Before the sales conference
The sales reps need AI sheets for the whole season, a few months ahead of publication. The marketing assistant opens last season's Word template and, title by title, pastes in the cover image, the ISBN, price, format, extent, publication date, blurb, selling points, author biography and the marketing plan.
A week later, two prices change, one extent grows after typesetting, a subtitle is revised and a publication date moves. Each change means reopening the sheet, editing it, making a new PDF and emailing it to the reps and the distributor's sales team with 'updated' in the filename. Someone always ends up presenting the old one to a buyer.
Why AI sheets are always slightly out of date
The sheet is a copy of data that lives somewhere else. Every copy is a chance to get it wrong and another thing to update.
- Title details change most in the months when AI sheets are most used.
- The sheet is typed from the editor's notes, not from the record sent to the trade.
- Several versions of each sheet are circulating by email.
- Reps keep their own folders of sheets and do not know which are current.
- Layout work (fitting a long blurb onto one page) is repeated each time.
What an out-of-date sheet costs
| Error on the sheet | Result |
|---|---|
| Wrong price | A buyer's order has to be corrected, or margin is lost |
| Old publication date | Stock is ordered for the wrong month |
| Wrong extent or format | Shelf planning and displays are off |
| Stale description | The pitch does not match the book |
| Rep uses old version | An awkward correction with a key account |
Buyers see many sheets from many publishers. A clean, current one is a small signal that your list is well run.
Generating sheets from the title record
- Your house AI sheet designed as a template, with rules for how long text fits (for example a shorter blurb when the selling points run long).
- Each sheet generated from your title records or metadata source, so every figure is the same one sent to the trade.
- Marketing and selling points added as fields on the title, edited by the marketing team.
- A version number and date on each sheet, and a note of what changed from the last version.
- A single link per season for reps and your distributor's sales team, always showing the latest sheets.
- An alert to reps when a sheet they have downloaded is replaced, listing the change.
If you prefer, the same data can produce a seasonal catalogue PDF or a sales conference presentation, so the three stay in step.
The season after the change
When the season's titles are set up, the AI sheets exist the same day. Marketing adds selling points and campaign plans. When typesetting changes an extent, or the publisher revises a price, the sheet regenerates automatically and the reps get a short note saying which title changed and what. Nobody hunts through email for the latest PDF.
Buyers who ask for the sheets get a link that is right today. And because every sheet is made from the same record, the numbers on the sheet match the numbers in the distributor's system and the retailer feed.
Late additions to the season, such as a topical book signed in a hurry, get a sheet as soon as their record is filled in.
There is a quieter benefit for the distributor's sales team, who sell your list alongside many others. They are sent one link per season rather than a stream of attachments, and when they present your title to a chain buyer, the price, extent and date on the page are the ones in the trade system that the buyer's order will be placed against. Fewer orders need correcting after the meeting.
Signs your AI sheets need automating
- AI sheets are built in Word by copying from other documents.
- Files named 'final v3 updated' circulate by email.
- A rep has shown a buyer an out-of-date price or date.
- Updating sheets after a price change takes an afternoon.
- Your catalogue and AI sheets have disagreed with each other.