It was the best of holiday seasons, it was the worst of holiday seasons.

Close to two dozen independent bookstores around the country reporting to PW told of great sales of such hot reads as The Gales of November by John U. Bacon (Liveright), 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Viking), The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Crown), If We Were Dogs by Sophie Blackall (Little Brown BYR), and Zip Zap Wickety Wack by Matthew Diffee (Neal Porter), to name just a few.

But many booksellers also expressed frustration that unexpected shipping delays of two weeks and more on shipments from Ingram, the Big Five, and other major publishers throughout December put a damper on an otherwise strong sales season for indies.

“Most publishers, and Ingram, had some serious delays with processing and shipping orders,” said Gaël LeLamer, head buyer at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Fla. “Some orders took two weeks to come in when they typically offer two-day shipping this time of year. This was frustrating on many levels, but overall, this was a great holiday season,” with their sales surpassing 2024's.

Heather Jackson of Merit Badge Books in Hamburg, N.Y., said that deliveries "became so unreliable in December," which she said was more the result of "publishers being overwhelmed than shipping company times." She said she had particular issues with titles from PRH, with "some orders [sitting] in process for weeks before being shipped by a third party." Scholastic was also slow. Her customers wanted The Gales of November, she said, but "we've had a hard time getting our hands on copies; two reorders were canceled by Norton."

“Everyone was gummed up a bit,” agreed Jason Kennedy, the general manager and adult book buyer at Boswell and Company in Milwaukee, Wis. “Even the publishers that promised two-day shipping were having major issues getting the books packed up and onto trucks. It might have been two-day shipping, but it took eight days.” While Bread of Angels by Patti Smith (PRH) “was out forever,” Boswell scored plenty of copies of A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst (Riverhead), which other bookstores were unable to get.

“For the most part, nothing too vital was out of stock too terribly long,” Kennedy added, “but we have a good staff that can pivot and hand sell something similar.”

Unprecedented problems

“Publisher and wholesaler shipping was the worst I’ve seen in over 25 years of bookselling,” complained Tom Batterson of New Story Community Books in Marshall, Mich., even though sales were up 3%, with Gales of November being especially popular. "The season was fast and fun, but also it sucked to have to call so many customers and tell them the books they ordered were not going to arrive in time, despite us sticking to the timelines publishers and wholesalers laid out."

Lily Bartels, the buyer at Open Door Bookstore in Schenectady, NY described the fourth quarter as “a banner” end to a good year with sales up “significantly.” But, she added, in 38 years of bookselling, she has “never seen anything like this.”

“An S&S order took 11 days to get to us, 10 days from PRH, and where do I start with Ingram?” Bartels continued. “There needs to be an industry-wide evaluation of the entire process and a strategy in place to avoid a repeat of this mess next year.” Bartels said that the most reliable supplier “in terms of delays” last month was Bookazine.

Arden Harris, the lead bookseller at A Seat at the Table Bookstore in Elk Grove, Calif., reported that Ingram’s delays, exceeding two weeks, “lost us a huge order due to missing deadlines,” and noted delays with S&S and HarperCollins as well.

“To me this is the entire story of the holiday season,” said Claire Benedict of Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vt. “So many books on order all season that just did not come through. Ingram and PRH totally failed. I hope the higher-ups at PRH are paying attention to this and not just looking at what amazing authors they signed or how many imprints they gobbled up in 2025. If they can't get the books in stores during the prime season, none of the rest of it matters.”

Describing the disruptions as “worse than even the Covid years,” Praveen Madan of Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, Calif. noted that S&S and Norton both “felt especially unpredictable,” and that while PRH “historically had been very reliable and predictable during the holidays,” that wasn’t the case this year. Most of the publishers also, Madan said, “seemed surprised and unprepared with the issues that were plaguing their supply chains.”

The disruptions were magnified, Madan and many of the other booksellers contended, by unrealistic promises made by publishers before the holidays and a lack of communication at the height of the season, when shipments were taking as long as two weeks. “Bookstores had no idea until it was the eleventh hour,” Madan said.

Madan suggested that, in future, vendors should provide regular status updates with realistic delivery dates, rather than generic promises about “second day delivery.” Otherwise, he heaped praise upon his sales reps for being “highly responsive” to bookseller inquiries and expediting delivery to Kepler’s of some of the season’s hottest managed titles.

