With the support of BTPS, Shelf Awareness highlights the growing publisher distribution company that, with the Follett family of companies behind it, offers a full range of services, from sales and distribution to POD and offset printing, and has a strong reach into a variety of markets in the U.S. and abroad, especially bookstores and libraries.
Formed two years ago, Baker & Taylor Publisher Services (BTPS) offers an impressive, complete range of services for its publisher clients, including sales and distribution to both domestic and/or global markets; warehousing and fulfillment; digital and offset printing and 3PL (third-party logistics) services.
BTPS sells to the specialty retail and wholesale markets, libraries and institutions, mass market accounts and gift stores, and altogether has more than 110 sales reps in various markets. Internationally, the company has dedicated sales reps around the world that represent its clients to retailers and wholesalers.
Most important in the industry, even though B&T itself no longer sells on a wholesale basis to independent book retailers, BTPS does sell to the general book trade--and that business has actually increased considerably recently. As BTPS senior v-p Mark Suchomel emphasizes: "We sell to all retailers and wholesalers."
In terms of marketing, titles distributed by BTPS have the advantage of integration throughout Follett, which is the leader in the K-12 school library and higher education retail markets, and B&T, which services the public library market. As a result, Suchomel notes, "They help us reach these markets at a level no one else can reach."
Likewise, BTPS specializes in book manufacturing, allowing it to offer print on demand and offset printing for its client publishers through its state of the art digital printing presses and its offset equipment. The company offers inventory solutions for its full-service and 3PL clients, and it handles just fulfillment for some client publishers. "We manufacture for major publishers and small presses," Suchomel says. "We also work with a good number of publishers doing just their fulfillment, and that has grown over the last couple of years as well."
For all its clients, BTPS "continues to expand our reach and is always exploring new ways we can help our clients grow sales and reduce their risk," Suchomel adds. "We are excited at the opportunities to gain market share domestically and internationally."
BTPS's clients represent a wide range of independent publishing in many areas and categories, among them McSweeney's, ECW, Flowerpot and Arcturus Publishing. For more on them and others, see below.
What began more than 20 years ago as a short story quarterly expected to live no more than four issues has grown into one of the most esteemed and innovative literary institutions in the country. Founded in 1998 by author Dave Eggers, McSweeney's, San Francisco, champions ambitious and inspired new writing and challenges conventional expectations about where it's found, how it looks and who participates. McSweeney's exists to discover things readers love, help them find their most resplendent form and imagine new ways to bring them to the world.
In addition to the Quarterly Concern, winner of the 2019 National Magazine Award for Fiction, McSweeney's publishes a bold list of fiction, nonfiction and children's books, and more, including this year's Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings from the Me Too Movement; Rerun Era; Keep Scrolling Till You Feel Something: Twenty-One Years of Humor from McSweeney's Internet Tendency; and Illustoria magazine, the beloved art and storytelling magazine for kids (and the young-at-heart).
Among important current and upcoming titles:
Keep Scrolling Till You Feel Something: 21 Years of Humor from McSweeney's Internet Tendency, edited by Sam Riley and Chris Monks (November 5, 9781944211721).
This humor anthology revisits the 21 years of McSweeney's Internet Tendency--"from our bright-eyed and bewildered early stages to our world-weary and bewildered recent days"--and features such pieces as "I Don't Hate Women Candidates--I Just Hated Hillary and Coincidentally I'm Starting to Hate Elizabeth Warren" and "The Only Thing That Can Stop This Asteroid Is Your Liberal Arts Degree." Contributors include Ellie Kemper, Jesse Eisenberg, John Hodgman, Wendy Molyneux, and more; introduction by Jake Tapper.
Rerun Era by Joanna Howard (October 15, 9781944211677).
This is a captivating, propulsive memoir about growing up in the environmentally and economically devastated rural flatlands of Oklahoma, the entwinement of personal memory and the memory of popular culture, and a family thrown into trial by lost love and illness that found common ground in the television. Howard tells the story from the perspective of past selves from the late '70s and early '80s, focusing on her part-Cherokee Teamster truck-driving father, her women's libber mother, and her skateboarder, rodeo bull-riding teenage brother. Rerun Era perfectly captures the irony of growing up in rural America in the midst of nationalistic fantasies of small town local sheriffs and saloon girls, which manifested the urban cowboy, Wild West theme-parks, and The Beverly Hillbillies. Rerun Era gives humanity, perspective, humor, and depth to an often invisible part of this country.
Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings from the Me Too Movement, edited by Shelly Oria (September 10, 9781944211714).
Among the first books to emerge from the #MeToo movement, Indelible in the Hippocampus is an intersectional collection of essays, fiction, and poetry by black, Latinx, Asian, queer and trans writers, among others. Whether reflecting on their teenage selves or their modern-day workplaces, each contributor approaches the subject with unforgettable authenticity and strength. Together these pieces create a portrait of cultural sea-change, offering the reader a deeper understanding of this complex, galvanizing pivot in contemporary consciousness.
Contributors are, in order of appearance: Kaitlyn Greenidge, Melissa Febos, Syreeta McFadden, Rebecca Schiff, Diana Spechler, Hossannah Asuncion, Nelly Reifler, Courtney Zoffness, Quito Ziegler, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Jolie Holland, Lynn Melnick, Caitlin Delohery, Caitlin Donohue, Gabrielle Bellot, Karissa Chen, Elissa Schappell, Samantha Hunt, Honor Moore, Donika Kelly, Paisley Rekdal, Hafizah Geter and Shelly Oria.
ECW Press, Toronto, Ont., is an independent trade publisher with more than 40 years in the business. Its diverse, vibrant, unusual catalogue includes poetry and literary fiction, genre fiction, pop culture, political analysis, sports books and biographies. ECW books have consistently won major literary awards and are favorably reviewed. It has published nearly 1,000 books and releases more than 50 titles a year.
Among ECW Press's mix of commercial and literary works are The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker, an Indies Introduce and Indie Next Pick; Nobody Cares, the memoir by Anne T. Donahue, who quickly became the Internet's best friend, and Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis by Andrew Reeves, who recently crisscrossed North America to speak at independent bookstores about the environmental crisis caused by the invasive fish.
Over the years, ECW has evolved and its acronym has stood for many things, the press says, including endless cat whiskers, eating cheese at work and epic competitive wrestling. But the publisher likes to say that consistently the three letters of ECW each represent a particular strain of the press's diverse passions: Entertainment, Culture and Writing.
Among important current and upcoming titles:
The Forest City Killer: A Serial Murderer, a Cold-Case Sleuth, and a Search for Justice by Vanessa Brown (October 4, 9781770415034). Called "a must for true crime fans" by Booklist and positively reviewed by the New York Times, this book features amateur sleuth Vanessa Brown, who starts investigating the 50-year-old disappearance of Jackie English and discovers there may have been a serial killer prowling the Forest City all those years ago.
Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food by Lenore Newman (October 8, 9781770414358).
In this entertaining yet scholarly book about the foods that humans have literally loved to death--causing the animals' extinction--food writer and professor Lenore Newman examines the sad history of passenger pigeons and megafauna, among others, and identifies foods that are now vulnerable and foods that we'll need to protect in the future. For fans of Michael Pollan and Anthony Bourdain.
The Godmother: A Crime Novel by Hannelore Cayre, translated from the French by Stephanie Smee (September 3, 9781770415430).
Patience Portefeux is an underpaid Franco-Arab interpreter for the Ministry of Justice who specializes in phone tapping. When she happens upon a revealing set of police wiretaps, she uses what she's learned in the secret conversations to intervene and infiltrate a huge drug deal--and thereby embarks on a new career path as the Godmother. Winner of the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, France's most prestigious prize for crime fiction.
Arcturus Publishing, London, England, is committed to offering exciting, high-quality titles for readers of all ages in a wide range of popular subject areas, including fresh takes on literary classics, reference, New Age, children's puzzle and activity books, self-help and practical art. It has more than 1,000 active titles and aims to provide an entertaining bridge between the subject and reader that will speak to a broad market.
The list features such bestselling series as A Degree in a Book and Knowledge in a Nutshell, Fairy Tales for Fearless Girls, slipcase editions of classics like The Iliad and Dracula, the Great Reads boxed sets and historical books about World War II. Major authors include Martin King, author of The Battle of the Bulge: Hitler's Final Gamble in Western Europe (called "our expert in the Ardennes" by Stephen Ambrose); Allen Carr, the smoking cessation and addiction expert whose books have sold more than 16 million copies worldwide; acclaimed art and graphic designer Barrington Barger; and puzzle aficionado Ben Addler.
Among important current and upcoming titles:
Amazing Wordsearch by Ben Addler (November 15, 9781789507232). Part of the Ingenious Puzzles series, this book contains more than 250 puzzles, all designed to give the user's brain a fun and stimulating workout.
