For your next vacation, befriend a publisher and go visit their corporate offices. What? You don’t think that’s exciting. Wrong! Who wouldn’t like the opportunity to visit with the editorial staff, design staff, processing & customer service staff to share their opinions with the people who make the decisions?
I have never visited a coporate office where everyone we met was thrilled to work there. (Okay, the ALA staff has Capstone beat for longevity, but Capstone employees are even more enthusiastic which is amazing because ALA staff people love their jobs.) When you chat with Capstone employees, they rave about
the family atmosphere,
the focus on healthy employees,
the wonderful work environment on THE HILL in a building rented from the School Sisters of Notre Dame,
the commitment to the environment and the local economy,
the company support for employees and families.
Here are some quick facts that surprised me:
The average time to ship a book only order is 3.46 days! (UNBELIEVABLE)
The average time with processing and shipping a book order is 12.23 days. (AMAZING)
You will never phone an automated attendant – they insist upon read people answering the phones.
All books and catalogs are printed on recycled materials.
All books are printed in the U.S.A. One-thirdish here in Mankato!
They have people available for live chats from 8a.m. to 5 p.m.
You can send them a stamp and they’ll stamp your books as part of the free processing.
You can request special things like them putting a label in your books indicating Property of My School or whatever you want it to say. (CAN YOU IMAGINE THE TIME-SAVING?)
Compass Point Biographies are 112 pages long and are designed for teens to CARRY THEM AROUND.
There was so much more I learned and I’ll be adding more info when I’m not sitting in a hotel room blogging before dinner. What was the best part? We had the opportunity to share with the people who invest 14-18 months of their lives creating these titles and who may never hear directly from a librarian. They were so grateful to hear that we noticed and appreciated the "little things" they did in their departments.
I wish I’d brought some of my students with me to tell them how much they love PictureWindow Books, Stone Arch, Compass Point, and Capstone. Maybe we should video our students thanking the publisher sometime for the books. The author and illustrator are often the only ones who hear from us.
Tomorrow we talk to marketing, product development, Stone Arch, and get to visit the distribution center. I am having dreams of running between the aisles of stacks of books waiting to be picked. Books, books, everywhere books.
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