In this exciting episode, we welcome Richard T. Williams, Vice President of Business Development at Independent Publishers Group (IPG), to discuss the ins and outs of book distribution. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities for small publishers and indie authors in today’s evolving market. From the importance of understanding target audiences to the realities of distribution models, Richard shares invaluable insights drawn from his extensive experience in the publishing industry. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that dives into the good, the bad, and the ugly of book distribution!
Richard T. Williams is the Vice President, Business Development, at IPG, where he oversees new and existing business for the IPG distribution program, as well as for clients seeking extended publishing services and licensing opportunities. He is a former sales manager at IPG, the former director of the Small Press United program, and was once an operations manager at an independent publisher, where he earned firsthand experience on the publishing side.
Richard T. Williams is the Vice President, Business Development, at IPG, where he oversees new and existing business for the IPG distribution program, as well as for clients seeking extended publishing services and licensing opportunities. He is a former sales manager at IPG, the former director of the Small Press United program, and was once an operations manager at an independent publisher, where he earned firsthand experience on the publishing side.
Creators & Guests
Host
Producer
Chad Thompson
Chad Thompson, co-founder of Monkey C Media, offers professional photography and videography services. He has an eye for detail and a command of lighting that gives him the ability to show his subjects at their very best. You can count on seeing Chad around South Park on his bicycle with a camera slung over his shoulder. If he has never taken a picture of you, chances are good you have never met him.
Guest
Richard T. Williams
Richard T. Williams is the Vice President, Business Development, at IPG, where he oversees new and existing business for the IPG distribution program, as well as for clients seeking extended publishing services and licensing opportunities. He is a former sales manager at IPG, the former director of the Small Press United program, and was once an operations manager at an independent publisher, where he earned firsthand experience on the publishing side.
What is The Premise?
Here on The Premise Jeniffer and Chad Thompson talk to storytellers of all types. From authors to musicians, poets, screenwriters, and comedians we get down to the tiny grain of sand that becomes a pearl—getting to the story behind the storyteller.
>> Jeniffer: Hello and welcome to the Premise. This is
season six and I'm pretty excited to be back. How are
you, Chad?
>> Chad: Good God, Season six.
>> Jeniffer: I know, right? I was thinking the same thing. We've been doing this for
six years.
>> Chad: Yeah. Here we are, us now, right?
>> Jeniffer: Look, well, no one can. Yeah, no, sorry about that.
Right next to, you know, the cat tree.
And anyway, listen, we are really excited
because today we are with a very, very special guest and a
good friend of mine. His name is Richard Williams. He's from
ipg, which is Independent Publishers Group.
They are a distributor, a book distributor.
And we're going to talk all things book distribution, what it is, how
it works and how or even if small
publishers and indie authors should get it. We're going to dive
into the good, the bad and the ugly. Richard
T. Williams is the Vice president of
Business Development at IPG where he oversees
new and existing business for the IPG distribution
program as well as for clients seeking extended
publishing services and licensing
opportunities. He is a former sales manager at ipg,
the former director of the Small Press United
program, and was once an operations manager and an
independent publisher where he earned first
hand experience of the publishing side. And we're
going to dig and into all of that today. And
Richard, you and I have been talking about like really getting behind
the scenes and talking about the publishing world
I would say for like 10 years, maybe more.
>> Richard: It was definitely pre pandemic and
it feels like it kind of came out of the sort
of the reality TV craze because you and I had our
great grand idea of many, many moons ago
that we're not going to talk about here because we still
might want to see this into fruition someday. So we got to keep our
plans a secret.
>> Jeniffer: We got to keep them close to the chest as it were.
Well, I want to talk a little bit about it because I worked for a
small publisher back in the late 90s
actually and it was just like the
people who I worked with, it was just such
an interesting group of
people, I'm going to just say it like that. And it was just
funny. Like some days as I was like this should be a reality TV
show. And I remember you and I, you have the same experience because
you also worked for a small publisher.
>> Richard: I did, I did. And in fact
that seems like a lifetime ago, was, you
know, it was absolutely without question, it
was like my crash course and everything. Publishing, which I
think a lot of people who get into publishing have to
experience something like that because it tends to be the
accidental career for a lot of people. And,
and I hadn't. Yeah. And I had no idea what I was
doing. I was one of those kids who came out of college and thought,
hey, I was an English major, I can do publishing stuff.
>> Jeniffer: Right?
>> Richard: And when you start out, you think that
everybody just sits in these offices with brick walls
and giant stacks of manuscripts and pencils, and that's what
publishing is. And I learned pretty quickly
that it is everything else as well.
and in fact, that's the one thing in publishing that I really have
never done is editorial. And I'm so thankful that I
haven't, because it is just not my line of work.
>> Jeniffer: That is funny. And of course I was going toa ask you if you were a writer, even though I know
the answer.
>> Richard: You know, I grew up wanting to be a writer.
I got a creative writing major or minor
in college. And, you know, just like
everybody else who has this dream once upon a time,
then you get involved in the inner workings of the
thing that you love and you realize that it may not
be the thing you want to do. And I'm very happy
to think that I have focused my career,
because it did kind of lead me here, and kind of left the
writing for all the other people to do. Because there
certainly is a lot of good writing out
there.
