As a wholesaler, Partners Book Distributors in Holt, Mich., and Renton, Wash., is also an anomaly, or was until Baker & Taylor's recent announcement that it, too, had added a distribution division. "We try and keep our publisher line fairly small," said Sam Speigel, v-p of Partners and president of the Distribution Group. "We're doing 125 publishers for distribution as opposed to the 1,500 we do on the wholesale side. We want to be able to focus on a finite number of publishers rather than use a scattergun approach."
For Partners, which has only one sales rep, the key is publishers with a national reach. "I'll take on a one-book publisher, if I think there's potential," says Speigel. In fact, one of Partners' biggest clients has two titles, one of which, a calorie and fat counter, consistently sells 150,000 copies a year. "The core of our business is really the wholesale business. I don't think we have anyone that has over 100 titles. Most are under 10 titles," Speigel said.
Often publishers approach Partners because they don't know whether they want a wholesaler or a distributor, and can't afford higher-priced distribution. Spiegel estimates that he gets between 50 and 100 such queries a month. "I won't pretend to compete with PGW or NBN or IPG," he said. "One of the advantages we have is we can go either way, wholesale or distribution."
