In yet another major change in book distribution and wholesaling this year--following Follett's purchase of Baker & Taylor and Bookmasters and Ingram's purchase of Perseus's distribution operations--Readerlink Distribution Services, the main distributor of books to mass merchandisers, has bought Anderson Merchandisers, Shelf Awareness has learned. Including ANConnect, the company sells books and a variety of entertainment merchandise to non-traditional retailers. Anderson Merchandisers has been owned by Anderson Media, one of several companies owned by the Anderson family, whose roots go back almost a century to a newsstand in Florence, Ala. Another Anderson family business is Books-A-Million, the bookstore chain that went private last year.
Just over a year ago, Readerlink bought two parts of Baker & Taylor--its warehouse club business, including the B&T Marketing Services distribution center in Indianapolis, Ind., and B&T's publishing operations. B&T's warehouse club business was built mainly on the Advanced Marketing Services operations that it purchased in 2007 after AMS collapsed.
The Anderson family has a long history of book wholesaling, including the Books-a-Million division American Wholesale Book Company. Anderson Merchandisers has roots in Western Merchandisers, the books and music wholesaler that was the parent of Hastings Entertainment. In 1990, Western became a subsidiary of Wal-Mart, which in 1994 sold Western to Anderson Media. Anderson Media then changed the name of Western to Anderson Merchandisers.