Bestseller Reporting Explained ... at BEA

The ABA/Book Sense Lounge at BookExpo America (BEA) -- Room 401 at the McCormick Place Convention Center -- is the place to go to learn about Book Sense Bestseller reporting. ABA staff will be on hand from Thursday, June 3, through Sunday, June 6, to explain how easy it is to report your weekly sales figures through the Nielsen BookScan, ABA Upload, or ABA Web Data Form methods.

In addition to ABA staff, a representative from Nielsen BookScan will be in the lounge to explain the most advanced and efficient way to report weekly sales data to the Book Sense Bestseller List, and the POS vendors Anthology, Computac/Square One, Booklog, Wordstock, and IBID have provided fliers with screen shots and reporting explanations that can be picked up.

All that is needed for the Nielsen BookScan method is a telephone line or Internet connection and a computerized POS system. An integrated POS module generates the weekly sales data file and orchestrates the transmission of the file with virtually no staff time. Reporters utilizing the Nielsen BookScan method receive a confidential report on their store's sales performance from the previous week and a Dominant Market Area (DMA) report of book sales, which enables a comparison of a store's sales results to book sales within the local market area.

The ABA Upload method of bestseller reporting was developed in response to bookseller requests. It requires a computer, an Internet connection, and a computerized POS system. Booksellers using the ABA Upload method follow simple instructions that guide them in generating a weekly sale data file from the POS system used in the bookstore. Once the weekly data file is created and saved to disk, the file can be transferred from the computer to the Book Sense Bestseller Reporting System. Within seconds, a bookstore's weekly sales data file is in the Book Sense system.

ABA has streamlined the process of reporting through the ABA Web Data Form, and the time it takes to report weekly sales data has been significantly reduced. Reporters no longer have to divide their lists by category, and it is no longer necessary to enter in title, publisher price, or other extra data. Booksellers simply enter the ISBN and the quantity sold, and the system handles the rest.

Booksellers who are not attending BEA can find all the information they need about Book Sense Bestseller Reporting at http://bestsellers.bookweb.org/. Questions should be addressed to ABA technical support staff at [email protected].