IPG in the News | The Archive

IPG President Weighs in on PGW Purchasing Battle
Many of you may be watching the battle for PGW between Perseus and National Book Network. We are certainly keeping a close eye on it and find it very interesting. I thought you might like to know where IPG stands. Although initially intrigued by the prospects, IPG has decided not to make an offer for PGW for several reasons. First and foremost, the disruption it would cause for our staff and our clients might result in a slippage of service to our existing clients and customers. We feel that the way to grow a distributor is not to see how many clients we can sign up but to offer a tremendous value for an important service, to continue to help grow the business of our client publishers, and to be selective with whom we work.
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"Opening Doors in the Gift Market"
—Publishers Weekly, December 18, 2006
"The gift market has grown increasingly important for book publishers. . . . This year Independent Publishers Group produced its first gift catalogue and hired a commission force to sell to the gift market. At the same time, Simon & Schuster eliminated its commission gift force and opened its inhouse book reps' bags a little wider to accommodate children's, adult and gift titles. What do these changes mean for commission gift reps, and how has the business of repping gift books changed?"
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IPG President named one of 2006's stand-out industry players
"Innovation Far and Wide"
—Publishers Weekly, December 11, 2006
"Publishing would not survive without enterprise and bold ideas from several quarters. . . . With its acquisition of Trafalgar Square earlier this fall, Chicago-based Independent Publishers Group is poised to move up from being the third largest full-service distributor in the U.S. to the number two slot. But double-digit growth is nothing new for the 35-year-old company, whose president, Mark Suchomel, has turned out such increases nearly every year since he took the helm in 1998."
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IPG to expand with addition of Trafalgar Square Publishing, Inc.
The senior management of Chicago Review Press Incorporated—the parent company of Independent Publishers Group (IPG)—has acquired Trafalgar Square Publishing, Inc. Trafalgar is the leading distributor in the US of UK publishers, including BBC Books, HarperCollins UK, Random House UK, and Simon & Schuster UK. “Trafalgar is a profitable, well-run company with an excellent reputation,” said IPG President Mark Suchomel. “They have high quality books with great sales potential. Because of its greater size, IPG will bring Trafalgar’s publishers expanded sales opportunities, especially in the gift, academic, Canadian, and library markets. We are also confident this expansion will benefit all IPG publishers by increasing IPG’s leverage and influence in the market, helping all of our publishers with economies of scale.” The acquisition of Trafalgar adds more than 50 publishers and 13,500 titles to IPG’s operations.
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"Making Information Pay: IPG's Midlist Miracles"
Shelf Awareness, a free e-mail newsletter aimed at people involved in the book trade, recently ran an article about Mark Suchomel's presentation at BISG's Making Information Pay seminar on April 27, 2006. He "outlined 'best practices for publishing and distributing midlist books,' a smart, effective approach sometimes overlooked in the blockbuster, bet-all-on-a-handful-of-accounts publishing era. . . . IPG tries to take advantage of every sales opportunity, 'no matter how small the account or old the title,' Suchomel continued. This isn't just lip service: 'We judge reps more on the number of accounts they sell to rather than the number of units they sell,' he said, stating proudly that in 20 years, the company has never given reps quotas for advance sales. 'The emphasis is on coverage and title availability.'"
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A Surge in Small Account Business
IPG has recently installed new software in the warehouse which greatly improves our ability to handle large batches of small orders. The fact that this new software was necessary reveals a change in IPG’s market reach—we now find that while the volume of IPG’s shipments to the majors continues to grow, the volume of small orders is also growing, and at a much faster rate.
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IPG provides aid to booksellers harmed by hurricane
As noted by several industry sources, IPG made a $25,000 donation to the American Booksellers Association Bookseller Relief Fund (BRF), which matches ABA's relief fund seed money. According to an article in ABAFlash, "IPG is hoping that the donation will inspire others in the publishing community to support the fund. President Mark Suchomel said, 'As a vendor, we feel we have a close connection to these booksellers and a responsibility to help them in their time of need. It is time for people throughout the industry to aid their friends and colleagues who are facing the dire circumstances of recent disasters.'"

