Tomorrow will be the last day Belt Publishing will be distributed by Ingram. Wednesday will be the first day we will be distributed by Arcadia Publishing (if you have read any of the conversations about book distribution of late, you will now realize how magnificent it is that Arcadia does its own distribution).
This means that tens of thousands of books are now on trucks (cross fingers), having been loaded on the docks of the Ingram central distribution center ( it took me so long to understand what “DC” stood for) in Jackson, Tennessee, to be driven to Columbia, South Carolina, where Arcadia warehouses its inventory.
I keep imagining the trucks overturned, our backlist spilled over the highway like sheetrock (there go all the residents of Hendersonville running onto the interstate, grabbing as many books about Flint, Michigan as possible, to help insulate their homes).1
It’s stressful to be sure, but there is a huge team of people working on this, both at Ingram and at Arcadia, so there’s not much for me to do. That doesn’t make me less compulsive; I just sublimate my worries into trying to complete (or, really, write emails checking in on) some of the dozens of other tasks this transition requires. I did schedule things so we had no new titles coming out for one month before and one month after this transition, so that’s a balm.
Meanwhile, the “books don’t sell/books do sell” discourse has been winding its way around all the publishing-related substacks and aggregators. I decided to sit this one out (did we need one more?) but I did post a thread on twitter last night (I’m mainly on bluesky now which I must tell you I find relaxing and fun) which, instead of summarizing like a normal person would do, I’ll just screenshot for you, so you can get the full in situ experience.
Oh and while I was over there finding the thread I got to see some Excellent Bonus Twitter Content: Zito showing off his newest jacket at a reading last night!
Everything involved with publishing Minotaur at Calle Lanza has been fun and gratifying, an affirmation of the worthiness of this strange, sometimes exhausting, often stressful publishing trip.
If you are the sort who buys books wholesale, email me with any questions or snafus you might find ordering our books during this interregnum. It will help me feel useful! The friendly folks at Arcadia can set you up with an account of course, and if something looks like its backordered, it might just be on one of those trucks, hopefully still upright, on its Southern road trip, not crashed but puttering along on an insterstate laden with spring blossoms.
P.S. The subject line of this newsletter gave me an earworm; experience it yourself, and join me in X-stalgia, with this video.
A few more weeks before the old book proposal course fires up again. Check out the details here.
what? you haven’t read this book?
Once in the town where I was a newspaper reporter, a truck carrying paint spilled on the road into town. Not great for the environment, but turned an otherwise sad road into an abstract color riot.
What sorts of bad advice do writers get that make good books worse?
Congrats again.