118 days and counting

Another day closer. You're excitement gives way to nerves, then to panic. What haven't I done yet? What haven't I done that I'll wish I'd done three days after I open? WHAT IF I NEVER OPEN! Fortunately for me, I have a dog who just stares at me when I ask these questions and I'm forced to agree with his apathy. I'm just being an idiot, right? (Another blank stare, though my hand just got licked. Ah, that's better).

Truly, it never ends. There is fear behind every corner, but the fact is that if you got this far, then the fear is truly irrelevant. You know you're going to get there, that can't be stopped now, you just aren't sure how many pieces you'll be in when you hit the brick wall at the bottom of the hill (the brick wall I call "May 18th"). Still, I remember my job before this, and the one before that, and the countless managers of bookstores who, for one odd reason or another, never actually read a book, and my nerves are pacified. Because I, much like you, am a hopeless book addict and I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life short of writing. Passion is the fly of our window of hope and we can do no more than bang our heads upon it in the prevailing belief that we can, at some point, reach that lovely spectacle we covet so.

But back to the fear. Here's a good one for you: What happens when you start a book provider, on your way to being a full fledged book store and you have not a single account with a book vendor? How do you sell books? Well surely, you say, setting up accounts with vendors has got to be pretty straightforward. After all, they want you to sell their books, right? Yes. Yes they do. They also seem to want you to not declare bankruptcy and leave them high and dry as so many stores have. I believe that would be, um, what was that particular filing again? Chapter 11, if I'm not mistaken? (Is that right Russ? Chapter 11? Yes of course, how silly of me.)

You should come to realize this right now: Going through the process of opening accounts with vendors is THE time at which you will earn your rightful place as owner. It is exhausting, relentless, tiring, maddening, busy busy busy work that only ends when the infernal fax machine beeps happily that it has delivered the seven pages worth of mindless goop you had to fill out in order to flag somebody's attention. Really, it's as if you have to pass some rite of endurance just to be considered worthy. I visualize other owners getting to page four and just breaking down and crying, "It's just not worth it!" and then chucking the whole thing aside. I assume this is how vendors control who their clients will be. Credit history truly has nothing to do with it.

"Wow, this guy actually filled out the whole application!"
"Get out! What do we do?"
"Um, well, I guess we open an account and give him a credit line. I mean, geez, he signed it and everything! He even found the hidden box on page six that informs us he wants us to ship it. What diligence. I think he may have really read through the whole thing!"
"Unbelievable!" (a lasting silence surely follows during which pages are flipped at random) "So, who do we have that does this kind of thing? You know, the whole open accounts thing?"
"No idea."

I'm sure it's something like that. Has to be. About two to three days after the fax announced a job well done, I will get a phone call from a representative of the company who sounds either overly happy or completely baffled. Either way, I know when I hear their voice that they can't possibly get this far in the process that often. It's like learning a new job for both of us.

Ever heard of Dun & Bradstreet? Yeah, me either. Sounds just formal enough that I feel I should have heard of it. Or been prosecuted by it in any regard. This is another one of those places that likes to assign you a number. It's also the first place you should go after you have been numbered by the feds and the state. D&B will (at a wonderfully robust charge) set up a profile of your company and include all accounts that you have opened and detail who you are and what you do and why you're so gosh darn pretty. Vendors will check your D&B ID for a one shot reference check and determine your worth from there. It saves them a lot of work faxing reference checks to the references you listed on the application. D&B will build a number score from 1 to 5 (5 being the Brittany Spears of Credit, 1 being Natalie Portman), which serves vendors checking in on you much in the same way your credit score can affect loans. Currently I'm a 4, which is only a product of having only a handful of accounts that have no payment history. The advantage of a D&B ID is that it speeds up approval of accounts and that it keeps your personal credit history out of the equation (a good idea whether you have good or bad credit). Also they call it the DUNS number. Who doesn't want a DUNS number? Just say it a few times. DUNS number. DUNS number. I have a DUNS number. I'll go so far as to say that is the coolest number you will ever be able claim having.

Have you ever worked a fax machine? Actually, allow me to restate that. Have you ever been worked by a fax machine? Have you ever in your life had to live by whether or not the fax machine likes you? Here's a helpful hint: Spend the money for a good quality fax machine. Don't get cheap or you'll spend more hours jamming paper into and wriggling paper out of that machine than you will at the chair filling out mounds of applications. You will learn words that will make your mother blush. Hearing the sweet sing-song chirp of a fax completed is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise smog-ridden process. Also, it's invaluable to learn which way to face the paper. Stupid though it sounds, incorrectly faced faxes are the leading cause of Account Inactivity Death in America. Don't underestimate it.

Finally, allow me to drop this bombshell on you: The larger the publishing house, the larger the time in which people randomly pass by the fax machine without picking up your application. They don't like voice mail either. It's best to find out who your publisher rep will be (the individual who will call on you to sell you books) and see if you can get them to work it through for you. Small publishers and local publishers are your friends. Love them much, because they love you and will answer the phone in a human voice and actually endeavor to help you, which is just so lovely. You may cry, overwhelmed by joy as you will be, after you hang up so keep tissue nearby when calling on them.

Two names of absolute importance to get you through these arduous times: Ingram Books and Baker & Taylor. They are the wholesalers who have all the books you need to order (Lower discount though) and will service you well until you survive the application process with the larger houses. They also provide invaluable services you can make great use of (Ingram for example also has a periodicals department). Make them your friends early on. You will need the following to do so:
--fed tax id #
--state and use id # (aargh!)
--3 trade references (which is hard to do when you have none...no worries on this if so)
--an idea as to how much you will order over a year so that they can determine a credit level (I shoot for about 10-15% of total inventory at cost)
--patience and working knowledge of the fax machine

Now, you may begin selling books.

Um...yeah, looking for customers, right? How do you have customers when you, as of yet, have no store? Where are they? Stay calm and go read the manual on your new fax machine.

We'll talk about customers tomorrow.

--zach