>> Jeniffer: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, I want to go back to. You know, you said
something really struck a chord with me when I worked for this small
publisher and There was like 10 of us, right? We only had like maybe
12 books and they were a regional directory, bioscience
and technology directories.
>> Chad: So like, exciting.
>> Jeniffer: It doesn't get any more dry than that. Right. But we were not a
dry group of people. There were a lot of cocktail hours and
everyone had to do everything. And I remember when I was hired,
you know, I, I was in editorial, and then I found
myself doing layout. And then I was like, why don't we
have distribution? Why aren't we in Barnes and Noble? And my
publisher, my boss, was like, well, we just haven't been able to get it. And I'm like, can
I try? And I've told this story before. I was
like, we're just go goingna call Barnes and Noble every day until they order
our books. And I. That's how I did
it. I'm the kind of person that I'm like, oh, the door is locked.
I'll crawl through a window. I'll go through the chimney if I have
to.
>> Richard: But Jennifer, did it work? Did Barnes and Noble?
>> Jeniffer: It Worked. So here's what I did. We created a
spreadsheet. I created a spreadsheet of all the
Barnes and Noble within, like a 100 mile radius of
our office. And then I had it on,
you know, a sheet so you could mark it off and put the date that you
called. And literally, your job was to just
choose the next phone number in the list. And everyone
starts at a different point, so it's random and calls the store and says,
hey, do you carry this directory? Okay, thanks. And
you, they always say, well, I can order it for you. Oh, that's okay. I'll try another
store. Right. So. And then you hang up. And maybe
you don't do it every day, but like. Like, one store would get called, like once
a week. They'd be getting a call. It took about two and a half,
three months, until we got, literally got a call from the buyer,
said, we need to get your books. I was like, great, I'd love to
help.
>> Richard: Well, you know, I would say that back
then. That's amazing. It certainly has changed.
>> Jeniffer: Go.
>> Richard: You can quite do that today. but what's also
funny is that a lot of those publishing programs from 30
years ago were're doing books that
have since sort of evolved out of that
market. I feel like every day I'm looking at books that
were published, 20 years ago that would never be
published today because content delivery has
changed so much. And there's so many different ways to bring
your concepts to the market and so many different
ways to, I mean, I mean, just go to
how to nonfiction books. Everybody goes on to YouTube
and watches videos of how to do things. Now they don't need books
anymore. So it's strange how
much this has changed and how we reminisce about the days
when things were literally slow enough that you had to
call, and follow it down a spreadsheet in order to get your books
placed in stores.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, yeah.
>> Richard: and similarly, I remember when I was in book sales,
I, was given a copy of Crane's
business Chicago, and had to go call,
call every business listed in one issue of
the magazine to try to sell books, our books at that
time.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, yeah.
>> Richard: So, yeah, that's how we did ite same exact thing. That's how
you do it. and I feel for a
lot of the authors and publishers who were out there today trying, trying
to do the same thing, because now that I've been working on the
other side for so long, I know what the sort of
accepted lies that Barnes and noble
uses to be able to like, tell authors
like, this is not the way. Go do it some other way. You
know, nobody ever wants to directly say to an author
that they may not be interested in their book because their book is their
baby. Yeah, of course's right. But there are, there
is obviously, is. There are obviously protocols that need to be
followed. And I think that's where my,
my movement into distribution really helped me. He
was learning that piece of it, because
sides. Yeah, I've been on both sides. and
I still maintain that having that experience
on both sides is what has made me good at what I
do.
>> Jeniffer: Absolutely.
You know what I like about you, Richard? And actually, I'll say there's a lot
of things I love about you, but one of is that you really have a lot of
compassion for authors. And so Richard and I
really met at IBPA's publishing university,
which happens once a year and it's been happening
for 40 years
or longer. So IBPA is Independent
Book Publishers Association. And Richard,
you're always willing to give people advice. Like, you may
not be able to take on their book, but you do it with compassion and you
get back to people and you, you tell them why and
what they can do to make their books better.
>> Richard: I do, and I really appreciate your acknowledgment that I do
that because I do have this sort of innate
sympathy for the process. and
plus I've seen what happens when it works.
And I think that to be able to guide
people the right direction and not waste their
time and be able to give them good, valuable
feedback is one of the best things I can do to help
somebody. And, you know, I think in some small
way we all want to be able to help other
people in some way. And this is way I
can do.
>> Jeniffer: It and be better. And you, absolutely. And I remember
one time you were giving advice to someone small publisher,
children's books, maybe four books on the market,
and you looked at each one and you were like, do you want my
honest opinion? He said, yeah, I want it. And you just told him
this, this, this, and this are, you know, four things that
are going to keep you from getting, you know, selling your book, let alone
getting distribution. And I remember his face just fell. It just
got kind of flat. And he looked really sad. And you felt so guilty.
Later we were at dinner and you're like, oh my God, I shouldn't have told him those things.
And then the next day he emailed you and said, thank you so much
for taking the Time to be honest with me and tell me,
you know, how I can do better, how I can get better. Because
he wants to compete and his books are great.
