Do Book Publishers Need Distributors?

I’m fresh back from New York City and the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Publishing University, which they refer to simply as “Pub U.”

The Pub U is held on the two or three days just prior to the huge, annual Book Expo America.

If you are a book publisher or if you plan on publishing, attending both makes a great one-two educational punch. I’ve been in the book biz for 17 years or so, and I learn something new from these two events every year. And, of course, networking is perhaps the most valuable component of both.

My presentation at Pub U was part of a panel that discussed the necessity of a publisher using a distributor or a wholesaler to get his or her books to market. The two others on the panel were Richard T. Williams of Small Press United, a book distributor, and Craig Pollock of Ingram Book Company. Ingram is the 800-pound canary of the book wholesale industry. Nancy Stewart, also of Ingram, moderated.

In the book industry the terms “distributor” and “wholesaler” are not identical. A distributor contracts with a publisher for the exclusive right to supply a publisher’s books to the greater book trade, including retailers, wholesalers, and libraries. A wholesaler sells into the same book trade but doesn’t require exclusivity.

A distributor is supposed to supply active and aggressive sales representation on behalf of the publisher’s titles. This sales representation can get watered down for a number of reasons, including the fact that many distributors represent too many publishers to give first rate attention to any but the largest and most successful ones. A distributor’s staff may not like a title or see its potential, or may not feel the publisher is doing enough marketing for it and therefore may not get behind it.

The distributor usually retains 25% to 30% of net sales for its services.

 Below is a link to the PowerPoint from my talk. The first two slides explain this a bit more.

Steve Mettee Look Before You Leap IBPA-2011 

I think with brick and mortar bookstores accounting for less and less of the market for books, a publisher should think twice before signing with a distributor. That was the gist of my presentation.

What should a publisher do with the extra margin retained when not using a distributor? Spend the money on marketing the books.

 Just a write thought.