The global infrastructure for the book business that is not Amazon is owned and operated by the Ingram Content Group. In fact, a lot of the global infrastructure of the book business that is identified as Amazon is actually Ingram. And on top of that, there would probably have been no Amazon, certainly not the […]
Transformation of companies and the book industry itself are not just 21st century phenomena
Company transformation is a major theme at this year’s Digital Book World conference. By “transformation” we mean substantial changes in a company’s business model or core competencies or revenue streams. We found eight worthy companies to speak on this subject. Six of them — Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Ingram, Quarto, Rodale, Sourcebooks, and Wiley — are […]
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 […]