Trade Information
Welcome to the trade area of the Cicerone website
Here you will find what we hope will become a complete resource centre of documents and information for our trade customers.
Why stock Cicerone guides?
Cicerone guides are written by outdoors people, for outdoors people.
We are a small team, and work extremely hard with some wonderful authors, editors, cartographers and designers to make the guides as trustworthy as possible – reliable, accurate and attractively presented. Our reputation is the result of who we are and what we do. We believe in the Cicerone brand, and work hard to tell the world about it.
We believe in talking to the end users of our guides, your customers. They tell us what they like and dislike, and for which new areas they hope to see a new Cicerone guide, and they create a demand and interest for retailers to satisfy. For retailers, we are a trusted guide publisher, that is at all times safe to stock, as well as a growing publisher, providing potential sales growth at little risk.
Choosing a range
At around 260 titles, the Cicerone range may appear quite unmanageable, if not impossible to understand and keep track of. We realise this! There are probably only around three stockists in the whole country who carry the entire range, so don’t worry if you want to start or stay small.
Start by looking at the titles which are important for your area. You will know better than anyone which titles to choose. Then look at some of the best selling British titles, particularly the guides to some of the more popular National Trails and walking areas such as the Lake District, Scotland and Snowdonia. Finally consider a small selection of techniques books, especially ‘Map and Compass’. This should give you a good introductory range. If you think you may be able to sell overseas walking guides, again look at the best sellers list for guidance. Some of the walks in these guides require technical equipment and expertise; other guides are to popular holiday destinations, many of which are served by cheap flights, which may determine your choice.
We will never try to persuade you to stock something inappropriate, and will be happy to help you adjust your range of titles to get the best return on the space. If space is the problem, we may be able to help by loaning you a display spinner free of charge, for as long as you need it.
Support for retailers
We send catalogues to all retailers on our database twice each year. In addition, we issue between four and five trade newsletters each year – which we hope to mainly send you via email in the future. These newsletters highlight the publishing programme for the coming months, list recent titles and current best sellers, and provide background information and news about Cicerone.
As well as these various communications, we also try to visit many of our trade customers, both in the outdoor trade and bookshops. If you are an outdoor retailer and you would like one of us to visit you to discuss any aspect of trading with Cicerone, just call us to set up a convenient time.
Most retail and wholesale BOOK TRADE accounts will now be visited on a regular basis by our sales team, Amalgamated Book Services (ABS). ABS represent a small number of publishers, many of whom have strong backlists which need careful and regular stockchecking and management. They have an excellent reputation, and we believe they are the right representatives for our list. If you are a book trade customer and are not currently being visited by ABS on our behalf, and need someone to visit your store to discuss developing your range, please get in touch with us, and we will try to arrange a time to suit you.
