Back in the day when the bookstore first opened 20 years ago, there were only paper catalogs. Boxes of them would arrive and we would sort them by the imprints we were likely to order from. There was a good divide-and-conquer approach to ordering. Elizabeth and I would each take catalogs and mark them up and then trade them back and forth. Now, there really are no paper catalogs as almost all publishers have switched to the Edelweiss order platform online. I understand the savings, both financial and for the environment, by this shift, not to mention having the most current book release information. Ordering online, while ultimately easier because the order data can be easily downloaded into the bookstore’s POS system saving countless hours of data entry, is still not something I enjoy. 
Over the weekend I finished my Hachette order for the fall and winter. There were more than 1100 titles to look at in their Omnibus collection. That’s a lot of books! And it felt like fully one third of them were from James Patterson. I really feel like this man never sleeps. The problem with online ordering means there’s that much more time spent in front of a computer screen. Gone are the days when I could take catalogs to the bathtub with me and leisurely mark them up. Now, I find myself glued to my chair scrolling through 100 titles at a time. Scrolling endlessly down a screen is not easy. It’s very easy to miss big books because my eyes are literally glazing over. I am a physical book person. I do not like reading on a screen, especially after spending all day looking at one. But this seems to be the way of the future and I am trying hard to embrace it.
Yes, the data is tremendous. You can look up sales of a hardcover to see if it’s a book you should carry now that it’s coming out in paperback. All the store’s previous sales of a title, or even an author, are right there. You can tag books for anything imaginable, be it inclusion in the store newsletter or a specific display, and different staffers can make notes as well. This is very helpful and probably far more efficient than trading paper catalogs back and forth, but it still feels foreign to me.
One thing I do particularly enjoy about ordering online is that reps can make suggested orders for me. Most of our reps know our store quite well and their orders are almost always close to the mark. This type of help from reps is the equivalent of sitting with a rep back in the day and her saying, “Skip to page 225 of the catalog.” There is something lovely about a rep who knows your store and what will sell well. While I worry that I might have missed a hot book when I order online, the rep review of the order is a great feature. Once I think I’m done looking at the online catalogs, I send the rep an email and he or she then gives me thoughts about the order. This is a great safety net for all stores, as I’ve been known to miss enormous releases as I scroll through the new titles.
So, I promise this is the last post I’ll do where I lament the loss of paper catalogs. Bookselling has changed so much since I started, it’s a little mind-boggling when I think about it. Ultimately, though, having unfettered access to all the catalogs of most, if not all, of the publishers I work with, is a very, very good thing for all book lovers, and makes me a better bookselller.