Cold Cut Comics Distribution

Publisher Frequently Asked Questions

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Solicitations

• Should we send solicitations to Cold Cut?
• When is your solicitation deadline?
• Should we include art with solicitations?

Cold Cut is not an advance order distributor. That is, unlike Diamond, we do not publish a catalog of "upcoming releases" and compile stores' orders to add to your print run. We are a reorder distributor. We publish an irregular catalog listing everything we have available in our warehouse, and ship books to stores within 2-3 days after they order.

Therefore, your solicitation material is not used in our catalog until quantities of your book are in our warehouse. Our deadline for each month's catalog is generally the first day of the month prior to the catalog month. (For example, the deadline for the December catalog is November 1).

Although we usually don't order directly from solicitations, we do like to receive them, since they keep us informed about what is being published and when, as well as provide a source of "upcoming comics" news for our catalog. Please do send us solicitations if you can. The more we know about your books, the more we can do to help sell them.

But since we are a reorder distributor, we take no advance orders from retailers, so we generally don't place advance orders ourselves on books unless we are sure they will sustain steady reorder activity.

Artwork is always welcome with solicitations, and with merchandise (T-shirts, etc) it's essential. We scan in this art to use it in the catalog. If you have art available, please send it along with the solicitation. Our catalog is black and white on newsprint, so please don't send color art or heavy tones.

Shipping

• How should I ship the books to you?
• Why are my books getting damaged?

Cold Cut cannot accept books which are damaged beyond salability. We have to return them for credit or replacement.

To avoid damage and the associated paperwork headaches, please take every precaution when shipping your books to ensure that they arrive undamaged here at our warehouse. Having years of experience in shipping books to stores with a nearly damage-free record, we have some suggestions on how to achieve this:

If your book is printed or stored at Quebecor,

If you drop ship directly from a printer

Double boxing prevents nearly all damage from occurring. Our experience seems to suggest that printers do an excellent job of double boxing - but they often simply forget to double box in the first place, regardless of your request. Try to remind them.

If you ship the books yourself,

• Ship with UPS.
  The Postal Service and RPS (FedEx Ground) is also OK, but boxes generally take a much worse beating in their system. If you must use the Postal Service, definitely double-box your books and put in lots of packing material (crumpled newspaper is fine) between the first and second box. Often, a shipment arrives with the outer box nearly falling apart.
• Do not ship in envelopes of any kind.
  Use only sturdy, corrugated cardboard boxes. If you are shipping only a few copies, you can probably get small boxes for free from your local comic shop or stationery store. They generally have small shipments coming in all the time. Bigger boxes, of course, you get when your books arrive from the printer!
• Do not pack your books into any corners of the box.
  Boxes have eight corners - make sure that the only thing in all of the corners is packing material. You can use styrofoam packing peanuts, or even just crumpled-up newspaper. Having books in any corner of the box is a nearly-guaranteed way to incur damage. When boxes land on a corner, dozens of books get permanently smashed. If your books are an inch or two away from the corner, they generally arrive unscathed.
• Consider double-boxing.
  It's amazing how much damage is prevented just by having two corrugated cardboard shields protecting your cargo from the vicious world. If you do this, you can generally ignore padding the interior box's corners - just pack it full of comics and seal it shut. Then, fill the outer box with the inner box and padding - crumpled newspaper is fine as padding. Try not to have the inner box nestled directly into a corner of the outer box.
• Do not leave any empty space.
  When you lift your package and shake it, if you hear things moving or sliding inside, you have packed too loose. You must fill that space with packing material, even if it's just crumpled newsprint. This means everywhere in the box - the top, the sides, the bottom. These boxes get handled by dozens of people, and if the books are sliding inside, they will rip each other apart or crumple against the walls. To prevent them from scuffing against the top of the box, you can put a sheet of paper between the top comic and the box lid.
• Don't ship Next Day Air or 2nd Day Air
  Although we appreciate the thought, we hate to see publishers spend money on express freight when they don't have to. Remember that we are ordering your books before any retailer has ordered them. There is no rush to get them here; there are no orders pending. If we are ever in a rush to get your books, we will be sure to let you know. Sending your books standard UPS Ground will get them here in a week at most, which is fine for our purposes.

Following these guidelines will greatly decrease your shipping damage, both for us and for anyone else to whom you ship books.

Invoicing

• What's the best way to send you a bill?

The best way to bill us for your books is to mail the invoice separately to our warehouse. Invoices which arrive that way are entered into our Accounts Payable system, checked against incoming books, and paid on a regular basis.

If you decide to instead include your invoice with your books, please mark clearly that it is an invoice. Usually, sheets included in shipments are packing lists, which we check against but then discard.

Please indicate clearly on the invoice the total amount due, the due date, our PO number, and the name to which we should make checks payable. This simplifies our Accounts Payable system and reduces errors.

Last update: May 22, 2002