The Iliad by Homer (October 15, 9781789505597). This is a collector's edition, in a slipcase, of Western literature's oldest text, about the horrors and heroics of war. The translation by Samuel Butler, who was one of the finest English writers of the Victorian era, is very accessible and satisfying.
101 Awesome Women Who Transformed Science by Claire Philip (December 15, 9781788883764). This new addition to the wildly bestselling 101 Awesome Women series tells the stories of 101 amazing women and the ways in which they changed science. They represent a wide range of nationalities and ages as well as fields, including physical chemistry, physics, medicine, engineering, biology, astrophysics and astronomy. The text includes biographies, quotations and facts, all brought to life with charming illustrations.
Flowerpot Press, Toronto, Ontario, and Nashville, Tennessee, is an independent children's book publisher that specializes in inventive fiction and nonfiction books designed to entertain and inspire children while they explore their imagination and the world around them.
With more than 200 books in print, Flowerpot Press offers a broad range of selections from the Baby Firsts series and the bestselling animal discovery collection Whose Is It? to the ever-expanding series of 10 Minute Classics picture books for older readers. The Peace Dragon Tales series features titles designed to develop social awareness in young readers by teaching peace and kindness and celebrating diversity. Written by author and peace activist Linda Ragsdale, these titles have won such awards as the Multicultural Children's Publication Award, the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award, the Moonbeam Spirit Award, and a Parent's Choice Recommended Award.
Flowerpot Press is committed to developing fresh content and creating stories that foster a sense of curiosity, passion for adventure, desire to learn and, most importantly, a love for reading.
Among important current and upcoming titles:
I Love You, World, illustrated by Aleksandra Szmidt (October 8, 9781486716722).
This board book spreads the love by teaching little readers how to say "I love you" in 13 languages: English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, Greek, German, Russian, Setswana, Chinese, Portuguese, Hindi and Swahili. Simple pronunciation guides help readers master each phrase and encourage them to broaden language skills while the adorable animal illustrations keep little ones entertained read after read. Each country is represented by native animals depicting a parent-child relationship, and the final spread has a q&a page that encourages readers to look through the book for answers.
The Buddy Bench by B.D. Cottleston, illustrated by Hazel Quintanilla (September 3, 9781486717989).
Buddy Benches, or Friendship Benches, a special place in a school playground where a child can sit if they want someone to talk with or play with, are arriving in schoolyards across the country. In this sweet story that brings the Buddy Bench's purpose to life, on a surprisingly snowy day in Texas, a young student finds himself braving recess alone--until he spots someone new sitting on the school's Buddy Bench. By the end of recess, both kids leave the playground with a new friend. Back matter includes tips on how to use Buddy Benches, which schools and parent groups are promoting as a tool to end loneliness and promote empathy in children.
Whose Is It? Available in paper and board book editions, this photo-based early-learning series challenges little ones to find out what body parts belong to which animals. Coats and Horns are available November 5; Wings was published October 8; and Scales appeared September 9. Previously published titles in the series include Ears, Feet, Noses and Tails.
Among BTPS's other publisher clients are:
Aviation Supplies and Academics, Newcastle, Wash., which was founded in 1940 and offers pilot training and education books as well as a range of pilot materials and supplies.
Allison & Busby, London, which was founded in 1967 and publishes a range of fiction and nonfiction, including crime, mystery & thrillers, science fiction & fantasy, YA, historical, literary and contemporary fiction as well as true crime, biography & memoirs, popular culture, food & cooking, and more.
CityFiles Press, Chicago, which publishes a limited number of titles--12 books in 10 years--striving, it says, "to produce meaningful projects with emotional and artistic impact... We savor all the steps in the book publishing process--from authorship and design to production, promotion and distribution. We also work with partners to create exhibits, movies, and music scores."
The Innovation Press, which focuses on children's books--from innovative activity books to clever fiction--that inspire learning, enliven creative thinking, and spark imaginations.
Nomad Press, White River Junction, Vt., an educational publisher dedicated to sparking the interest of young readers in the world around them. Its titles include biographies, project-based narratives, nonfiction picture books, and historical mysteries.
Bushel & Peck Books, a new children's book publisher whose first titles are A Child's Gift of Lullabies, Big Words for Fearless Girls, 50 Real Heroes for Boys and The Interactive Constitution.
Sweet Cherry Publishing, Leicester, England, a children's book publisher that believes "all children should have access to great stories and endeavor to break down the barriers which often get in the way of reading."