It just those little things that hold, hold us back
from getting where we want to be.
>> Richard: Yeah, I agree with you there. And, I
remember that exact
experience. I will say that, not
everybody takes it as well. True.
>> Jeniffer: ye.
>> Richard: You know, I mean, again, there is some truth to the
fact that if you are a publisher and you are
publishing your own content, you might almost
be too close to it sometimes
because that criticism is real.
And I think that being able to make those
adjustments and get a little creative distance between you and your
baby is always good for business.
And some people know that. Some people have to learn that
the hard way. I generally try to be gentle about
it. but, you know, I think, I think it's
worth hearing.
>> Jeniffer: I agree.
What do you, what would you say, like, the top three mistakes that you
see, like new small publishing houses make?
>> Richard: Oh, this is very, very easy to answer.
The top one, number one by far is
publishing into a category where
the publisher doesn't really seem to be aware
of what the
market can sustain. And so
what I mean by that is let's use children's
booksus. That's probably the best example.
Know, children's books are really, when
you're talking about picture books, they're really kind of divided
into two basic categories. You've got the
sort of the preschool books where it's like ages
three to five who are learning words. You think about
Dr. Seuss and concepts and things like that. And then
you have actual storytelling from ages 5
to 7 where kids can follow along with a
character and read some more sophisticated
language. And more
often than not, out in the wild, I see children's books
where it hasn't really been considered how
old the child is going to be and what the reading
level is supposed to be. So
without knowing that children's needs to be clearly
delineated, like 3 to 5 or 5 to 7,
and that the language needs to match that age,
that's a huge piece of it. so
it's knowing that the book is written
for that market, but also it has to be packaged for
that market. And one of the other biggest
things that I see is a book that might be
well written and well illustrated, but the page
count is too high and the price is
inevitably too high and it's just not going to
be competitive in the market. now I do say this, Jennifer.
Knowing that most of My recent experience in
particular is sort of
angled towards the mainstream trade. And there are a
lot of ways to sell books other than through the
mainstream trade. But my eyes, I tend to look at things
through that perception.
>> Jeniffer: So talk about what those other ways might be.
>> Richard: Oh, well, I mean, I think a lot of. Okay,
so that's a big question that I don't think I would
need to actually kind of have something written up to be able to hit all the
right points. But, once upon a time
I felt like being in distribution. I felt
like giving an author or a publisher
the opportunity to have their book distributed was
the number one way to kind of
gain some clout and break yourself away from the rest
of the pack. And I don't think that's
necessarily the case anymore. I think distribution can
do that and will do that for certain kinds
of books. But I also think that,
today with, the digital
realm being the primary way to market things, and
so much social media and so much, sort
of instant gratification on the part of
consumers, there's a lot of ways that you can put your product
out there that kind of steps around
the trade market. Altog togetherute m
and I think you understand more than anybody probably
that, you know, a lot of it is about being
able to build your brand
online, to be able to put your name out there
and your product out there in association with everything that
you're doing so that you will be more
discoverable and, you know, have more
success.
>> Jeniffer: Absolutely.
I often tell my authors one of the worst place
to sell books is bookstores. And they just look at
me like I'm crazy. But the thing is, like, there's only so much
bookshelf space. And what
was it? I think this number is accurate. Around
3.5 million books were published in
2022 was the last time I got.
>> Richard: Isn't that crazy? I remember when it was
50,000.
>> Jeniffer: Me too.
>> Richard: Right. And then it just started exponentially
growing. And every time I would try to cite, a figure, I would double
check it. Dou been like, yeah, double.
Yeah, it was half a million and then it was 1 million.
And, you know, and, not all of those books are going to be relevant to
every market. And that's the other thing that I think that I
definitely would say, in terms of, you know, when you
were asking about what those missps are
or those misconceptions is that not
every book is going to sell into every
market. And, and most of the time, I think when
somebody is bringing a book to the market, they're
anticipating that e there'going to be all these
broad sales potential
efforts. And instead it's, I feel
like nowadays, especially with what, 3.5 million books being
published annually, you've got to know what
that target market should be. And it might just
be one very small piece of the market, but
if you can find that audience and sell
to that audience, then you're going to have the
success that you need. And so it could be
a regional audience, it could be a particular category
audience. You know, I have publishers or have known publishers
who only sell on Amazon
and only sell science fiction books, you
know, like very specific things because they know that
readership is there and that's going to do what they want
for their books. So, I would
say that the advice there would be to
not necessarily look at your book as something
that has to be sold in every store because it's not
going to be. But maybe if there's
a certain tier of stores or a certain
market segment that you want to target. Yeah,
yeah. Then that's the way to go.
>> Chad: Well, we've got these, there's riches in the niches.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, yeah. Well, we've got like
these lovely bookstores around San Diego that are
really gift shops with books. And I feel like
that's such a great place to get certain books into.
And, and we have a client right now who
is publishing car books. So it's
very niche. And he really has no
intention of getting into distribution, you know, traditional
distribution per se, because he goes direct to his
audience through his authors. So he might have an author who
has, you know, 1.5 million followers
on TikTok or whatever platform he's on.
