Four-and-a-half-year-old Cardinal Publishers Group in Indianapolis offers full-service distribution primarily for publishers of sports, health and fitness titles. But as part of its program for controlled growth, it is reaching out to publishers of alternative health titles, even one-book houses like Harrison & Hampton, whose Treating and Beating Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Dr. Rodger H. Murphree was published this spring and has sold 8,000 copies to date.
Another one-book press, Body and Breath Inc., is the publisher of CPG's all-time bestseller, Anatomy of Hatha Yoga by David Coulter, which was first released in October 2001. The $40 hardcover went on to win a Benjamin Franklin Award, and CPG took on Coulter as a client in summer 2003. After starting with a 5,200-copy first printing, The Anatomy of Hatha Yoga has gone into five printings, and has 53,200 copies in print. What makes this book even more remarkable, according to CPG founder and president Tom Doherty, is "that it has less than a 3% return rate." As for returns overall, "we've never closed a year out with more than a 15% rate," he added.
This fall, CPG added Sportworkout.com, which is launching a line of body-building books, previously available only direct to personal trainers and athletes. "Although these books have not yet shipped, advance orders and estimates have been strong from independent and chain retailers, and we expect the library market to embrace them," said Doherty.
