Small publishers are definitely in a tight corner. When I first set up The Publishing Cupboard I knew that my prime target market was not the people walking into the bookshops in search of a laid-back approach to language learning, but the bookbuyers of the bookchains. In other words the language buyers for WH Smith, Waterstone's, Borders, Blackwells and John Smith.
Having come from the cossetted editorial world of HarperCollins where the Sales team were the ones that really carried any clout with these key accounts, I vaguely imagined I could do their job from the confines of a Cupboard. How wrong I was, dear readers!
WH Smith is practically impenetrable for any publisher (big or small). Waterstones as far as I can make out has one person allocated to look after the independent publishers. Given that there are 480 members of the Independent Publishers Guild, that person must be stretched to distraction. From what I gather from Wikipedia there are about 40 Borders shops in the UK compared to over 300 Waterstone's. Blackwells and John Smith are primarily academic/university shops.
When you take all that into account, Waterstone's is the best route to the secondary market (those language learners for us). So it is awfully important for the Hub to work for the small publishers who probably depend heavily on their Waterstone's sales.
For us, Amazon provided the shelf space we couldn't reach terrestrially. I have just written to them to see if they could sort out the bizarre review situation we are experiencing. It will be interesting to see what they come back with.
ps I should mention that our best customer now is the wonderful Grant & Cutler. Each month we receive regular orders from them.
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