And then all he has to do is get, you know, 3% of those
people to, want to pre order his book and it's paid for itself
and it's working. They want the
content.
>> Chad: So you, as long as you're into a
very specific type of car, it's not just like
cars.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, yeah. Well, he understands his audience.
He really understands the niche. You know, to your
point earlier, Richard, he's not. I think a lot of
times, you know, we're passionate about something and we tell this
story and it is our baby. But
who's the audience? Who are we trying to target? And that's
really the formula that makes
publishing successful. And it's really hard for an
author to do that because, you know, I call it your sacred cow. There's all these
things that are really important to you but mean nothing to your audience and
you're trying to shoehorn that into your marketing plan
and no one gets it.
>> Richard: Well, I think this is where the role of a publisher
differs from that of an author often is that,
you know, the author is very good at, being able to put the creative
package together and be able to get the thing
out there. But you also need to have somebody
who can make those hard decisions about where it
will not sell and what the target market should
be. And I think that's where a publisher's
forte really comes into play.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, absolutely.
Well, okay, so we sort of skipped past the main
question that some of our listeners might be asking, which is
what is distribution? So talk.
>> Richard: It's a really. Yeah, yeah, really good question. I.
And that it's hard to completely understand and it
changes constantly. But the main
easy way to understand it is,
distribution is sort of opening the
floodgates to the supply chain.
So think of it this way. If you
are, an author and you've published your own book and
you want to get it out there, you can
start from your basement or your living room
or your car or wherever you are, and
you can make that effort and that cost
to try to get books everywhere they need to be.
but if you suddenly have
an opportunity to market yourself, that's going to
really, really, really bring about a lot of
deep interest in the book that you've produced. you're not
going to be able to work fast enough or cheaply enough to make it cost
effective for most people. And so distribution
is about opening the doors so
that when that demand is there,
people can get the book.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, definitely. Well said. And I have a
great example of that. We had a client who wrote a book, this
might have been 20 years ago, and he got on
Oprah and guess what?
He didn't have the distribution and people couldn't find this book. And that
wave, you know, is, is a short,
short lived wave, you know, and once it crashes, it's done.
People aren't going to come back and be like, oh, what was that book again? I really
wanted two weeks ago, it's too late.
>> Richard: That's right, it is. And you know, and I think that
sometimes when authors are trying to
sell themselves and they're trying to get opportunities and
they're filling out the form and talking about their book.
One of the things that is asked is whether or not you have distribution.
And the reason for that is, and you know,
like the trade magazines that do reviews and so forth, they will
ask These questions too because they do not want to
give important real estate and marketing muscle
to something that is not going to be available.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Richard: And so if you're an
author and you see that question on some form that asks if you
have distribution, the reason why you need an
answer there is so that they will know that your book
is going to be available. It doesn't necessarily have to be
IPG or some other established
distributor, but it has to be a way into the
market.
>> Jeniffer: Yah.
>> Richard: And so that's, that's what distribution is and that's
what it does is it opens up that supply chain and it
tells the rest of the industry that your product is
going to be available when the consumers want it.
>> Jeniffer: Right. Yeah. Oh, I like that. It's a good pull quote.
M well, okay, so now let's talk about the difference between
traditional distribution and wholesale distribution.
>> Richard: Okay, I can do that. That's pretty easy actually. so
wholesale is primarily built
as a tier of the industry that supports the retailer.
So if you're a bookshop and you ``n to get books from every
single publisher that's out there, as most bookshops
do, then you go to a wholesaler because they'll
carry everything and that allows them to
do one stop shop where they can get their books
replenished. They have one line of credit where they can pay
the monthly bill to continue to have their orders
shipped. whereas
distribution is more
about making the publishers books
available to those wholesalers and to those
retail. So again the wholesaler is really
a benefit for the
retailer whereas a distributor is the benefit for
the publisher.
>> Jeniffer: M I always kind of bench
it like this. The wholesaler is really a list of all
books that you have access to.
>> Richard: Correct.
>> Jeniffer: And distribution is an active, you know, someone
actively trying to get those books into bookstores and
a relationship with book buyers.
>> Richard: Well, and y have distribution is usually a
curated list too. So instead of it being
again wholesale works in such a way that you
they will pretty much carry anything. They don't have those
kinds of. They have quantity decisions made but not
necessarily content decisions. If there is
need for a book in the market, they can store it,
they can ship it to retailers. whereas a
distributor, because they are really trying
to sell product into the market, they're
going to curate their list based on what
looks sellable and what is
backed by real marketing power,
and real author activity.
>> Jeniffer: One of the things that people need to think about
is distribution isn't
necessarily the holy grail. And I've
called You in the past and told you about a small publisher, you know, who have
these great books, and you've kind of explained to me why they're
not ready. And it has to do with
not just marketing and demand, but, but
also backlist and return. So can you kind of explain to
us how that works and what you look for when you make
a decision on who you want to bring into the
family?
>> Richard: sure, yeah. I think that the main thing
with most publishers is that when they get
started, they think the distribution is going to be kind of
the big step, that they need to have that sales
power and the extra revenue coming in.
