History Southern Book Company is a family-owned Georgia corporation founded January 2, 1996. The concept of SBC grew out of This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it twenty-seven years experience in education and the publishing industry. Dick's dream was to build a service-oriented fulfillment company, dedicated to delivering exceptional service, devoted to building lasting relationships by making the extra effort, by doing it right, and by fulfilling the needs of publishers. The original plan included sample retrieval services to educational publishers in Georgia and recycling of discarded textbooks for schools. While the recycling of discarded textbooks did not prove profitable, the idea to retrieve non-adopted sample materials for publishers did catch on.

Silver Burdett Ginn, McDougal Littell, and Harcourt Brace were among the first publishers that contracted with SBC to retrieve their non-adopted samples in GA. In the first few years, the list of publishers grew to include Glencoe, Scott Foresman, Saxon, Holt, Prentice Hall, and others.

In 1997, Southern Book Company established a Florida warehouse in the Winter Haven area. Our goal was to retrieve samples for publishers in Florida. Unfortunately, the endeavor lasted less than a year.

On December 10, 1997, SBC began operations in Asheboro, NC. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it was chosen as North Carolina Operations Manager. Plans were to provide retrieval services to publishers submitting social studies textbooks in NC during 1997-98. SBC-Asheboro also acted as the NC private school depository for Clairmont Press. Chad's experience as a teacher and coach in the Randolph County School System has proven to be invaluable in working directly with NC schools.

SBC entered into its first Georgia distribution contract with Clark Publishing, Inc. on December 15, 1997. SBC is responsible for receiving, warehousing, and distributing the contracted pupil editions, teacher editions, and ancillary materials for Clark Publishing, Inc. to all Georgia public schools.

In 1998, Pat Harrigan, Harcourt School Publishers Sales Manager, asked if we could ship all GA sample prepacks for them from our Marietta warehouse. That year, we shipped via UPS and delivered ourselves over 5,000 prepacks for Harcourt with virtually no mistakes. On August 1st, SBC entered into its third distribution contract with Hal Leonard Corporation in Georgia. SBC is responsible for receiving, warehousing, distributing, and billing of all Hal Leonard contracted product to all Georgia public schools.

In 1999-2000 SBC began shipping all Harcourt samples to Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina schools. The next school year, SBC added sample shipments for Harcourt to KY, IN, TN, and SC.

In September 2001, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it joined SBC as the GA Operations Manager. Brian's education at West Point and his experience as an overseas officer taught him the importance of sticking to the mission at hand and achieving the goal. Brian arrived just in time to direct the disassembly of the Marietta warehouse contents and move and assemble our present Kennesaw, GA location. Our 12,000 square foot facility located at 1075 Cobb International Place warehouses the product and helps facilitate the services provided to the educational publishing industry in Georgia.

For the past three years, Georgia operations have been lead by Brian Schoenbaechler. Since coming on board, Brian has successfully grown our operation. Hal Leonard Corporation, William H. Sadlier, Santillana USA, REI America, Warner Brothers Publications and Oxford University Press all rely on Southern Book Company for complete depository services in the State of Georgia.

Southern Book Company is certainly not the largest Depository in Georgia; however, we have an excellent reputation among educators and publishers for outperforming expectations and exceeding customer satisfaction through on-time deliveries and retrievals.

By offering value-added services, Southern Book Company hopes to distinguish itself from other distributors in the state by providing a one-stop service center for our customers. These value-added services include sample distribution, sample delivery and set-up, sample retrieval, kitting, product retrofitting, delivery and dispersal of presentation materials.

We are proud of the investment we have made in our own fleet of trucks and drivers. These assets have allowed us to provide the exceptional service for which we are known. High-priority and sensitive orders can be delivered and/or displayed by our courteous and knowledgeable staff. Our customers have found this a valuable service. Publishers have found that their sales force is better served making sales calls and outsourcing their logistical problems to us.

Another service that separates Southern Book Company from other distributors is the retrieval of sample material. Nine years ago we initiated sample retrieval for Georgia publishers as an opportunity publishers and educators to reuse and recover millions of dollars of textbook samples. This service has allowed publishers to recoup money spent on sampling by using retrieved materials as gratis material and/or additional sampling.

An additional benefit of our sample retrieval program is keeping sampled textbooks out of the used-book industry by recycling all unused product for pulp. Again, we are the only distributor in Georgia that has provided this level of commitment and degree of service for publishers in Georgia.

Southern Book Company moved to our new facility in Atlanta at the end of 2004.

This year, it appears as though Southern Book Company will again experience a record year of growth. Year-to-date, we have increased our number of depository clients, our number of sample boxes built, and the number of orders shipped. Our growth over the past ten years has been consistent and well managed.