In that order, and the order matters. A title the trade cannot find cannot be sold by us or by anybody else, so nothing else is worth doing until that is true.
Fifteen scored questions about how your press actually runs, plus two about your list size and current distribution. Free, four minutes, no account.
The unglamorous work that decides whether a book is findable. Most presses lose more here than anywhere else and cannot see it happening.
Retailers, wholesalers, libraries and reviewers each want something different, on their own deadlines. Kept current rather than submitted once and forgotten.
Two different answers to two different situations. Which one applies is a question of fact, not preference, and the assessment answers it.
“The books turn up where people look for them.”
“I can finally say which titles sold, and to whom.”
“I know what I'm owed and when it arrives.”
No, and you do not need an account. It asks for no details at all until you want the written report, and the score and gaps are shown on screen either way. It exists because most presses are sold the most expensive answer, and we would rather you could see the cheap one when it applies.
Often, yes — for the metadata. A distributor sells what you give them, and if the descriptions are thin or the subject codes are missing, that is your side of the line rather than theirs. If you are represented and happy, the metadata work stands alone and we would not try to sell you anything else.
That is who Collective is for. The large distributors publish a bar of around eight titles a year and several hundred serious presses sit below it. Being under that bar is not a judgement on the books — and it is the situation we built the distribution side to answer.
No. That work is yours or your freelancers'. We handle what happens after a book is finished — the metadata, the feeds, the channels and, when nobody else will, the selling.
It is yours and you can export the whole catalogue as ONIX 3.0 at any time, without asking us. Nothing is deleted and every change to a title keeps its history, so you can see what was altered and when.
Books in the trade are sold on returnable terms, and a meaningful proportion do come back. If we paid out everything at the point of sale, a return six months later would mean asking you for money you had already spent. So part of what we owe you is payable later, on a schedule you can see, with the release date against each amount. It is deferred payment on a debt we owe you — not your money held in trust.
The Readiness Report turns step one into a plan: every gap named, what closing it takes, and the order to do it in. Presses that already know their gaps go straight to Channel.