A group of independent publishers has formally incorporated as the Publishers Cooperative, a new organization aimed at leveraging collective buying power and sharing resources. The cooperative, which received its articles of incorporation this year, is currently seeking seven additional mid-sized publishers to join its eight founding members: AdventureKEEN, C&T Publishing, Gibbs-Smith, Mango Publishing, Mixed Media Resources, Mountaineers Books, Schiffer Publishing, and Ulysses Press. Membership will require publishers to meet certain scale requirements, to maintain the group's collective buying power.

Amy Barrett-Daffin, publisher at C&T Publishing, said that the organization began informally in 2021, when several publishers started meeting monthly to discuss industry challenges. The founding members—Brad Farmer of Gibbs-Smith, Pete Schiffer of Schiffer Publishing, Tom Helleberg of Mountaineers Books, and Barrett-Daffin—“would try to meet monthly, and we were just sort of talking through what's working, what's not working," she said, adding that the organization's mission is "to increase profitability, to raise all boats for the co-op."

The cooperative is actively working on its first major initiative: consolidated printing arrangements with overseas vendors. "We're testing some printers in India," Barrett-Daffin said, noting that the group is looking outside China, due to "the tariffs and the threat of more tariffs." Once printing arrangements are firmed up, the cooperative plans to place a large enough order to fill a single shipping container, which will be delivered to the Schiffer Press warehouse on the East Coast.

The hope, cooperative members said, is to reduce costs through consolidated shipping and improved economies of scale. "Instead of being eight companies that are buying between $1 million and $10 million worth of printing a year," Barrett-Daffin explained, "you put all of us together, our buying power increases."

Keith Riegert, president of the newly launched Stable Book Group—which also includes Ulysses Press—said that the cooperative was striving to make ordering printing more predictable. Riegert is also the CEO of Perfect Bound, which offers a platform to source competitive bids for printing; "Perfect Bound is the individual capitalist approach to the free market," he said, while "Publishers Cooperative is about collaboration to maximize economies of scale." He added that the cooperative will soon vote on whether to extend membership to the remaining members of the Stable Group, including She Writes Press, Trafalgar Square Books, and VeloBooks.

"Maybe we get a volume discounting of 5% on printing, maybe we get validated shipping rates," Tom Helleberg, CEO of Mountaineers Books, said. "The idea is to create overall efficiencies—the economic component is what divides the Cooperative from other organizations. It's holistic."

The cooperative structure allows members to share proprietary information under NDAs, enabling deeper collaboration than typical industry associations permit. "Because we all signed an NDA, we can have a really free-flowing discussion," Barrett-Daffin said. "We're all part of a corporation. We can talk about things that you can't talk about at an association level."

Schiffer added that "one of the things that's always been a challenge in publishing is the level of secrecy around production processes, philosophies, internal systems, tools, even sales forecasts, production partnerships," noting that "a lot of those things have been very privileged information. Having a trusted group to talk about those things has been very helpful, especially when trying to navigate change."

Another area where the cooperative plans to collaborate is on sharing human resources and talent development. "There are more people freelancing or doing side hustles now because of the remote environment post-Covid, and as a result, more people are using freelancers," Schiffer said. "On the back end, you've got to integrate that work back into the workflow, and that can take a lot of time."

Future plans for the cooperative include coordinating bulk software licensing and potentially exploring group benefits and insurance programs. The organization has created an executive director position and will begin recruitment soon. The cooperative's website will launch shortly.

Noting the smaller publishers face when competing against larger houses, which boast greater economies of scale, Barrett-Daffin added: "We all feel like it's a legacy that we can leave for independent publishers to help them be successful."

This article has been updated for clarity.