It’s very easy to be a brilliant distributor on a small scale… the best i deal with would be local suppliers who self publish. I can call them at 4:30, and have it by the close of shop in many cases, but for me, it only works if the whole package is there. And for me, unfortunately, i can’t really separate Norwich and their admittedly quite good distribution from their parent companies decidedly average trade terms… after all, if all of us used them all of the time, would their distribution be as good?

My first nominee for this non-existent award would be dear Chrissie Gray, who has been a volunteer with us for some 25 years. And before you say “So what? give her a gold watch & get over it!”, Chrissie started with us AFTER SHE RETIRED from teaching special needs children. So you can start doing the arithmetic….. And she can give a lot of younger ones (like me!) a good run for our money in the way she copes with technology and the changes of retail.

I’m glad to say IVP’s distribution has improved beyond recognition since that time – now pretty much 100% reliable, in my experience.

Wholesalers (Like STL or Gardners) are another matter, and are worthy of a separate mention, but for me, you can’t have a distributor without a publisher, and even those publishers who “self distribute” like (IVP, Kingsway, etc.) often tend to perform some form of distribution for someone else.

Now I realise companies like “Marston” don’t really fit into either category, but to be fair, as great a job as Marston do, the terms you get are completely dependent upon the particular publisher, and not Marston.

FedEX, Royal Mail, UPS etc, are also key parts of the supply chain, but to be fair, I don’t think any of us are suggesting we create an award for them.

So if we’re talking about new or adjusted categories, I think, Distributors should continue to be lumped together with publishers, but i agree that there should be a new category for wholesalers. .

Not that it really matters anyway. Awards and recognition is nice, but it’s not why any of us do this.

But then in that case my vote would probably be Gardners this year for being so pro-active when the ibs-stl issue was such an issue.

If were looking for a more ‘Christian’ one then Marston Christian Services score pretty high with me, though NBM would get an honorable mention for upping their game and dropping the carriage charge as you have said.

Ok I have to say my publisher of the year is O-Books who have offered to give the same terms to indie bookshops as they do to Amazon – so that’s 50% across the board – that cannot fail but warrant them the best publisher badge to my way of thinking.
After that would, as Luke has said, have to be Lion Hudson and their Alliance Scheme, good margins and good promotions and SOR terms make this a winner all round.

After that any publisher that gives me 40% and more gets a more than honorable mention in my book.

Sorry but I can’t support best publisher to any publisher these days that gives me 35% and below – so there goes SCM-Canterbury Phil (Norwich books isn’t a publisher they are a distributor, but CHP and DLT would still get a look in from me!) and IVP, that’s just a moderate publisher really on non promotional items.

(Now I appreciate some places get given differing terms from publishers due to a number of factors so I can only work on what they offer either as declared standard terms to trade or what they have offered to me, therefore others opinions may be different due to this – and I welcome them shouting out in support of their publishers therefore!)

Whats worse though is when some of those self same publishers that give such low margins are marketing directly to consumers with deals I pretty much can’t match in some instances due to the 35% and below they offer to me (and yes publisher’s you know exactly who you are). Then factor in the higher discounts they can give to internet suppliers, well then for me they are just poor publishers to my way of thinking in terms of trade/retailer support.

Please note and lets make clear this is not about calibre of books published etc – many of the ‘poor publishers’ to my mind due to how they treat me in regards to trade do produce excellent material and top authors, but then so do O-Books and Lion Hudson etc who give me excellent terms, this is about how the publisher interacts at trade level.

The bar has been set guys – and in some instances by failing to give me good margins directly you end up hurting both yourself and me.
I might as well go direct to bertrams or gardners for convenience and get the books at the same discount you give me directly, or even consider going direct to the new wholesalers known as Bookdepository and Amazon, by publishers choice their prices are wholesale/trade prices or lower because publishers agree to the discounts demanded thus you have to give them the higher margin to keep stocking your book because you think they sell it so much better.
Yet for a measly extra 5% minimum direct to me I would go direct to you and probably be inclined to buy more copies or widen the range and you would save what, at least 10% per book on terms, and even with administration costs factored in still come away with a saving of about 3.55% I estimate.

Don’t say it can’t be done, O-books has done it, Lion Hudson have done it and a good number of other publishers do it too -lets at the least start the game with 40% if you want to be truly seen as a good publisher that supports the retailer.

Hmm perhaps something to think about a little more hey guys?