Distribution
Daybook
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (JUNE 2002)
This
year Publishing Trends abandoned its vendor survey,
because trying to rate players in the fulfillment and
distribution arena was like trying to judge a warehouse
full of Rube Goldberg contraptions — there are too many
moving pieces, and they all move in different (some
might say mysterious) ways.
But one thing is certain: they are all moving.
The catalyst was Random’s 1999 exit from the
business, after Gilbert Perlman built the client
list to include National Geographic, Houghton
Mifflin, and others. Gilbert eventually formed CDS
after buying Random’s distribution center in Tennessee,
and the company now has 16 clients, some of whom — like
Robert James Waller — are being distributed on
a one-off basis. Meanwhile LPC, which has since
declared bankruptcy, is to be handled by CDS, and new
clients like Hachette Filipacchi Books are coming
on board. (Hearst left when Sterling bought
the company.)
MBI
is also building up its sales and distribution portfolio.
With 70 clients, the company (which includes Motorbooks)
is looking for more publishers in related categories,
such as sports and other “male enthusiast” subjects.
CEO Rich Freese came from NBN, the Maryland-based
company whose website still claims it’s “the fastest
growing national book distributor in the United States,”
though others might demur. Clients include Regnery,
Consumer Reports, Carlton, and 120 others
— including McBooks, a small press that had been distributed
by LPC and is hoping to recoup cash owed from LPC’s
bankruptcy.
Baker
& Taylor has also decided to get into the distribution
—though not the sales — business. This decision comes
despite Ingram’s decision to exit the business,
after years of attempting to get its PRI division on
sound footing.
Others are throwing in the metaphorical towel: Andrews
& McMeel, which markets almost everyone’s calendars,
moved its back office to S&S, as has Millbrook.
Some publishers changed partners: Scholastic
left PPI for HarperCollins; recently sold to
Langenscheidt, Berlitz will probably leave
Globe Pequot at the end of the year. Greywolf
went off to FSG, just as its distributor, Consortium,
was sold to a new private investor. The company distributes
more than 70 publishers (with another eight coming on
board so far this year), many of them nonprofits. Dorchester
just announced it would move its back office to HarperCollins,
after having been distributed by Hearst’s COMAG. It
will develop its own sales force rather than relying
on a third party.
Some likely-looking players are claiming not to be:
when Perseus bought Running Press, there
was some question that it might take its distribution
away from Harper and set up on its own. But CEO Jack
McKeown emails us with this comment: “While fulfillment
and distribution deals can alleviate short term cash
and profitability pressures, they are not part of a
long-term strategy of building value through the accumulation
of publishing assets, which describes our mission.”
Enough said.
Yale,
Harvard and MIT have decided that bigger
is best: They opened their joint warehouse last month
in Rhode Island, and according to PW, set up
a limited liability partnership, Triliteral. Under its
aegis the three presses have combined their database
systems “to create a single Triliteral account for each
customer and consolidated their order processing, EDI,
customer service, accounts receivable, credit and collections
functions.”
And of course, this year brought the purchase of the
behemoth of independent distributors, PGW, which
AMS scooped up in January. It has closed AGD
and turned over its dozen or so clients to PGW, making
the new company, as PW noted, “the most significant
player in the distribution field.”
And remember, it’s just June.
©2002
Publishing Trends
