
Distribution and Fulfillment
Beautiful Books are Just the Beginning
Our Itasca Books division provides full-service distribution to help small and large publishers reach their markets. Itasca Books operates its own order processing, warehouse, and shipping facilities in close coordination with Bookmobile. Keeping these essential functions in-house enables us to offer highly cost-effective distribution services for publishers and responsive customer service for book buyers.
Recent Work
About Distribution and Fulfillment Services
The work of finding an audience is one of the most challenging parts of the publishing process. Book buyers fit into a variety of categories. They include wholesalers and distributors who agree to stock a book in inventory, retail booksellers who make it available for sale, librarians who catalog and collect the book for public use, and retail customers in stores and at author events. Itasca Books fulfills both consumer and book trade orders for Bookmobile. Itasca sells to Amazon, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, and hundreds of independent bookstores, retailers, and specialty wholesalers, including, but not limited to: Books-A-Million, Brodart, Follett Higher Education Group, Follet Library Resources, Mackin, MBS Textbook Exchange, over 325 other retailers, over 71 other libraries, and over 67 other wholesalers. Consumer orders can be placed via Itasca’s toll-free 800 number, fax line, mail, and book selling website, www.itascabooks.com. These options are provided for every title, along with electronic credit-card order processing, Direct-to-Consumer services, and mail order. Itasca Books is available via email or telephone to take orders, answer questions, and solve logistical problems.About Itasca Books
Warehousing:
- Itasca Books stores books in a dry, heated warehouse.
Metadata:
- Itasca Books disseminates ordering information, publication data, and a cover image (provided by the publisher) to book trade databases, including those published by RR Bowker, Baker & Taylor, Amazon.com, and Ingram Book Company. The book trade includes online bookstores, brick-and-mortar bookstores, book wholesalers, and other resellers that utilize Bowker, Baker & Taylor, or Ingram databases for ordering books.
- Because of the consortium arrangement offered by Itasca Books, small publishers have the advantage of getting into major distribution chains and of combining titles for sales with other publishers.
Website:
- Itasca Books maintains a web store to accept consumer orders for publisher’s title(s) at www.itascabooks.com. The site processes credit card information, and orders are picked, packed, and shipped. Any customer service issues related to the order are also handled. Publishers can use the site for direct web links, advertising, and promotional activities.
Name:
- Itasca is the small glacial lake in northern Minnesota that is the headwaters of the Mississippi River. The nineteenth-century explorer Henry Schoolcraft created the name by combining parts of a Latin phrase – Veritas Caput, or “truth head,” sometimes translated as “true head.”