To all those reading this: Hello and welcome to PPG's blog. The plan for this blog is to use it for two purposes. First, I now plan to post publicity updates for our titles here. Second, I plan to write about important issues affecting our distribution services and to provide general information about the book industry that I feel is important to relay. While I intend future postings to be informative, I don’t intend them to be this long and involved. However, I feel that for my first posting it is important to give readers an idea of what our company does (even if they already think they know). That being said, I invite anyone and everyone to subscribe and even offer comments if they are so inclined. Also, if anyone is interested in contributing to this blog, I’d be more than happy to hear from you.
Partners Publishers Group, Inc. (PPG) is a full service book distributor. PPG was established in 1997 as a sister company to Partners Book Distributing, a wholesaler, to accommodate small and medium-sized independent publishers with national titles that would benefit from the wider marketplace a distributor can provide. PPG’s distribution clients range from publishers with a single title to publishers with over 100 titles.
PPG’s distribution model is aimed to give our client publishers access to a wide market of suppliers including national chain bookstores, independent bookstores, online retailers, general book wholesalers, and specialty wholesalers that target specific markets. While we operate on an exclusive basis, we will never prevent our client publishers from selling directly to markets that we cannot gain access to ourselves.
Our distribution model is structured to promote our support of our client publishers' titles since PPG's primary source of revenue comes from book sales not fees. The fees involved with our distribution services are minimal. We do not charge storage fees unless we’ve agreed to store more inventory than meets the demands of our customers; we do not charge for inclusion in our catalogs; and we only require our client publishers to help pay for book industry promotions to which we also are willing to contribute. That being said, I want publishers to understand what we do and do not do.
We do produce quarterly catalogs and submit new title information to book retailers and wholesalers with whom we have direct relationships. We also actively keep these customers up to date on marketing efforts and publicity. Newsletters containing new title information are also included in mailings to independent bookstores and public libraries across the country on a quarterly basis.
We do not have a travelling sales force. We primarily use an in-house sales force, and primarily conduct our business over the phone and via email. We do not solicit individual stores for book sales; we do not actively market our clients titles to the consumer; and we do not contribute to the costs of our client publishers' own marketing efforts.
While we do not solicit individual stores for book sales, our titles are available to them through wholesalers such as Baker & Taylor, Ingram, and Patners Book Distributing. And while we do not contribute directly to the costs of our client publishers' own marketing efforts, we do assist them with co-operative marketing with our larger retail and wholesale customers.
Our distribution model requires an active working relationship with our client publishers. We know that our client publishers expect us to keep them up-to-date on the demands of the industry, and we know they also expect us to keep them up-to-date on our sales and our distribution efforts. We do our best to take the pressure of supply-chain management off of our client publishers, so they can spend their time actively marketing their titles – and we expect our publishers to be actively marketing their titles. We also expect our publishers to let us know about their continued marketing efforts so we can be prepared for demand.
PPG is working to expand the services it offers to its client publishers. We are now offering eBook distribution and conversion. We are also offering ancillary rights representation. We will soon be offering fulfillment services, which include an over-the-phone order-taking service.
Thank you for taking important time out of your day to read this, and I wish you all the best.
