But the industry is managing to supply a big surge in demand.” “No one is getting any sleep, and people have been at this for 18 months,” said Sue Malone-Barber, director of publishing operations for Penguin Random House. Publishers’ trade-book revenue, which includes most fiction, nonfiction and general-interest titles, was up nearly 10 percent last year compared with 2019, according to the Association of American Publishers, and was up 17 percent for the first six months of 2021, compared with the same period in 2020.
Indeed, one factor compounding these problems is good news for the industry: Demand for printed books is strong. (Barnes & Noble, along with many independent stores, had copies all along - its nonfiction buyer loved the book, according to Shannon DeVito, director of books at Barnes & Noble, so the chain ordered a lot of it.) It took Amazon more than seven weeks to get copies back in stock. The book, which chronicles an American woman who helped lead the German resistance against the Nazis, didn’t run out everywhere, but it took weeks to get new stock into warehouses, then additional time to get it to retailers. This is where “All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days” got into trouble. Normally, this kind of order takes about three weeks. Perhaps the biggest issue going into the holidays will be reprints, which are necessary when the initial order of a book runs low and needs to be replenished. No one knows when things will go back to normal, but it won’t be until long after this holiday season. One publisher said it currently costs roughly 35 to 50 cents per book to send titles across the water, and $5 to $8 by air. Publishers are planning farther out in advance and sometimes even putting shipments of books on planes. Retailers, authors and distributors are pleading with readers and customers to shop or order early. There isn’t much anyone in the book business can do to fix any of this. Publishers have prioritized the schedules of the coming books that they expect to be their biggest sellers. Publishers consider such shifts a last resort, because a date change can lead to events or news coverage being scrapped, retail promotions canceled and fewer orders placed. “Smahtguy,” by Eric Orner, a graphic novel about former Representative Barney Frank, was delayed by Metropolitan Books, a Macmillan imprint, from the fall until the spring. Princeton University Press pushed the “The End of Ambition” by Mark Atwood Lawrence, from October to November. “Move” by Parag Khanna was previously slated for release on Tuesday but is now due out next week. This mess has led to a cascade of publication date changes, sometimes postponing a book a few weeks, other times for months, missing the holiday shopping season altogether. It used to be that you would place a purchase order, and it would just arrive two weeks later. “Trucks are more expensive, containers are more expensive, labor is more expensive,” said Jon Yaged, the president of Macmillan’s U.S. The plants that remain sometimes don’t have enough people to run them, so badly needed machinery can sit idle.Īll of these problems compound one another. After years of printing plants shutting down and going out of business, the demand to print books domestically now exceeds the available capacity. When publishers print books in the United States, those work force and transportation issues still apply, but they face other complications as well. On both paths, at virtually every step, there is a problem. To get a book printed and into customers’ hands, there are essentially two different supply chains. Older books are also being affected as suppliers struggle to replenish them. Publishers are postponing some release dates because books aren’t where they need to be. The churning disruption in the global supply chain, which has touched everything from minivans to dishwashers to sweaters, has now reached the world of books, just as the holiday season - a crucial time for publishers, and a period that can make or break the entire year for an independent bookstore - approaches. “I spent the better part of a decade researching and writing this book,” Ms. When it made its debut on the New York Times best-seller list, the country’s largest book retailer didn’t have any copies.
Days after the release of Rebecca Donner’s book, “ All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days,” its hardcover edition sold out on Amazon, then at the online retailer and at Powell’s Books.