In an earlier post, I told the story of Ingram’s introduction of the microfiche reader in the 1970s and what it did for backlist sales. There was another new technology introduced at the same time by the B. Dalton bookstore chain, based in Minneapolis and owned by the Dayton-Hudson Company. At this time, B. Dalton and […]
Second old publishing story: the first great book supply chain tech disruption
Before the early 1970s, wholesalers to the trade were local and carried a relatively small number of titles. Their main job was to back up bestsellers and local booksellers went direct to the publishers for just about everything else. Baker & Taylor was national, but focused on the library market. And Ingram was a small […]