At first glance, it’s not always clear what a publisher, distributor, wholesaler, and retailer actually do. They might all seem involved in getting a book into the hands of a reader, but they serve very different functions in the publishing industry.
To illustrate these differences, we’ll look at a hypothetical book as it travels through the publishing supply chain, passing from one entity to another.
The publisher is a business that produces and releases a book into the marketplace. Its key characteristics include things like the ISBN, edition, format, and price of the book it’s releasing. It may sell some copies of the book itself, but the publisher may also choose to release the title into a wider network via a third party: a distributor. A distributor is a business that sells or represents books on behalf of one or more publishers, and helps get books into sales channels. A distributor will often take on activities such as receiving and processing orders, maintaining stock levels, fulfilling orders, handling shipping, and sometimes processing returns.
A wholesaler, meanwhile, does not focus on representing certain publishers; instead, it takes books from a variety of sources, and sells them to other parties, including retailers. Think of a bookstore owner looking to stock 20 different books from various publishers. It would be tedious (and perhaps cost-prohibitive) for her to order every book from every publisher individually. A wholesaler could provide a more streamlined solution by stocking a larger number of titles from multiple publishers, making it easier for the bookseller to source the titles she wants. Not every book needs to go through a wholesaler in order to reach a bookstore, but this example shows why wholesalers exist.
The final stop in our example book’s journey is the retailer. The retailer is the person or business that sells a book directly to the consumer. Whether it’s a physical bookstore, an online bookseller, or even a seller on a marketplace site, a retailer sells books to the end user. Unlike distributors and wholesalers, the retailer has very little to do with trade businesses or trade accounts; its customers are individual readers. When it comes to a retailer’s activities, it’ll have access to information about stock levels, retail price, format, and availability, but these characteristics are less relevant to its function within the supply chain.
It doesn’t matter whether a retailer is selling a book directly or taking on another distributor or wholesaler as a client; the key thing is that it is not primarily dealing with another trading business. Because some entities fulfill multiple roles within the supply chain, it can sometimes be difficult to tell where one ends and another begins. To avoid confusion, it’s often better to ask yourself what each entity is doing in a given context, rather than just using labels like ‘publisher’ or ‘distributor.’
To put these concepts into practice, let’s imagine a hypothetical book and trace it through the supply chain. First, list the publisher. Next, think of ways to distribute that book. Don’t worry about putting every single entity into play; instead, consider how the publisher can distribute its book in the first instance. For example, a route from publisher to distributor to bookstore to reader is perfectly valid. Or you could go from publisher to wholesaler to online retailer to reader. Or maybe the publisher could simply sell the book directly to the reader. Try out a few different routes, and compare them. You’ll start to see that there are a lot of options available to get a book from publisher to reader; book distribution isn’t just one single chain.
Next, try adding an order to your scenario. Let’s say that a bookstore orders a copy of your book from someone. Who receives the order? How is stock checked? Where is stock stored? How is dispatch arranged? What happens to records once the books arrive? Now reverse the process, how would an unsold book be returned? By working through these questions, you’ll begin to realize that distribution is much more than simply moving books around. There’s a lot going on beneath the surface in terms of catalog data, stock, orders, fulfillment, restocking, trade terms, returns, and more.
Once you’ve got the hang of these concepts, check your understanding by trying to explain the differences between a publisher, distributor, wholesaler, and retailer without ever saying the words “middleman” or “middlemen.” Once you’re able to explain who is responsible for the creation of the book, who acts as or expands on a distributor, who supplies books to retailers in bulk, and who sells books to the consumer, you should be well on your way to understanding these terms. From here, the process of learning about things like wholesale price, trade discount, margin, consignment, and more becomes much easier, as these terms can be placed in context within the book supply chain.
