Holtzbrinck to Offer Free Freight

On January 10, Holtzbrinck Publishers trade book companies announced that beginning in November 2005 all trade book shipments from its Gordonsville, Virginia, VHPS warehouse will be shipped free freight. "Our customers have been asking for this, and our volume has reached a point where it is now possible to make this change," said Alison Lazarus, president, sales division, for Holtzbrinck. "We believe it will help us remain competitive and allow us to have more consistent marketplace distribution for our titles."

The publishers that will be freight prepaid starting in November 2005 are Audio Renaissance, FSG, Henry Holt, Palgrave Macmillan, Picador, Priddy, Roaring Brook, St. Martin's, and Tor. In addition, all distribution lines of these publishers, including Bloomsbury, College Board, Consumer Reports, Drawn & Quarterly, Enchanted Lion, Graywolf Press, R&S Books, Rodale, Wizards of the Coast, and World Almanac, will be free freight.

The Holtzbrinck companies' mass market titles have already been shipping free freight from Dresden, Tennessee. The Holtzbrinck college text book companies will not be affected by this change and will continue to ship F.O.B to their customers as will all scholarly and reference titles from Palgrave Macmillan.

Lazarus told BTW that Holtzbrinck had considered going to free freight "periodically," and the company was now ready to make the transition. "In terms of the marketplace ... all major publishers ship free freight," she explained. "We were looking at where our competition was and … our own capability to do it in a way that's cost-effective."

In a press statement, Peter Garabedian, COO of Holtzbrinck Publishers, said, "There are many systems and operational changes we need to make to enable us to transition smoothly to a free freight system.... I am confident we will be ready in November and we will be putting our resources behind this to make sure it will be a smooth transition." --David Grogan