This month’s episode features a conversation with Jen Gauthier, Publisher at Greystone Books, about how to approach changes to distribution as an independent publisher.

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Transcript

Nataly Alarcón: Hello everyone, and welcome to the BookNet Canada podcast. I am Nataly Alarcón, your host for this episode.

There are multiple players involved in the process of getting books into the hands of readers, and distribution partners play a key part in making this happen. Their role includes not only logistical things like coordinating warehousing and delivery of physical books, but it also includes establishing relationships with retailers and wholesalers, determining the best time to sell a book, and, in some cases, they also handle the creation and distribution of metadata. As a side note, we always, always recommend that publishers own the process of metadata creation. Honestly, no one knows your books better than you do.

Anyway, back to the main topic: distribution. As Joe Biel put it in an article published on Jane Friedman's website back in 2018, "Shopping for a distributor is like seeking any other kind of relationship, business or personal. You want to shop around and go with the one that seems to really get you and your books the most."

So we invited Jen Gauthier, a publisher at Greystone Books, to chat about how they prepared for and approached their changes to distribution, what they took into account as they were "shopping for a distributor" and more. Let's hear the interview.

Hi, Jen. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm very excited to have this chat with you.

Jen Gauthier: Thank you for having me.

Nataly: Let's start with some context for those who may not be familiar with Greystone. So, Greystone Books is a leading independent publisher of books about nature, science, health, and social issues, with a commitment to environmental stewardship. They are a proud Canadian-owned and operated company based in Vancouver. They have three imprints: Greystone Books, Greystone Kids, and Aldana Libros. And they also publish a collection of books in partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.

As of January 1st, Jaguar Book Group took over the Canadian distribution for Greystone Books, which actually brings us to the main topic of the conversation: how to prepare for and how to approach changes to distribution as an independent publisher.

But before we dive in, Jen, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and your work at Greystone?

Jen: Sure. I have been with Greystone for more than 20 years now. I started at the front desk, and I worked my way up through sales and marketing over the years.

One fun fact: at one point, my role with Greystone was part time, and I also worked part time as an account manager for BookNet, where I honed some of my data nerd skills and learned a lot about ONIX, which it turns out has come in very handy over the years.

But Greystone was growing fast and really needed a full-time sales director, so I joined full time at Greystone and then eventually became associate publisher and then publisher in 2022, which is my current role. But given my background in sales, marketing, and distribution, I've maintained a foot in that area along the way.

Nataly: That's a very exciting journey. To start us off, let's talk about what the distribution looked like for Greystone before this transition happened.

Jen: Sure. We have a lot of different distribution scenarios. In the U.S., we're distributed by PGW, a branch of Ingram, and Ingram handles our distributions throughout the world, excluding Canada. We've been there longer than I've been at Greystone and continue to work with Ingram.

In Canada, we have a partnership with Heritage Group Distribution. They handle non-traditional channel sales, mostly in the West but really anywhere from places like Mountain Equipment Co-op to small drugstores and even gas stations and marinas with spinner racks.

And before January, our traditional book distribution in Canada to independents, Amazon, Indigo, wholesalers, and the traditional book trade was handled by UTP Distribution. And now, as you mentioned, we're with Jaguar, which is a division of Fraser Direct.

Nataly: That's very interesting. So, can you share insights into the biggest things that you had to take into account, you and your team, of course, to prepare for this change?

Jen: Yeah, absolutely. I think for us, timing was a major consideration. There's never really a good time to change distribution. It's a huge endeavour, but January felt like it could be a good time for us since sales during that month are often lower than other months.

However, starting in January meant we had to move a lot of inventory at one of the busiest times of year for book distribution, which is in December, and make sure that we had enough stock of the right books at our existing distributor to get sales out for Christmas, while also ensuring we had transferred stock of sales that we knew we would need in January over to Jaguar. And of course, the facilities are all very busy in December. So that was a challenge but also something that we had thought about in advance.

Communication was also a really important consideration. How, when, and to whom do we need to share the news? We didn't want accounts to stop ordering from our previous distributor before we moved, but we needed to ensure that they would start ordering from our new distributor, from Jaguar, as soon as possible.

And I think also tied to communication, and important for communication, is data. I wasn't altogether sure at the outset what the specific issues would be, but I knew there would be unforeseen challenges because there always are with data. So those are kind of the top three things that I thought about in advance: timing, communication, and dealing with data.

Nataly: I hadn't even realized a piece that you mentioned about starting this process in December, and it does sound like it probably needed a lot of planning and a lot of communication, but you pulled it off, you know? That's great.

Jen: Mostly so far.

Nataly: We'll check in in a year and see how it's going.

Jen: Yeah.

Nataly: So now, without getting into anything confidential, I would love to know what criteria mattered most when you and your team were evaluating potential distribution partners.

Jen: Sure, yeah. For us, great warehouse facilities that utilize technology to improve efficiency and accuracy, as well as utilizing sustainable practices in packaging and shipping. And we did visit the warehouse before making a decision.

Accurate, detailed, and timely reporting, having access to sales numbers, orders, shipping times, all that kind of information, is really key. As well, reputation in the industry and great people. It was also really important to us to be with a distributor that was also home to other great independent publishers. ECW had been with Jaguar for a long time, and it had just moved, and OwlKids joined at the same time as us. So it's a good home when you're surrounded by like-minded publishers too.

