When Consortium Books Sales & Distribution president Julie Schaper announced in September that she was planning to retire in June 2026, Meredith Greenhouse, VP and general manager at Ingram Content Group, Consortium’s parent company, told PW that Schaper has been the distributor’s “heart and soul for over 30 years.” Schaper leaves “a remarkable legacy,” Greenhouse added, pointing to her support of Consortium’s clients through shifts in the marketplace and a rapidly changing industry, “leading her publishers with vision and integrity, growing the business while staying true to its indie spirit and roots.”
Schaper began her career 40 years ago as the manager and buyer at Pages & Pages Bookstore in Louisville, Ky., before working in New York City as a sales rep for Putnam and HarperCollins. In 1994 she moved to the Twin Cities area as Consortium’s sales and marketing manager, and she has never looked back, moving up the ranks and serving as president since 2001.
When Schaper joined Consortium, it was an independent distributor of fewer than 30 small publishers. Today, it’s a $46 million company, with 145 clients that are actively distributed. It remains renowned for its portfolio of literary presses and poetry publishers—including Copper Canyon and Coffee House Press, two of its original clients.
Schaper is justifiably proud of her accomplishments over the years, such as the company posting significant annual increases in gross sales year after year that accelerated after its acquisition by Ingram in 2016. She’s also proud of the upward trend in the numbers of international clients. But, she says, her greatest accomplishment is less tangible. “I really enjoy bringing new publishers into the fold, but we can’t take everybody, so we do think about what publishers are bringing to the future—what they are doing that is changing the culture.”
In addition to distributing the now-defunct Alyson Books before LGBTQ+ books moved onto mainstream bookstore shelves, Schaper notes that Consortium signed on publishers that specialized in niches that didn’t historically see blockbuster sales, such as works in translation. She points out that this past spring Consortium started distributing LittlePuss Press, a publisher of books for the feminist trans community.
“They’re speaking for a community that wouldn’t otherwise have a voice,” Schaper says. “That’s always been part of our mission: giving voice to people who otherwise wouldn’t have one. I find that very inspiring and really exciting. I hope that continues at Consortium after I’m gone.”
