Bruce McPherson, of the Kingston, N.Y., independent press McPherson & Co., has a new distribution concept—combine self-distribution with the opt-out model of record clubs like Columbia House.
McPherson—frustrated by what he describes as the inefficiency of small-publisher reps but eager to reach the scattered network of independent booksellers who best sell his books—has come up with this idea: send two copies of all his frontlist titles every season to stores that have signed up until they advise otherwise.
It works something like this: the publisher sends an e-mail announcing and summarizing the titles, and unless he hears from the stores, who are free to adjust their order upward or downward as well as order backlist, he ships two copies of the book. "We're basically getting our orders for the first year all out in the first month. And it gives me a base of 100 stores where I know, before pub date, the book is going to be," McPherson explained. He noted that despite the small quantity, he's still offering a standard discount.
McPherson has signed up about 40 of what he hopes eventually will be 100 independents; stores on board include the Tattered Cover, City Lights and Gotham.
McPherson, who was an early publisher client of Consortium and eventually moved to commission reps, said he thought that his books weren't "making it to the top of these reps' bags," but he also said that he couldn't afford to fully rep them himself. So he came up with this hybrid, which sells personally to independents without the cost of reps. It is, he said, a way to use technology to remove a middleman yet also makes the process more personal, since all the e-mails come from him. It is something he thinks that others could follow if they have a small list and a focused group of clients. "I really want to create a new distribution model," McPherson said.