And whereas that's sort of true, I don't
think everyone understands the
financial complexities of it. I'm
gonna use an example. I think one of the last times I talked
to you, it was specifically about a
one book publisher. And in the
distribution model, because books are returnable by
definition, if we take on a one
book publisher and we do everything we can
possibly do to sell the book, to help market it
to the industry, to help kind of support the
author's activities in social media, everything
that's going to kind of raise the profile of the book,
and we even push it out there and get it stored everywhere. And then
for some reason and this, lots can happen
to any book. It just doesn't sell through it. Just for
whatever reason, it just doesn't appeal to the market in
general. Or there's some. Those books are
returnable, they come back. They end
up in such a model that we
have, booked sales for several
months and then six months later,
they all come back as returns. And in
that model you've got
a publisher and an author,
most likely different
person, but sometimes the same, who are
waiting for that revenue. And the problem in a
distribution model is if you're not releasing more books and you
don't have steady, releases one after the
another, you can't keep that cash flow on the
positive side because you eventually get to a point
where the sales drop off and the returns are on the
ascent and eventually the returns will take
over. You'll end up with all these negative
months. And that's not an ideal relationship
for either distributor or publisher.
>> Jeniffer: Right, right.
And how long do bookstores have to return books?
Is that indefinite?
>> Richard: Well, yes, I think that
it's not indefinite. Most of the time there
are policies in place that say something like, hey, you
have, you know, six months from the time that you've bought the
book to return the book. But the, the
small Secret is that if the book is actively
selling and, it's still in print,
you know, somebody can. This is where wholesalers
come in. Wholesalers don't really care. So you
can buy a book and return it to the wholesaler,
and that book is gonna go right back to the publisher or
the distributor. And that could be
nine months after the book is sold. That could be a year and a half after
the book is sold. we actually had an experience
lately where Ingram must have
stumbled across a supply of books that had
been sitting in a warehouse for several years, and
they returned a lot of them all at once, Even though several of those
books hadn't really been sold to Ingram in almost just as
long. And because of the
separate sort of agreements that you have with the
vendors, that can happen.
>> Jeniffer: That's like the kiss of death. It is, yeah. I knew
an author who got a deal with Costco.
Not an author, a small publisher. Sure. I need to
speak more correctly here. So,
you know, 50,000 books were printed and shipped,
and 30,000 books were shipped back.
And, you know, for a small publisher, that that s.
Can put you under. And it did.
>> Richard: Yes. And in a distribution model, what happens
there is, let's say we sell those 50,000
books, you know, three months down the road, that
publisher is expecting to get paid for all of
those books that have been sold. But. But we can
tell by all of the tools that we have, in
order to monitor books out in the market, we can tell
when things are not selling through. And
in cases like that, where they don't have new books coming to
generate new revenue, you have to build the
financial model so that we don't end
up paying a publisher for sales that are
just going to come right back. And
in that case, if we paid them for 50,000
books selling through and then 30,000 of them came
back, we'd end up in a situation where we'have to claw money
back from the publisher. And that's very, very difficult. It's
very difficult because a publisher usually needs that money and has
invested so much of their life and time into putting this
book out in the market that they've probably already
spent it by the time that those returns come back. So that's
why the model doesn't really work in distribution. When you're
talking about a one book.
>> Jeniffer: Publisher, it sounds bleak, if I'm
honest.
>> Richard: Well, when you mention. Well,
it is kind of bleak in that sense. I think
what you want to be able to do is you want to be able to
pitch the book as hey, I can get it out into
the M market. And because of all the activity that I'm
doing and all of the continued
investment in my marketing and promotion of myself,
I'm going to continue to force people to send, go
into their stores and buy the book and that sell through will
happen.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. You know, and then so like the
relationship with new titles and back title is really
important. Right.
>> Richard: Well, so yeah, you asked about Backlist before and the reason
why, we would ideally
prefer to be able to distribute a publisher who
has an active backlist is for that very point
you want to have that steady sort of,
regular sales. And that's what Backlist really is, is the books that
you introduced in the past that have continued to sell, even if
they're slow moving, continuing to sell, continuing to
bring in that revenue for you, because that healthy
revenue from your Backlist, which should be the back lone bone
of any publishing program, is what allows you
to make those risks of putting new frontless books out
and sending 50,000 books out into the market without
knowing if the 30,000 are gonna come back because you have that
steady paycheck of the backlist sales as well.
>> Jeniffer: Right.
And this is where, you know, I like to pipe in about
author branding is it's so important
to have that relationship with your readers and
to, you know, to continue to keep that
communication and that engagement with them.
Because I like to say the number one thing that sells your first
book is your third book. You know, as you are building
and developing that relationship and your brand is getting more
visibility, people go back and buy that first book
even though they've discovered your third book.
>> Richard: Yeah. I would say there is nothing actually more
important than, you know, kind of an
author working on that brand and making sure
that they are going to keep that fan
base. I mean that is crucial. A few minutes ago I mentioned
that distribution used to be a way to kind of give your book
the clout that it would need in order to sell.
