Considering the fact that Ingram is a family business, it is no surprise John Ingram began his business education as a teenager packing books at a company warehouse. After graduating from Vanderbilt Business School, he oversaw the company’s Tennessee Book Co. subsidiary and worked at Ingram Micro before joining the Ingram Book Co. for good in 1995—the same year as the launch of a company that would play a significant role in Ingram’s evolution: Amazon.
“It was an interesting time,” John says, recalling how independent bookstores had long been the core of Ingram’s wholesale business. But the prospect that Amazon and Barnes & Noble would one day rule the bookselling world “was not a good one for a middleman.”
That threat led John to accept an offer from B&N to acquire the Ingram Book Co. in 1998. But the acquisition was blocked by the government the following year. The collapse of the deal, Keel Hunt wrote in his book, The Family Business: How Ingram Transformed the World of Books, was a “heavy blow to John.” However, the setback made him more determined to reinvent the company.
John explains that when he thinks about the future, he spends time in what he calls an “empathetically strategic” state of mind: “I want to get into the heads of publishers to find services that make sense to them.” That drive to find ways to help customers has become well-known to Ingram associates, and a hallmark of Ingram’s business.
“John has a long-term view of the company and publishing in general,” says Shawn Morin, CEO and president of Ingram Content Group. “He is always thinking about what new services we should be working to create that can help our partners be successful.”
One of John’s first major initiatives was the creation of the print-on-demand platform that became Lightning Source. POD has since become one of Ingram’s core businesses, but it was not an overnight success. It took seven years for it to become profitable.
“There were a couple of lonely years,” John says with a grin. “I wasn’t very popular with some members of the family.”
The challenges in establishing Lightning Source reinforced John’s decision that to encourage innovation he would “own all the failures” while spreading around the credit for ideas that turned into successes. That operating philosophy, employees say, filters throughout the Ingram organization.
“John taught me to embrace change and innovation,” says Kelly Gallagher, VP, content acquisition for Ingram. “Without the values he’s instilled in the culture of Ingram, we would never have found the success we’ve enjoyed over these many years.”
Along with Lightning Source, Ingram has also added distribution and self-publishing services to its portfolio. Today, Ingram Publisher Services is the largest distributor of independent publishers outside of the distribution divisions of the largest publishers. And once again, the creation of a new business took courage. Publisher Resources Inc., the company’s first foray into distribution, was “a painful failure,” John says.
But the lessons learned from PRI helped Ingram’s chief content officer Phil Ollila create IPS. And the importance of distribution to Ingram was cemented in 2016 when the company bought Perseus’s distribution business.
“The Perseus acquisition tilted our center of gravity away from wholesaling to providing services to publishers,” John says. “If we had remained a typical wholesaler, selling a typical print book, I am not sure we would be having this conversation.”
While Ingram’s business focus has changed, the company is still a middleman. As such, it remains deeply invested in the health of the entire industry. “It is important to us to help companies do better,” John says. “The better our customers do, the better we do. Our incentives are aligned with our customers.”
He adds that it’s “wonderful” to see independent bookstores bounce back, noting Ingram remains committed to helping traditional and nontraditional bookstores grow. And he believes Ingram is also positioned to help small presses succeed by taking on back-office functions that can drain away capital. “We offer services that free up time and money that can be spent on the creative side of the business,” John says.
For all the changes book publishing has gone through, and in anticipation of the challenges that still lie ahead, John remains optimistic about the future of publishing and Ingram’s place in it. “I am proud of the Ingram company and my Ingram colleagues,” John says. “I think Ingram is more vibrant, relevant, and important to publishing than it has ever been.”