Nataly: Based on your experience, what steps can publishers take to ensure these transitions are as smooth as possible for both their teams and their supply chain partners?

Jen: Yeah, so I would say to, and this kind of expands on things I've mentioned already about our challenges, plan your inventory transfers strategically. Really take the time to analyze what you need, where, and when, and move enough to make sure that you aren't short anywhere. It's really helpful to reduce stock in advance, like pulp excess inventory, before you start analyzing, so you're working with the inventory numbers for books you actually need. Communicate early with supply chain partners. Ask them what they need and when regarding data. I assumed that I knew, but I discovered things along the way that were different from what I expected.

You'll almost always have forthcoming books where orders will need to be cancelled at one distributor and placed again at another. They can't just be transferred over, or so I'm told. So there's communication with your reps and with those accounts to make sure that they know.

And then also just ensure your data is as clean and up to date as possible. Our previous distributor was handling ONIX data to some of the major partners on our behalf, and now we're having to send it directly. It should be simple because we did already have our own data management system, but because we had somebody else handling it, we weren't as diligent about updating things, making books out of print, you know, ensuring that tariff codes and country of manufacture are in there and up to date.

So we ended up spending a lot of time cleaning up our data. If your data is clean all the time, then you don't need to do that when the time comes to make a change.

Nataly: Looking back, is there anything you will approach differently next time?

Jen: So I really hope there never will be a next time. It is a lot of work moving, but if I did do it again, I'd assign more team members to handle different parts and to take ownership of different parts of the process. I'd also get my titles set up, my metadata set up with my new distributor way earlier. I've discovered that different systems need to be adapted to map ONIX data to their internal systems, so we did have some troubleshooting to do there. And had we done it earlier, it would have made things smoother.

Nataly: Do you have any advice for publishers listening who may be considering a similar change, aside from all the great things and insights that you have already mentioned?

Jen: Yeah. I mean, I guess just really consider the right time for you to make the move. It's like I said, never a good time, but ideally select a slow period, one to two months when you have no new releases. We all try to spread our releases out, so there's very few times that work easily. But for us, we also had a book that is tied to Valentine's Day, so it needed to ship right at the beginning of January, and we were scrambling just for that one book. It was one new release that couldn't move. But everything came together, and it is moving out the door to stores. So it worked for us. But for other publishers, a different time of year might be a better time.

Nataly: Now that you're almost on the other side of it, how do you see this change shaping the future of Greystone over the next year or so?

Jen: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say. Things were good before, so I hope things continue to be good, and our books continue to make it to stores and our sales grow.

As a result of the move, one thing that happened is we were working closely with other independent publishers who were also moving to Jaguar, so it's been great to have that dialogue, kind of like we're doing now, around how we do things and how to work together more closely, and just commiserating and sharing challenges and experiences that has translated into working with some of those publishers more closely on other things.

For instance, we've aligned our spring 2026 kids' book releases with new releases from OwlKids and Annick, which will help keep our shipping costs down, and we hope it will provide other synergies around promoting books in our bookstores. If they open their box of books and see a bunch of Greystone and Annick and OwlKids exciting new releases, they'll want to put them on tables to display.

So I do see us working more closely with other independent publishers at our distributor, but also in general, because we learned how beneficial it can be. And I think ultimately that will benefit publishers, bookstores, and ultimately the readers as well.

Nataly: I love that. I think that at BookNet, one thing that we try to champion a lot is collaboration, coming together, communicating. At the end of the day, what we want is to champion Canadian contributors, authors, illustrators, and so on, and the industry as a whole, right? We want to get books into readers' hands, and working together can definitely make that process a little bit easier.

Jen: Yeah, absolutely.

Nataly: Well, this is the end. Jen, thank you so much for your time. I learned so much from you. Is there anything else that you want to share while we are here?

Jen: I don't think so. I mean, we are still going through it. It's not 100% done. So, I might have more insight later on as we move on, but I've shared what I've learned so far.

Nataly: And it's perfect. Thank you.

Before I go, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that BookNet Canada's operations are remote and our colleagues contribute their work from the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, the Wyandot, the Mi’kmaq, the Ojibwa of Fort William First Nation, the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations (which includes the Ojibwa, the Odawa, and the Potawatomie), the Métis, as well as the unceded and ancestral territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, or Tsleil-Waututh peoples, the original nations and peoples of the lands we now call Beeton, Guelph, Halifax, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, Vaughan, and Windsor.

We encourage you to visit the native-land.ca website to learn more about the peoples whose lands you are listening from today. Moreover, BookNet Canada endorses the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and supports an ongoing shift from gatekeeping to spacemaking in the book industry. The book industry has long been an industry of gatekeeping. Anyone who works at any stage of the book supply chain carries a responsibility to serve readers by publishing, promoting, and supplying works that represent the wide extent of human experiences and identities in all that complicated intersectionality. We at BookNet are committed to working with our partners in the industry as we move towards a framework that supports spacemaking, which ensures that marginalised creators and professionals all have the opportunity to contribute, work, and lead.

We would also like to acknowledge the Government of Canada for their financial support through the Canada Book Fund, and of course, thanks to you for listening.