“It reminded us,” he said, “that individual heroics are needed when systems fail.”

Various degrees of impact

Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, N.C., which had difficulties getting Gales of November, ran out of The Correspondent in early December and was unable to restock.

“We could've sold 50 more copies if we could've gotten them in,” noted assistant general manager Amber Neva Brown. “Ingram-Tennessee and PRH especially being so behind really caused problems for us with our customers.” But, she added, “it was a good holiday despite the lost sales from supply chain issues,” attributing the success to “excellent booksellers who were able to help customers find great books, no matter what.”

“There were lots of supply chain issues,” acknowledged David Enyeart of Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul, Minn. “Mostly slow turnaround from publisher warehouses. Generally, we ordered books early enough to avoid any major issues, but there were some New York Times top 10 books that we couldn’t stock quickly, and it was often hard to get individual copies for special orders.”

Jill Yeomans at White Whale Bookstore in Pittsburgh, Pa., “had issues” with her initial order early on in the season of Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin), and “S&S could not reprint fast enough Booker winner Flesh by David Szalay (Scribner), while Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (Knopf) did not have enough stock when the film dropped.” By mid-December, PRH processing and shipping issues were causing two-week delays for some orders. Despite the problems, White Whale reported strong sales, with Yeomans observing “a lot of community support.”

Sarah Pishko of Prince Books in Norfolk, Va., disclosed that “in a desperate moment” in early December, Pishko emailed one of her PRH reps to say that she had to divert orders to Ingram because shipments were taking seven to 10 days, “but Ingram was out of just about every fall 2025 title.”

The rep persuaded Pishko to order full cartons of The Correspondent, Buckeye by Patrick Ryan and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, "and the cartons miraculously arrived the next day.” But when she tried to re-order two cartons of The Look by Michelle Obama on December 15, another rep told her that it would not be available until March, even though PRH’s portal listed it as a bestseller managed order.

While Pishko said that these supply chain disruptions “absolutely hurt sales,” her customers “seemed to understand and were patient.”

Even so, for Sam Droke-Dickinson of Aaron's Books in Lititz, Pa., a lack of initiative from publishers and distributors to address and communicate about the disruptions still "left booksellers to bear the brunt of customer complaints and frustrations."

John Evans of Camino Books in Del Mar, Calif., agreed that “publishers were pretty disrespectful in not communicating about their fails, which is par for the course in these times, but still a bit stark given their failure to keep up their end. Much of this may be a West Coast problem, which is a perpetual problem—just worse this year.”

Ingram, publishers respond

PW reached out to the publishers and distributors most often called out by booksellers on social media and in private communications with us. Some, but not all, responded to our queries.

Scholastic SVP for corporate communications Anne Sparkman maintained that the company's shipments were not "uniquely impacted by anything that wasn’t industry-wide,” adding that it was her understanding that “deliveries averaged 24-hour turn-arounds.”

A Norton executive explained that the shipping delays concerned Gales of November, which was released in October and heavily promoted in the Great Lakes regions—but sales nationwide unexpectedly surged in November and December, as it was being prepared to go back to press. Praising Norton's warehouse workers for their hard work throughout the season, this executive said that turnaround times for all other releases remained within a five-day window.

PRH and HarperCollins representatives both acknowledged that there indeed were significant shipping delays and other issues impacting popular titles during the holidays, ascribing the problems primarily to a much higher volume of sales than expected, but said that the problems are being addressed and will hopefully be resolved in the coming weeks.

The PRH spokesperson also noted that this year’s holiday sales season was a short one, as Thanksgiving fell on November 27, which only magnified already tight turnaround times. The HarperCollins spokesperson echoed this sentiment, adding that were more orders of less than a carton quantity, which slowed things down as well.

As for Ingram, a spokesperson stated that the distributor “experienced a robust holiday season with sales growth at independent bookstores and general retail, including dot-com sellers and, of course, at public libraries,” after B&T’s recent shutdown.

The spokesperson acknowledged that “sales above expectations did result in sporadic timing challenges at our Chambersburg, Pa., and Nashville, Tenn. distribution centers,” but said that Ingram “prioritized indie store and retail shipments from December 15 and is now largely caught up at all distribution points.”