A catalog “Markup” is an opportunity for you, as a sales rep, to give your sage advice and critical insider knowledge to your accounts as they’re working their way through a catalog. You work hard to cultivate strong relationships with your accounts, and their trust in your opinion is where that pays off, so to speak. While your publishers’ catalog administrators and marketing departments work hard to create dazzling catalogs with robust information, many buyers may rely much more on the brief annotations you add to your Markups to make their buying decisions.

A Markup contains 4 elements, all of which are discussed in detail in their own individual help articles.

1) Markup Note– Your own annotations – can include your impression of the book, print run, author residence, etc.

2) Priority– Users can sort by priority, and your selection can alter the view of a title a bit.

3) Tags– Tags create lists that users can consult later. Local author, co-op opportunities (6 for 50%, etc.). Can be any relevant things an account would be interested in consulting on a targeted list.

4) Comparable Titles– Comparable Titles, or “comps” give your accounts an idea of what other titles an upcoming title might be like. Stores who use our Analytics tools will actually see their past inventory and sales data for a comp title, so using an author’s previous books or the hardcover as a comp when selling the paperback, etc., can be extremely helpful. You’ll see this data for Analytics stores as well, which can really help inform how you sell a title to an account.

5) Suggestions*– The Suggestions area is where you can make suggested orders for your accounts, as well as see their total orders on the titles in that catalog. So, you can see their order quantities and then, if you like, make suggestions. Or you can make suggested orders for titles before they’ve even started buying.

*Suggestions are technically separate from a markup, as they are shared and visible to your accounts as soon as you make them, rather than only being shared when you share your markup.

Learn about markup elements in even more detail and find examples of each here!

Markups, once ready and completed, are then “shared” with your accounts. If a markup is not shared, it will not be visible, so markups are relatively secure. You can share with individuals, with entire organizations (the whole store), or with customized groups of your own making. Details about Sharing Markups can be found here.

Here is a webinar we did that talks about creating great markups: