Life on the road
ain’t what it used to be, and the easy money’s long
gone. Such is the tale of most independent sales reps
— but, on the other hand, “it’s a hell of a lot better
than being in house!” attests New England’s Nanci
McCrackin, who’s not alone in her sentiment. West
Coast rep Howard Karel pointed to the predicted
demise of this sector some 30 years ago, but notes it’s
still going strong, and it will be 30 years from now.
There’s no denying: It’s still a struggle; but that’s
due more to the decline of the independent bookseller
and the demise of regional chains than to the dearth
of publisher accounts, or the re-entry into the distribution
business of the largest publishers, who trumpet the
use of their own in-house sales reps and telemarketing
when pursuing new client publishers. Far from a disappearing
breed, independent reps might even call what they’re
going through a new Golden Age.
Well, not exactly.
The regional chains and wholesalers, once the independent
sales reps’ bread and butter, have all but disappeared
from the landscape. There are some museum stores, but
as Consolino & Watson’s Michael Watson
stated, even in Boston — museum town par excellence
— they have succumbed to sourcing their own exclusive
“product,” which represents another lost source of revenue
for the rep. Specialty stores, such as gay and lesbian
and mystery shops, might account for some additional
sales, but the gift market is pretty much off limits,
says Stu Abraham of Abraham Associates.
So nowadays their purview is limited to the ABA stores
and some ID wholesalers. Indie reps increasingly play
important roles in getting the major chains to take
a gander at the burgeoning number of small presses.
And many represent their medium-sized publishers to
certain key accounts, such as Books-A-Million and AWBC.
Others, such as Fujii’s Don Sturtz, sell
BGI for certain mid-sized accounts.
Workman
is probably the largest publisher which has shown the
greatest loyalty to commission groups, and after 30-plus
years, still has the same reps in place. Hugh Andrews,
Andrews McMeel Director of Sales, says they too
have had the same commission groups selling for them
for over 20 years, and he asserts, “they have the finest
representation in the business.” What really matters
is the relationship of the rep with the account and
the publisher, and some of these date from “time immemorial.”
Terry Wybel sells B&N for Andrews
McMeel, for instance and has done so since it was B
Dalton in Minneapolis.
In addition to
Workman and Andrews McMeel, several other larger publishers,
like Sterling, only use commission reps. This
means that Angie Smits of Southern Territory
Associates, gets to sell Sterling titles to the
lucrative Ingram and Books-A-Million accounts.
She says the “blended” publishers have proved to be
a real boon, even if they are only covering smaller
accounts; having Harcourt, Chronicle or
Abrams in your bag opens all doors. For an independent
rep group, getting in to see accounts could pose a problem
— given the number of active publishers out there, large
and small — so a prestigious publishing account is a
must.
In the past, when
publishers or distributors reached a certain sales volume,
the decision was made to switch to a more cost-effective
house-rep. Today, a more likely practice would be that
of Perseus, which, following its acquisition
of Running Press, merged its house reps with
RP’s commission groups, to great effect says Matty
Goldberg, VP Sales and Marketing. Likewise, Abrams/STC
a few years ago created their own house sales force,
but discovered what many medium-sized publishers have
already realized — the rep who’s already on the road
can fill in secondary accounts much better than even
the most professional telemarketing sales force — so
they’ve rehired a number of the same sales groups. Others,
such as Harcourt and Norton, have also created
a blend of house and commission reps. Harcourt’s Paul
von Drasek says the only way to sell children’s
picture books is face-to-face, so this dictates the
presence of a commission rep. Houghton’s Gary
Gentel agrees, and both feel strongly that the groups
shouldn’t just handle small accounts — there needs to
be sufficient business and revenues for them to make
it worth their while.
Accountability
On the distributor
front, PGW recently went to all in-house field
and telemarketing reps, while Consortium uses
all indie reps; and NBN/Biblio has a mix
of in-house and commissioned. The latter’s rep groups
across the country complement house reps on secondary
accounts, but it uses a commission group only to cover
the Northeast. Julie Schaper, President &
CEO of Consortium, cites the “great coverage and extraordinary
depth” that indie reps provide, and others echo this.
Consortium has 23 reps selling its distributed publishers,
a number Schaper says she couldn’t possibly afford on
staff. They travel great distances to put a body in
front of the bookseller — something the majors are doing
less and less, she says. It does become more challenging
during selling seasons though, as the reps are often
on the road and can’t drop everything to contact accounts
when a title starts to track with the New York Times.
And of course, as independent contractors, they won’t
do call reports, and in the eyes of some, lack the “aura”
that comes with representing a large publisher marshalling
all its forces.
Sales conferences
take up a lot of time, and the commission reps loyally
attend from beginning to end — indistinguishable from
the house reps. Some of the reps we talked to felt this
time could be better spent on strategy, terms, customer
service, etc. Technology has been a boon to these independent
contractors: less paperwork, automated tracking of payments
and orders, no physical inventories, no backlist orders.
These improvements allow them to focus on digging for
the increasingly elusive new account.
Territorial integrity
has stayed pretty much the same with the US still divided
into six to eight distinct selling zones. Pressures
in New England and the mid-Atlantic, however, did lead
to some “leakage.” With the closing of Crown,
the Bibelot stores, and others, there has been
an inclination to look north from the mid-Atlantic,
and groups such as Chesapeake & Hudson and
Parson Weems have gravitated up there.
Though 2003 was
a universally rotten year for everyone, the consensus
is that 2004 has to be better. Going forward, there’s
some concern among publishers that they aren’t seeing
many new faces amongst their sales groups — they love
their reps but wonder if they might be getting a bit
long in the tooth. But Stu Abraham disputes that — he’s
got two (relatively) young’uns on his team — and Smits
and her three colleagues are in the process of buying
Southern Territories from Jim Shepherd and Ed
Springer. ... And then there’s the iconoclastic,
ever-intrepid David Godine, who has completely
dispensed with almost all his reps, and now sells every
book himself!
