This year’s Book Industry Study Group’s annual meeting took place April 25 in a new venue, the Times Center in New York City, but the main topic of discussion was a familiar one: the urgent need to upgrade the publishing industry’s supply chain. The meeting took place just as the organization’s Book Publishing Next white paper, “Building a Supply Chain for the Next Generation of Book Publishing,” was released.

Kicking off the conversation were Firebrand Technologies director of sales and education Joshua Tallent and Barnes & Noble senior director of merchandise systems James Miller—who are BISG board chair and vice chair, respectively—discussing the meeting’s theme: how the book business needs to “move fast and fix things.” Noting that this year’s white paper had been in the works for a few years, Miller called it a “critical, pivotal moment” for BISG. He noted that if the BISG staff, board, and volunteers have the necessary support to work together to improve communication throughout the supply chain, it would be a “lift all boats–type moment, so that each individual company could get back to focusing on really moving forward with their core mission.”

Miller also spoke about the approach CEO James Daunt took in turning B&N around when he took over five years ago following the acquisition of the company by Elliott Management. Miller has been with the retailer for 13 years; asked about what had changed since Daunt was named CEO, Miller replied, simply, “everything.” After a revolving door of CEOs and shifts in operating priorities, Miller said, Daunt “has brought focus on how to be a great bookseller” back to the U.S.’s largest bricks-and-mortar bookstore chain.

Daunt’s first decisions, Miller said, involved updating the store layouts, giving local managers more power over the store’s stock, and putting the focus back on books while sidelining the many sidelines that had become a prominent part of the bookseller’s offerings. “Make books the star” was Daunt’s mandate, Miller said—something “we had not done eight years prior by doing everything but books.”

To achieve its goals, Miller said, B&N management identified the discrete steps it needed to take to begin moving forward. Putting store managers in charge of ordering meant developing new systems, and after a long time of closing stores, B&N also had to learn how to open new outlets. The strategy, Miller explained, is to open stores tailored to each community rather than opening generic superstores. (B&N opened about 60 new stores in 2024 and plans to open the same number this year). The chain’s greatest success has come through boosting fiction sales, and B&N is in the process of reworking its adult nonfiction sections as well; the makeover will begin with sports books, and will eventually expand to all nonfiction sections, Miller said.

New fixes to old problems remained a theme in the next panel, where Phil Madans, the recently retired executive director of digital publishing technology at Hachette Book Group, summarized a few of the key takeaways from the Book Publishing Next white paper. He noted that the current supply chain was built for a very different industry—one that was dominated by print books and where publishers did not interact directly with consumers.

“The internet changed everything,” Madans said. “The whole dynamic of how we reach our readers changed,” with new communities on such platforms as TikTok fundamentally shifting the ways publishers can best reach readers. The current supply chain, he added, was not built to meet the demands of those new marketing opportunities.

Since publishers often responds to trends, Madans argued, it’s imperative to develop a supply chain that can react more quickly to new developments. He pointed to the pandemic as a watershed moment, indicating to the industry just how heavily it now relies on data and the need for much better transparency between publishers and vendors—particularly with printers.

The Supply Chain and AI

BISG honors two individuals each year at their annual meeting. The first was Independent Book Publishers Association chief content officer Lee Wind, who was honored with BISG's Industry Champion Award for co-creating the national campaign “We Are Stronger Than Censorship,” which buys and donates two books to offset every one book challenge. The second was Sourcebooks founder and CEO Dominique Raccah, who received this year’s Sally Dedecker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

In accepting her award, Raccah observed that “progress in publishing is not just possible—it’s imperative.” Raccah served as BISG co-chair and chair from 2006 to 2012 and served on the executive committee for nine years. During that time, BISG helped the industry navigate the 13-digit ISBN transition, which, she said, “quietly revolutionized our supply chain and commerce.” Publishing also tackled the e-book revolution in that period and strengthened ties across the publishing ecosystem, she said. “And now—once again—the ground beneath us is shifting,” Raccah declared.

The issue of the moment is AI. “AI is no longer on the horizon—it’s in the room,” Raccah said. “Our supply chains are transforming in real time. Metadata has evolved from a back-office function to a front-line force in discoverability and sales.” Data itself, she added “is a creative engine, a compass, a powerful storytelling tool in its own right.”

Raccah asserted that the questions the industry face now “aren’t just operational—they’re existential.” She sees AI not as a threat to creativity, “but as a force that—if guided wisely—can amplify our ability to serve readers, connect communities, and elevate voices that might otherwise go unheard.” At the same time, she stressed that she and Sourcebooks “believe it is essential at this time to protect the livelihood of our authors and creative partners and protect this fragile ecosystem that's so important to all readers.”

To do that, she explained, book publishing must participate in the decisions involving the future of AI. “We must ask better questions—not just about what’s possible, but about what’s right. We must ensure AI is implemented with transparency—with full respect for authors’ and artists’ intellectual property and creative contributions—with ethics, and with equity. We must challenge ourselves to be not just faster or leaner, but better,” she said.

“And who better to lead that charge than BISG?”