Barnes & Noble lists IPG as a top data provider
IPG was named one of B&N's top 12 trading partners in terms of providing quality data at last year's Book Industry Study Group (BISG) meeting. The discussion focused on the importance of accurate and timely data, and speakers used a series of examples to illustrate how some partners' "data errors and basic neglect" are directly harming sales and baffling customers. IPG was the only distributor among the top tier, dubbed the "A-List." Chronicle, Dover, Harcourt, Harlequin, Harvard University Press, Houghton Trade, Sage, Simon & Schuster, Time Warner, University of Michigan Press, and Wiley also made the A-List.

"American Idol, the Small Press Book Edition"
—Publishers Weekly, January 25, 2005
Last Friday, representatives from Barnes & Noble, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Independent Publishers Group, National Book Network, the Publishers Marketing Association and PW met in New York City to decide which 30 out of 170 small press titles would have the best chance at doing well in bookstores across the country. . . . The meeting was part of the Trade Distribution Acceptance Program, which was created 14 years ago by PMA to have a screening committee of book-world bigwigs appraise books and give a lucky few a shot at national success. . . . [PMA executive direction Jan] Nathan usually sorts through possible books and winds up bringing 100 to the meeting. The committee then sifts them down to the lucky 30 that are guaranteed national distribution through IPG and are listed in that distributor's "Small Press Selection" catalogue. "We've had some nice publishers come out of this program," said IPG president Mark Suchomel, who noted that "some sell three or four thousand copies, but some end up selling 30,000 to 40,000" and help create a "great backlist." Altogether IPG shipped 250,000 books out of the program last year and annually earns some $2 million from the catalogue.
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“Chicago Review Press Buys Zephyr Press”
—Publishers Weekly, October 6, 2003
Chicago Review Press Inc., which includes the 30-year-old publishing house Chicago Review Press and distributor Independent Publishers Group, has acquired Tucson, Ariz.–based educational publisher Zephyr Press. The deal includes the press, which has an active backlist of nearly 150 books and 50 teaching aids, as well as Zephyr's mail-order catalogue operation.
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“Distribution Daybook: On the Up and Up”
—Publishers Weekly, February 24, 2003
Independent Publishers Group (IPG) in Chicago, Ill., was one of the biggest success stories of 2002. According to president Mark Suchomel, “We had increases over 20%.” Even the long-troubled computer category was up, by 1%. Returns, too, were at a good level. “They were just above 18% for the year, which was down from last year,” said Suchomel.
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“IPG Acquires Paul & Company”
—Publishers Weekly, April 16, 2001
In its third expansion of the year, 30-year-old Independent Publishers Group (IPG) in Chicago announced that it would acquire Massachusetts academic distributor Paul & Company Publishers Consortium Inc. The purchase marks IPG's entrée into academic and scholarly books. This year IPG also launched a Spanish-language books program and began distribution directly into Canada.
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“Spanish-Language Publishing in U.S. Nears Critical Mass”
—Publishers Weekly, September 18, 2000
Independent Publishers Group (Chicago) will begin distributing Spanish-language titles in Spring 2001 with the launch of its first Spanish catalogue. “This is a market that is only going to get bigger,” says president Mark Suchomel. “I think retailers and libraries would devote space to Spanish-language books if they could obtain them with the ease and under the same terms as books in English. We believe we will be the first major distribution company to aggressively target the Spanish market in this way.”
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IPG President Named One of "Eleven for the Millennium"
—Publishers Weekly, January 3, 2000
"At a time when many predict the demise of the book as we've known it, distributors appear to have the most to lose. . . . Yet distributors have already faced a comparable test: in the early and mid '90s, the traditional book market began eroding and a plethora of new bookselling outlets developed, a challenge that seemed as threatening then as the early 21st century seems now. Many distributors wound up thriving, and the smart ones, like Mark Suchomel, president of Independent Publishers Group, based in Chicago, are taking the lessons they learned selling to niches and preparing to apply them to the new digital age."
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“IPG: Moving Books with a Personal Touch”
—Publishers Weekly, Dec 7, 1998