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.
