When Seven Hills Books Distribution closed its doors without warning earlier this summer, it left a number of publishers stranded, including Joan Schweighardt, founder of GreyCore Press in Pine Bush, N.Y. One of the lucky ones, Schweighardt used her PR know-how and her knowledge of publishing from the other end—three of her novels were published by Permanent Press a decade ago and a new historical novel is due out from Beagle Bay Books in February—to find a new distributor right away. Client Distribution Services was willing to sign her on for the fall, so that she would still be able to publish her two October releases on schedule—a memoir, One Man's Leg, by world champion triathlete and Paralympic cyclist Paul Martin, who began his athletic career after losing his leg in a car accident, and a novel about forgiveness and redemption, The Water Thief by Robert Baldwin.
"The truth is," said Schweighardt, explaining her decision to go with Seven Hills originally, "when I first started GreyCore and I had a line of two books and I had two writers who were unknown, I couldn't get anyone to take me. I had one distributor ask me how much money I had. So I wound up with a very small distributor before Seven Hills." While GreyCore was with Seven Hills, Schweighardt had considerable regional success with Conjuring Maud (fall '01), a first novel by 73-year-old Philip Danze. "He has become the sweetheart of Barnes & Nobles and libraries in central New Jersey. His book continues to sell very well." On the strength of that and a love story by William Eisner, Done in by Innocent Things, which came out in June, GreyCore was in a much more solid position this time around.
Schweighardt advises other small press owners to be sure to ask lots of questions when they consider a distributor: How much do you charge for catalogue pages? How much do you charge for booth space at BEA? Do you charge for warehousing? How many sales reps do you have? Even so, she said, "Finding a distributor is like getting married. In the end, it's a leap of faith."
