Clare Flynn reports on her visit to leading book wholesaler Gardners
Indie authors talk a lot about the starting point in the distribution chain for their print books, ie publication platforms such as KDP Print and IngramSpark, and also about the ultimate retailer, the bricks-and-mortar bookstore. But we need also be mindful of organisations who play another crucial part in helping us reach our our readers: book wholesalers.
In this post, ALLi author member Clare Flynn reports on her recent visit to Gardners. This leading British book wholesaler also conducts business at an international level and is representative of similar companies serving different territories around the world.
Gardners, the leading UK book wholesaler, is just down the road from my home, so I asked to pay them a visit and get a look behind the scenes. I went armed with some questions that ALLi members had raised, but was limited by Data Protection regulations regarding any enquiries related to specific authors or books, other than my own.
Structure of Gardners
Gardners operates three warehouses on their UK site here in Eastbourne:
- a main high-rise warehouse
- the despatch centre
- a warehouse specifically to service supermarkets
Stock at Gardners
They hold 550,000 lines and have recently expanded their operations significantly with a big extension to the high-rise. As well as physical books, they handle CDs and DVDs and – news to me – ebooks (as long as the latter have an ISBN). They want to be seen as the one-stop shop for trade publishing, POD (print on demand) and digital – including libraries.
Amazon is also a major customer – and many of those books in the Amazon packaging are coming to you straight from Gardners.
Indie Opportunities at Gardners
POD Orders
My meeting was with the Dave Thomson, Manager for Academic Books, who also handles POD. I asked about POD and the Gardners’ Extended Catalog (GXC). Publishers can pay a fee to be included in this catalog so that books are shown to booksellers as deliverable within a week.
However, if the book is a POD title, this will be apparent on the retailer’s screen, and the bookshop may still therefore tell a customer trying to order a title that delivery could take two to three weeks or more.
I have a lot of anecdotal evidence that this happens. In fact, delivery rarely does take this long. Typically a POD title ordered on a Monday can be delivered by Friday, but this is the reality rather than the commitment. Some retailers quote the worst case as if it is the norm, especially the large high street chains who are used to dealing with trade publishers and are less confident about POD.
Consignment Sales
An alternative is to set up a Consignment Account which allows Gardners to hold a pre-agreed amount of stock, with title to the stock retained by the author or publisher. To consider an indie author for this they want to see a track record of POD sales through them and for the author have a list with multiple titles – all at the same discount.
To apply for this route, the author or small publisher needs to email first to [email protected] (Small Publishers’ Helpline). Your email needs to include a spreadsheet listing each title, RRP, and ISBN.
New titles can be considered too, but these will require details of marketing plans and any arrangements you might already have made with booksellers. The SPH team will then discuss whether to take you on.
Once accepted, a reconciliation is produced at the end of each month, and the author invoices Gardner with 30-day payment terms. To go down this route you can either:
- do small print runs (eg with Clays) and pass stock to Gardners in whatever quantities are agreed
or
- continue with POD but get Ingram to send the stock direct to Gardner as required (the replenishment orders will be channelled through you and not to Ingram, so you will need to keep a close watch and respond quickly)
If sale or return is offered to retailers, Gardners will invoice the returns back to the publisher/author and then pulp or return as requested.
International Trade
Exports account for 35-50% of Gardners’ business, and they have benefited greatly from the fall in sterling. They are particularly strong in Northern Europe with deliveries nightly to Bol.com in Holland and Saxo in Denmark and twice weekly to Australia. The USA is also an important market with 72-hour delivery times. They are currently looking at opportunities for supplying China.
Discount Requirements
In terms of discounts, Gardners’ would like a discount of 15% and the balance goes to the retailers. This of course can vary, especially for a blockbuster book, but is probably a good rule of thumb for an indie author.
So, paring down that discount on your Ingram dashboard may not be the best decision – and may account for some of those booksellers telling prospective readers that your book is either not available or may take many weeks to arrive.
Gardners' Eastbourne UK headquarters (Photo by Clare Flynn)
This was a very interesting visit, and watching how small deliveries for bookstores are picked in the automated high-rise was absolutely fascinating.
OVER TO YOU If you've ever visited a book wholesaler, how did their operation compare with Gardners? Do have any direct experience of using Gardners that you're happy to share via the comments box?
The role of the book wholesaler in the supply chain from #indieauthors to #bookstores - @ClareFly shares her experience of a visit to @Gardners. Share on XOTHER USEFUL POSTS ABOUT THE BOOK SUPPLY CHAIN FROM AN INDIE PERSPECTIVE
From the ALLi Author Advice Center Archive
https://selfpublishingadvice.org/short-run-printers-vs-print-on-demand/
Hi Clare,
since writing my comment on your blog things have changed quite a bit.
the pandemic for a start.
During the pandemic Gardners requested returning all physical books as due to the pandemic they wanted to limit the books they hold.
As my books are slow selling most sales are okay going through IS and Amazon as POD.
But it is necessary to be with Gardners to access other book stores and libraries etc.
Places such as these require books going through Gardners who in turn can get them through IS (POD).
however, very recently I found a glitch in this system and don’t understand why.
My most recent colouring book would not load onto ‘Bookshop.org’ which would not recognise the ISBN. Yet this is correct and the books are fine.
I then checked other retailers and discovered that all were fine apart from WHSmith who did not have my last 4 books on their website. (Not really a problem with this apart from annoying).
WHSmith and Bookshop.org say that the books need to be with Gardners. Which they are as POD but not physically.
Gardners say my books are GXC lines? What does that mean?
Hi Sue – that’s encouraging. So pleased you have had a productive relationship with them.
I was lucky enough to get my books with Gardners very early on in my writing journey.
They had been in contact and ordered several copies of my photographic book when it was first published.
(I held the print copies of these)
when the first story book was written they also agreed to stock that and as I was set up on their system they added each following book. (6 children’s story books to date)
This was indeed a door open even if in a small way.
I sell a few each month and supply Gardners with a stock copy.
The agent I work with has been very helpful and I am glad of the support given.
It was especially good to meet the staff in person at the LBF and even more spookily to meet their staff on their purple ‘Book Bus’.
(My stories are about a bus and I know all about a similar purple book bus which traveled around Scotland. This connection does not/did not help with sales but made me smile)