And I would say now it's far more important that
you have the, the sort of, the self branding
backup to be able to get out there and win over an audience. It's,
it's just, it's crucial. And that is one of the things that's going toa
set your book apart more than, I mean,
almost more than whether or not you have the right distributor.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. And that's why I'm in the business of selling authors,
not books.
>> Richard: Right. And I understand why you
are.
>> Jeniffer: You know, I said it's bleak but you said something in the
beginning that actually is kind of exciting. And, you know,
things have changed dramatically in
the past 20 years. And one of those things is, in
fact, different ways to deliver content. Whether it's a YouTube
video or an audiobook or an ebook
or whatever format you're delivering
your content, it's really the same thing. It's
a form of storytelling. And I think for
authors and small publishers to think outside the box of
that traditional model is really important.
Do you see, like, a certain type of
content that, you know, just as a distributor that
you look at bringing into the fold of how you do
business?
>> Richard: Wow, that's a, that's a big question. I would say that
there are a couple of answers there. It's not really based
on content in the sense that, you know,
we think that investing in, you know,
a program that is publishing fiction is going to be
therefore, somehow more valuable than one that sells
nonfiction. In fact, usually it's the opposite. There are
other, business aspects we have to look at as a distributor who
has a physical warehouse, who needs to be able
to make everything as cost effective as possible. You
know, I've had conversations with publishers,
really good publishers with really strong publishing programs
that are oriented towards kids audiences,
where the retail prices on the books are
all unanimously pretty low.
And what that means is that
if you, your retail price points
are super low, then when you put all the
factors into it as what the distribution
is going to cost, how much it costs your distributor to
touch each book when they're pulling them from m the pile and putting them in
a box or on a shipment, all of those aspects of
it kind of factor in, and
it's more cost effective for a distributor to work with books
that have higher price points and that move in greater quantities.
You know, it's ideal for any distributor
to ship boxes of books rather than in
individual books. And that is what individual
independent publishers really have to struggle with, is
the fact that it is less cost effective for
the entire traditional book system to
touch their book.
>> Jeniffer: And having all these different formats requires them
reaching into different, you know, audience, you know,
marketing efforts and finding different types of readers
and different places. And that all becomes very, very
time consuming. But go ahead.
>> Richard: Yeah. I do think having a partnership with a
distributor or a marketer or somebody who can
help is crucial because
those partners will be able to help you
market, multiple formats without kind of duplicating
your efforts.
>> Jeniffer: Okay. Okay. So that's good news.
>> Richard: Yes.
>> Jeniffer: And, and I think that,
you know, however, People find our content again.
We're building relationships so that they want to continue
to buy whatever that, that new product is or that
new way in which you're distributing.
your thoughts? I guess I'm
sort of off base here and maybe I'm in deep
water with you because I know your business is selling
print books. Do you distribute ebooks?
>> Richard: Oh, absolutely.
>> Jeniffer: O. You do?
>> Richard: Yeah, no, no, we do. And in fact we
have, we have ve invested a lot in our ebook business
because we learned pretty early on that
the, again, I think that the primary
way to market is in the digital realm.
Whether you're talking about print books or ebooks,
you mark it in the digital realm. And there's no better
way to market in the digital realm than to have
an ebook available. Your ebook being there
and being listed everywhere and being findable in every search
engine and so forth is what's going to make
that print book sale happen.
>> Richard: So we felt that it made more
sense when you're talking about content in multiple formats,
it makes more sense for your distributor to handle
all of those formats together. Because,
you know, any marketing you do on one edition should
theoretically help propel the sales of another.
>> Jeniffer: Ah, absolutely. Well, good. Okay, that was m.
That was sort of where I was headed is like, does it scare you that there's all those
formats but you're embracing it and you need to. That's how we
stay. Stay the game.
>> Richard: You have to. Ah, yeah. The only part that we have
struggled with, and it's not a big problem, is
that sometimes there are books. And I would
say in the children's world, the educational world especially,
there are books that translate their content into
apps rather than ebooks. And
so if somebody wants to do some kind of
interactive app, they can
develop that independently, but it doesn't get the benefit of being
marketed by a distributor.
>> Jeniffer: Interesting. Yeah, because then the distributor is.
Well, like Apple for example. Right.
>> Richard: Exact. Well, right. I mean we can do marketing on Apple
for, for their ebook product, but not
for the apps that they sell on the iPhones. You think
that' probably, no,
probably not.
>> Chad: Not with Apple.
>> Richard: No. I think that things that sell in the digital
spaces, I think that they become
kind of more and more self service. And
I think that where you'renna find with
somebody working directly with Apple is that there are going to be fewer
people like me who can help a
publisher consult, who can actually use real
life experience and say, yeah, do that, don't do that.
You know, they instead they're going to Let kind of leave it up to you
to make decisions. I mean, that's what Amazon is really famous for, is
for these really great programs that anybody
can access, but then how to use them to the
best of your ability and, maximize your sales
potential, that's not something that everybody just
inherently knows. That's something you have to learn.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Richard: And so I feel like a distributor still
offers, you know, people who have
professionally done these things long enough that they can help
advise. So no matter how many systems are out there that
are easy or difficult to use, you're
actually getting real life sort of guidance in terms
of how best to do it.
