After doing its own distribution since it was founded in 1984, Fulcrum Publishing in Golden, Colo., signed with Consortium Book Sales & Distribution effective January 1. “It was not a reactive decision,” said publisher Sam Scinta, who is relocating to Wisconsin, where he will be closer to Consortium's offices. “While we saw sales growing—20% last year—we thought it would make it easier to work with booksellers.” Borders's announcement that it didn't want its buyers' time tied up with meeting lots of small presses, as well as Perseus's ability to manage Fulcrum's e-book content through its Constellation program, also figured in the move, according to Scinta.
Given those considerations, coupled with the economic climate and the high cost of investing in EDI and other technology upgrades, does it make sense for small and mid-sized independent houses to handle their own sales and distribution any more? Some indie houses definitely think it does.
“I'm not sure you have to go through a distributor,” said Dominique Raccah, president and publisher of Sourcebooks in Naperville, Ill., who left the now-defunct Login Book Distributors because she felt the sales force didn't understand the potential of Sourcebooks' poetry list. “It's essential that you work with someone who gets the potential for the projects you are most passionate about,” Raccah said. For example, industry reps told Raccah to anticipate sales of 1,500 copies at most for a poetry book, but through self-distribution, Poetry Speaks has sold 180,000 copies, and Raccah anticipates another strong seller with Nikki Giovanni's newly released poetry anthology, Hip Hop Speaks to Children.
Doing its own distribution also lets Sourcebooks move quickly on an opportunity. This season, for example, Sourcebooks added the 2009 Barack Obama Wall Calendar after its list was announced. While it's not always easy to make drop-ins work, Raccah has found that they can be even harder with a distributor. The one exception she makes to going it alone is to outsource warehousing—in Sourcebooks' case, with Donnelley. “That's just not a core competency,” she said, after giving it a try on her dining-room table when she first founded the company two decades ago.
Michael Kerber, president of Red Wheel Weiser Conari in Newburyport, Mass., agreed. Six months after he and Jan Johnson purchased Weiser, which had a warehouse in Maine, they got hit with a big snow storm and couldn't ship. They realized, he said, that they needed to outsource warehousing, which they do through Books International in Dulles, Va. Still, given Weiser's long history of self-distribution and Kerber's previous experience at Tuttle, which also self-distributes, he finds going it alone to be the most effective way to get books into special markets like gift stores, clothing stores and catalogues. “Where we see sales grow day in and day out is the special markets. We don't need an NBN or PGW to sell us to Barnes & Noble.”
Small regional publishers like Commonwealth Editions in Beverly, Mass., see additional benefits from self-distribution. “I never want anyone to distribute our books,” said publisher Webster Bull, whose wife, Katie Bull, handles national accounts, Boston and Rhode Island, while two part-time employees together with commission rep group Book Sales cover the rest of New England. “Our strength is being very close to our customers. So much of our success is based on creating books that sell themselves, about places where people live.” For him that closeness not only results in better sales but better acquisitions. He followed up on a suggestion from Bob Hugo, owner of Spirit of '76 Bookstore in Marblehead, Mass., to publish a photo book on Hugo's community. Commonwealth subsequently acquired Ulrike Welsch's Marblehead, which went on to sell 14,000 copies.
For Carolyn Sakowski, president of 54-year-old John Blair, Publisher, in Winston-Salem, N.C., self-distribution allows a lot more control, especially since all books are shipped from its offices. “When we have a customer service problem, we can take care of it right here,” she said. As for collections, she finds very few delinquent accounts. Currently, 17 accounts are in arrears over 90 days and, of those, only six are over 120. Nor does Sakowski miss the kind of detailed statistical analysis that distributors can provide to their clients. “That would be of interest if I were in competition for the bestsellers list,” said Sakowski. But Blair is a niche publisher, as are its distribution clients; its books reflect a Southern sensibility.
Margaret Quinlin, president and publisher of Peachtree Publishers in Atlanta, has always done her own distribution and fulfillment, including operating a forklift on occasion and helping with twice-yearly inventories. “I think a customer's experience with a company should be filled with positives. Handling our own fulfillment allows us to create the policies and choose the people compatible with our views,” said Quinlin, allowing that “it's a double-edged thing.” At a time when the world has moved to economies of scale, it can be difficult to keep up, she acknowledged. Another negative, Quinlin points out, is the mental space needed to manage fulfillment, time that could be spent working on other projects.
Despite the cons, sometimes self-distribution offers better market penetration for less. That's the case with Berkeley, Calif.-based Wilderness Press, which was acquired by Keen Communications in Cincinnati in February. “There's such a world of efficiency having everything under one roof,” said Keen president Richard Hunt, who noted that the company's other two imprints, Clerisy Press and Menasha Ridge, are both represented by PGW. “But Wilderness has such good staff and good response time that we couldn't make it work,” Hunt said. “On paper, that was the only way we could keep Wilderness going.” However, Wilderness will shift its warehouse operations and share warehouse space with another long-time self-distributed independent, Ten Speed Press.
Three years ago, O'Reilly moved to what CFO/COO Laura Baldwin describes as “a hybrid model.” Because of the technical nature of its list, O'Reilly didn't want to outsource sales. It chose Ingram for the back-end and for representation to smaller trade accounts. O'Reilly continues to sell to its top 15 accounts. “The data and information systems you have to have in place to self-distribute are so costly. For O'Reilly, that was a decision point to move to Ingram,” Baldwin said. “We decided to put our excess capital to work in product development.”
Although O'Reilly hasn't necessarily saved money by joining Ingram, it has freed capital to invest in its list. Since it signed with Ingram, the house has grown its list. This year O'Reilly will publish 137 books, up from 115 last year.
The decision to self-distribute comes down to the cost of capital and where each publisher wants to put its energies. While distribution may not be one of the sexiest publishing topics, “it's really at the heart of what we do, getting the book into the hands of readers,” said Peachtree's Quinlin. On a more somber note, added Baldwin, “if you don't get it right, it can kill you.”
