Book Distribution: Part 2

Abstract

In my last column in Collection Building, I was concerned with an article that appeared in a 1982 issue of Publishers Weekly which dealt with the ways book publishers are attempting to deal with economic hard times. I commented that all the nickel‐and‐dime belt‐tightening measures outlined in the article ignored one of the most serious and costly aspects of the publishing business: the entire process of book distribution, the improvement of which The Book Industry Study Group called “an essential ingredient for the [book] industry's future growth,” in its 1982 report Book Distribution in the United States: Issues and Perceptions. But just how seriously the book industry takes one of its own most critical problems was brought out in the Publishers Weekly Yearbook: News, Analyses, and Trends in the Book Industry (Bowker, 1983), a volume summarizing the year's activity in the book business. Book distribution is mentioned just once, on page two, where the book's editor, John F. Baker, says that “the traditional patterns in which books were manufactured, distributed, and sold [were] rapidly changing.” No further discussion of how these distribution patterns were “rapidly changing” can be found, and from the viewpoint of one who has to deal daily with the distribution problem, I can only wonder what “rapid” changes Mr. Baker refers to—or even what non‐rapid changes have occurred since the Book Industry Study Group's 1982 report, which concluded emphatically, that “of all industry segments, publishers' practices would need to change most to achieve significant distribution improvements.”

Citation

(1983), "Book Distribution: Part 2", Collection Building, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 51-52. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb023122