>> Jeniffer: When I think about print books, I think
back at the time when I was working in the music industry,
I worked for Sam Goody, Music Land. And I remember one day we had
to ship up, box up all of our
vinyl and ship it back. And I thought to
myself, really, that's it, Vinyl'done we're just like, we re.
We're done with vinyl. And I think sometimes people
look at the print books, you know, in the print book
industry, like that is like, are we going to be done with books?
I personally don't see that happening, despite the
fact that I heard an article recently that
in 2024 we had the
fewest number of people reading print
books, physical books. That
for some reason doesn't scare me. And I always think back to vinyl.
And now vinyl is like the hottest thing, right? It's back.
Everyone wants vinyl. And I really just never seen
print books go away. And I'm curious what your thinking
is on this. And I happen to know, and we might as well just tell
everyone, Richard has this massive,
amazing collection of vinyl. So
you could be like the expert on vinyl in this conversation
too.
>> Richard: Well, I hate some you this, but I have a pretty significant
collection of books as well.
>> Chad: I'm shocked, Shocked, I tell you.
>> Richard: but yeah, to answer that easy question for you,
do I think books are going to go away? No, because I think what
makes books appealing is
the tactile facets of them. Right. Like
the fact that you can be in a room and you can go over and you can kind of page
through and see information without directly searching
for that specific piece of information. I think it's a way
people learn. I think it's a, that certain personality types are always
going to learn. there might be certain kinds of content
that stop being available in print books, but I do
think there's always going to be some level of print. I
also think that the generation changing over will
redefine that. you know, the generation
that's kind of in charge is still sort of that,
you know, I would say the baby boomer to Gen
X generation that sort of built the
book industry into what it is. And the ones that have been
suffering the most have been those people who've seen the
changes. But as new generations come
up, I, I think millennials were probably
the first generation to really have to, embrace
ebooks. And I think that the next generation after
that has had a world where they necessarily have had
to read physical books because ebooks have been available.
But let's just take the kids market. Know,
no matter how much goodwill is put behind the idea
of making a really great interactive children's picture
book, kids don't respond to it the same way.
And we have found that the children's picture book market
can continues to flourish. You know, it just, it
hasn't translated directly to digital quite the same
way that, you know, adult textbooks have.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, yeah, that's a great example. And our brain
like, learns differently when we, when we use
a pen to write versus writing on a
keyboard. When we read something physically,
it's a different process in our brain that I think
is important to remember. Not that I'm a neurologist or a
brain scientist in any way, but, I personally,
when I need to remember something, if I write it down with a pen,
I will remember it.
>> Richard: And that is, that is, that is your, that is your
method of learning.
>> Jeniffer: Like, that is my experience.
>> Richard: Yeah, that's inherent to who you are. And I think
that you cannot expect that future
generations are all going to learn and absorb
information the same way.
>> Jeniffer: That's true. And you know, when I came up in a time when we didn't have computers
and we were told to take notes. So, yeah, that's how my brain
works. But I do think that there's a different experience with
the content when you're seeing it on the page
and, and reading it and flipping pages. That
tactile experience that you mentioned before,
there's something really beautiful about it. Novel.
>> Richard: Well, that's what happened with vinyl too,
as. Right. The music world went digital and
like, we were all weaned into it by cds, which of, of
course generated digital music from the
product. But once you pulled them off of a
physical product, you lost something. There was
an interaction between the
listener and the music that
was manifested by its, artwork
and just holding that thing in your hand and reading
those lyrics and the thank you notes or Whatever it
is that made it a tactile experience.
whereas I think the reason why vinyl came back is
because a. It wasn't a digital format. So
therefore you wasn't asking people to invest in
something that was already, you know.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Richard: On the market. and then also, it's
just. It's a beautiful way to take that content and present it
to people. And I think the answer there is that some books
are just beautiful books. And the more
beautiful a book, the more you're always going to have an audience for
it.
>> Chad: See, I have a far more dystopian view on
things.
>> Jeniffer: Of course you do.
>> Chad: I think, in a world where tech
giants rule and can take away
things at the drop of a hat, I'm looking at the U2
album in particular that was delivered to
everybody that had an Apple device.
No one really wanted it. It just showed up one day in
Apple Music.
>> Richard: I.
>> Chad: They were able to take it away. And they do this with, with ebooks all
the time. If they decide that we don't want you to
have this, we will take it, we're done with
it. We're not allowing it on our platform anymore.
So if you have a physical book, that thing
still exists. There's still. Same with,
with vinyl. I remember when I had to get rid
of. I didn't have to get rid of. I was just, you
know, a transient teenager who, you
know, didn't have any means or place to store his
viny. So it's like, you know, things get
left places and I don't
know. And then I had to do the transition
from vinyl to through
tape onto disc. And it's like I have
purchased this same damn album three times. Three times
now.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad: I wish I just had the vinyl.
>> Richard: You knowpt s interesting. Well, Chad, it's
interesting first of all, you know, because all it really takes is for your cat to get a
little too close to that record and suddenly it's rendered completely
useless.
