appear on Amazon?
Just like with our other trading partners, AtlasBooks sends accurate up-to-date title information to Amazon via ONIX, the industry approved method of submitting title data. This information populates pre-set fields within the Amazon product detail page. Availability is determined by the publication date, stock levels at the Amazon warehouses, and stock levels at major wholesalers’ warehouses.

Why does Amazon have a different price?
Amazon buys books on consignment from AtlasBooks at an agreed upon wholesale discount off the retail price. This is important because no matter what Amazon sells the book for (even if they heavily discount it), the publisher will still make the same amount from the sale because the percentage is taken from the retail price.

How many books will Amazon buy?
Amazon likes to keep one week’s worth of inventory on hand. They do not buy speculative amounts and they do not order books until four weeks prior to the stated publication date. If Amazon does have stock on hand for a book and they do not sell through that stock within a few weeks’ time, Amazon will likely return the unsold stock.

Because books are sold to Amazon as consignment, Amazon does not send payment to AtlasBooks until the end of the month in which a sale is made. Payment to the publisher then occurs according to the terms of the AtlasBooks contract.

Why are resellers selling my book?
Here is the part that may get a bit confusing. Earlier in this post, I mentioned that the publisher is unable to sell their books to Amazon through an Advantage account. A question that we frequently hear is, “Then why are other people selling my book on Amazon?”

First , there are vendors that sell to Amazon. Though AtlasBooks is listed as the vendor of record, Amazon is also able to buy the book from wholesalers. Stock would still be coming from AtlasBooks to the wholesaler, then to Amazon. In most cases, Amazon will first go to the vendor of record before going to the wholesaler to purchase stock. If Amazon chooses not to keep stock on hand at their own warehouses, they have access to view the stock levels at the major wholesalers and will list a title as shipping in 3-5 weeks when they see that the book is readily available from the wholesalers. A frequent follow-up question is “why doesn’t Amazon connect with the stock levels at AtlasBooks to list availability?” The reason is that it is easier for Amazon to connect with the wholesalers than to connect at the distributor level and also easier than using their own warehouses to keep stock slow-moving inventory (according to their metrics).

In addition, Amazon may purchase items from outside of the Advantage program. This is known as Amazon Marketplace and it operates like Ebay’s Half.com. Instead of selling to Amazon, these sellers are using Amazon.com as a storefront and sell through Amazon. AtlasBooks has no part in this and all payment structures, shipping notifications, etc. are handled with Amazon. Because this selling structure sells through Amazon direct to consumers and not to Amazon as a part of the book trade industry, publishers can legally sell their books through Marketplace and not be in violation of their contract with AtlasBooks.

Can I have links from my website to Amazon?
Another option that publishers can do within their distribution agreement is the Amazon Affiliates program. This is a program by which a publisher lists a link to Amazon from their own website. If a customer clicks through and orders the book, the publisher gets a commission. If you do this, I would recommend having links to the book for other outlets as well, including ww.bn.com and www.indiebound.org. Just having a link to Amazon could upset the other outlets and I have heard cases where a competing vendor has ordered fewer books because the publisher’s site only listed Amazon.

And finally, I want to mention Author Central. Author Central is a free service to allow authors to promote their books. The author can list of her books in one spot (even if they were published by different publishers), create a bibliography, add a photo and biography to a personal profile, upload other images, and use a blog to connect to readers. If an author’s book is listed in Amazon’s catalog, she is eligible to join Author Central. This means that all books that go through the AtlasBooks distribution program qualify their authors for Author Central.

This has been just a quick overview of Amazon. If you have any questions that were not answered in this post, please comment and we can do a follow-up post with more information.