Publishing Crooks

Kathryn Cramer blogs the bankruptcy of Advanced Marketing Group, "a major book distributor (and owner of Publishers Group West), went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, taking with it a big chunk of US publishing's Christmas receipts."

The distribtors are much bigger businesses than the publishers and the big box club stores are in turn much bigger businesses than the distributors.

Does ANYONE at Costco or Sam's Club care that they are and have been forcing the entire publishing industry to do business with crooks? It would appear that the answer is no: that's how Costco keeps its prices down.  Business as usual is business with crooks.

Meanwhile, perhaps the best we can hope for the Christmas publishing revenues is that they are having a nice holiday in the Cayman Islands.

Boy, does book publishing have channel problems! Software publishing has a channel problem, too.

Update: many small publishers will go under, because the bankruptcy ties up their 4Q06 revenues. GalleyCat writes:

C.E. Petit at Scrivener's Error provides a necessary legal perspective on the bankruptcy - and the news is not very good at all for small and mid-sized publishers. "Small and mid-sized publishers of fiction are...going to have some serious cashflow problems that will [hit them] twice: Once in delayed and diminished cashflow, and once more because their books simply won't be sold until they change their distribution. And that's going to go through to authors, too."