ARGGGGHHH!!!!

No big mistake this time - just incompetence in the book industry. So, here's how it goes...

I am trying to figure out how long it takes for books that hit my distributor to make it to Ingram and show up in inventory there. The books made it to my distributor on Monday. I email them today and they still haven't shipped them out. 4 business days to do shipping in a distribution house? Anyways, how long will it take for them to show up in Ingram once they are shipped? 3 weeks. THREE WEEKS. It takes Ingram, the giant in the industry THREE WEEKS to receive a book and show it in inventory. Are these guys in the stone age? From what I know (and I imagine every independent book store in the western world knows) you receive a book, you scan it, and then VIOLA! it is in inventory. But apparently if you are the world's largest and most respected book distributor it takes 3 weeks to receive a book, bar code scan it, and put it in your warehouse.

How?

Let's try to imagine it. They have one guy at the receiving dock. He drinks a lot of coffee. Books arrive, he drinks more coffee. Then, for 30 minutes each day, he carries the books that arrived a week ago and carries them to guy number 2. Of course, guy number 2 likes coffee as well. He drinks it constantly. But, for 30 minutes each day, he gets out his bar-code scanner and scans books that were handed to him a week ago. Then he puts them on a shelf behind his desk. There is, of course, a third guy. He's got a little truck. He also drinks coffee. But for 30 minutes a day he picks up the books that are at least a week old and drives them to their shelf in the warehouse. There, THREE WEEKS to show inventory.

I can't imagine how long it takes to retrieve a book, package it, label it and ship it out. That is a much more complex process. Most functioning adults could probably raise in child in that timespan.

As you can tell, I am a bit frustrated. I have books. B&N and Amazon have orders. How hard can it be to make a shidduch (marriage)? I want to do promotion - but why bother if the people I sell to can't get copies? I am moving to Australia, and I am running out of time.

ARGGGGHHHHH!

On a lighter front, I can and will reroute the Amazon orders directly to me. They have a nice online system for managing that. B&N seems to be another story, but I've got phone calls and emails assaulting them from every direction to convince them to fill their orders through me or from my distributor. Bookstores are just going to have to wait - although I will give them my distributor's information.

Happiness,

Joseph