ABSTRACT
While it is the job of marketing to understand the needs of the market and promote books to the relevant audiences, it is sales staff who stimulate the visibility of products and their demand through the various channels to market. They realize income by sustained and regular face-to-face selling to key intermediaries. The roles within sales, distribution and marketing continue to be transformed by changes in the retailing of printed books and ebooks through intermediaries, and by the rise of direct marketing and attempts by publishers to sell to end-users. A combination of the dominance of the internet booksellers (for example Amazon), the shift of bookselling chains to central buying, frontlist sales through supermarkets and the decline of independent bookselling, has led to a change in focus of sales staff in recent years. Publishers maintain key roles selling to the main accounts, but have drastically reduced the number of field sales representatives (reps) who visit bookshops and have created new in-house roles in direct selling, website or platform development and data analytics. They also use third parties such as sales and merchandising agencies. It is also important for publishers to ensure that their books are listed online with suffi cient metadata, and to deploy search engine optimization as a way of attracting purchasers.
