All Clear

Seventy-one-year-old Book Clearing House Fulfillment and Distribution in Harrison, N.Y., has handled fulfillment for small presses for the past five years. "I sell research and develop books and videos for Fortune 500 companies," said BCH president Nancy Smoller. She got into book fulfillment, she explained, when "a client of mine wrote a book. She was going to go on a radio show in San Francisco, but was worried about how people would be able to order the books. 'Use our 800 number. We'll process the credit cards and ship the books from here,' I told her." With this client plus others who have signed on via the Web site (bookch.com), as well as those who came on when BCH purchased Upper Access three years ago, the company now represents 450 small presses. Last year BCH became an Ingram Distributor so that it could offer distribution as well. "We have 10 to 20 calls a day from authors. We have a reviewing process, and they've got to have a marketing plan. If they don't, we won't take their book, because no one will know about it," said Smoller, who is pleased so far with the company's distribution unit. "We're very comfortable that this is starting out nicely," she says, although she encourages most micro presses to consider fulfillment first. It's more lucrative: they get 65% of net sales versus 31% for distribution. To date, BCH has signed 60 small press distribution clients.