But the other thing is that, when you're talking
about ebooks and you're talking about the sort of. The
permanence of them, that has been a very
contested topic for a long time.
Libraries in particular, who are all
about building collections that can be used by their m.
Their sort of constituency, libraries have been
shifting into an ebook model. And then what
good is it for a library if you've got this addition
of something in your cloud collection
that just disappears because the publisher or
distributor determines that this is not something they want you to have
anymore? so there's an organization
called dpla. It's the Digital Public Libraries of America. They
have an initiative to sell
ebooks to accounts in a
way that allows them to keep that
format for the rest of
existence. And the goal of that, there are a
lot of different sort of specific reasons for
it, but the goal is because we can't anticipate the
changes in technology. And so whereas right
now most ebooks are sold in a reflowable EP
and they might be on ePub, I don't know, 3.0
or 5.0 or 8 point, I don't know what number it is. But
at some point, because of changes in hardware and changes
in technology, there is going to be a need to
maybe abandon the EPUB format and
instead deliver content in this other way. And suddenly a
library has to repurchase all of the content
that they have spent all of their budgets for how many years,
you know, acquiring. Now there's a way
that they, they can buy content,
that they will be able to access that
content when they need to repurpose it for a new
format. And some publishers don't want that because it
gives library access to what is effectively their
ip. So, for example, ipg,
we have a relationship where we are selling
ebooks into this DPLA initiative,
but we give our publishers the opportunity to opt
out of it.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, interest_ing yeah.
>> Richard: But it's interesting. It shows that people are thinking
about that. And there are a lot of vendors who want
to preserve the collections that they buy in a digital
format. And they do that, in numerous
ways. And this is one of them.
>> Jeniffer: Right, right.
So I want to go back to your cat ruining your
vinyl.
>> Richard: Oh, yes.
>> Jeniffer: How is Alice?
>> Richard: Well, she sleeps on the stereo, so
she's grown to really love the music.
>> Chad: All those transformers are warm.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, they are.
>> Richard: Those transformers are warm.
>> Jeniffer: I remember the story of how Alice got her name. I was hoping you would
tell our listeners about Alice. Alice
is Richard's cat.
>> Richard: Well, so just to be clear, we have a
cat and we have a dog.
>> Jeniffer: We don't want people thinking you're just a cat person.
>> Richard: We'll. The segue there is that I'm
pretty sure that our doggie daycare person is
redelivering my dog to me upstairs, like
in just a minute or two. So I wanted to kind of
give you the heads up. but terms in
terms of Alice, you know, she's fantastic.
We got her from a rescue, a very well known rescue here in
Chicago called Felines and Canines. If anybody in
Chicago was listening and is willing to rescue, an animal they
have cats to and dogs. And it's a great, great place. You can go to
this house and kind of hang out with all the animals and let them
pick you. Alice picked us. we did not go there to get
Alice. And I sat down and she climbed on top of me, and
she ended up falling asleep in my lap.
And the idea of leaving there at that point without
her was unfathomable. So that.
But she got her name because we got her home. And I did not
do that thing that as. As a pet owner for
decades, I know the drill. And when you're
introducing a cat to a new house, you're supposed to do it piece by
piece because they are curious. They will investigate,
but they also will get overwhelmed, and you have to kind
of familiarize themselves and mark their territory
and do all those things. And I just brought her
home and opened it up in the big room, of my apartment and
kind of let her just go. And she ended up
finding a hole behind our H vac
where it was like a hole in the
wall. And she went in there and didn't come out for about
14 hours.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
>> Richard: And. And. And it was scary because we were
all excited about getting this new kitten. And then this
happened, and we didn't know if she was going to get stuck or if she's
gonna fall through the. Or end up coming out in somebody else's
apartment, you know, through the. Through the light fixture. Like,
you just never know. But yet there was enough
evidence that she was just kind of hanging out in there. Like, you
would see her eyes sometimes
that we didn't get super alarmed. But it
was because she fell back into that hole behind her H
vac that it was like Alice falling in the hole, the
rabbit hole down to Wonderland. And
therefore, she became Alice, which is.
>> Jeniffer: A great way to end this podcast on
a literary note, Alice the cat.
Richard, thank you so much for spending an hour with
us and just, you know, talking about books and distribution.
And I just really appreciate it. Thank you.
>> Richard: You're very welcome. I appreciate being asked.
And hopefully I will be the best and
most successful_ful, episode of season
six.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, you absolutely will. And then
there'll be a prize. We won't tell you what it is till you win it.
Awesome.
Folks, Richard Williams again is the vice president
of IPG and business
business development at IPG. And you can learn more about
IPG@ipgbook.com.
this has been another episode of the Premise. You
can visit us
online@theemisepod.com and
subscribe and rate or review the Premise wherever
you get your podcasts. Those reviews really help us get the word
out and increase our subscriber base. We appreciate
you. And, you can follow me
on Instagram @jennifergrace or on
Facebook at Jennifer Thompson Consulting.
Until next time. Thanks for listening.
Goodbye.
>> Chad: Goodbye, Goodbye.