Small Press Distribution has finished moving more than 300,000 books from its Berkeley, Calif., warehouse to facilities owned by the Ingram Content Group and Publishers Storage and Shipping. The transfer, which took several months to complete, is part of executive director Kent Watson’s plan to keep the nonprofit distributor a viable option for about 400 client publishers by cutting operating costs while simultaneously increasing services.
Under what Watson called the SPD Next program, Ingram and PSS will house SPD’s inventory while providing publishers access to an array of services including print-on-demand, e-book, and audiobook distribution, as well as more extensive distribution in the U.S and worldwide.
“I cannot overstate the amount of time, sweat, and perseverance that our team has put into making the move to SPD Next a reality,” Watson said, in a statement. He added that by moving its existing staff into new roles, SPD was able to complete the transition without laying off any employees.
SPD financed the warehouse move with a GoFundMe campaign that raised $100,000. Now, Watson has started a new initiative aimed at raising $75,000 to support what he calls SPD Next Page—a plan to roll out the new services to publishers. The aim of the new program is to train client publisher on how to most effectively use the new options that they now have available. The new services, Watson added, will help SPD’s publishers continue to bring new voices to readers in a time when distribution options have shrunk and book bans are targeting books written by authors from marginalized communities.
SPD Next Page continues Watson's overhaul of the distributor since he was named SPD executive director in summer 2022. His appointment ended an 18-month period of uncertainty for SPD that included the resignation of SPD executive director Brent Cunningham.
