One Week -- Two Distributors Close, One Opens

In just the past week, two distributors, Koen Book Distributors and Alamo Square Distributors, have announced their decisions to end operations. And earlier this week, Alamo's founder announced he would be opening ASP Wholesale, a division of Alamo Square Press.

Last week, just a month after it filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Bob Koen of Koen Book Distributors sent an e-mail to clients informing them of his decision to close his business. "We couldn't fight it any longer," Koen noted. "The books didn't come in fast enough for us to get sales to a profitable level for the bankruptcy court to keep us going."

In the e-mail, Koen explained that he was "told by the unsecured creditors committee lawyer that some of the publishers might not sell to us (even COD) going forward or take back returns. Both of these are death blows." According to Shelf Awareness, "all but 20 employees were let go, leaving a skeleton crew to handle liquidation" and the article noted that this will most likely consist of heavily discounted sales to existing customers.

"The support we received from the bookselling community was overwhelming in good times and bad," Koen wrote and added that he would "still be here (hopefully) through the end of September."

Also last week, Alamo Square Distributors (ASDI), a book distributor that specialized in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and sexual alternative market announced via e-mail to its customers that, "after several attempts to change our business model to meet the changes of our industry, nothing has worked. It is indeed with a very heavy heart that we make this announcement." The company noted that, during the month of August, it will work to close down its warehouse and finalize its accounting.

The e-mail also noted, "Any and all pending orders and or back orders have been canceled as of today" and "no further returns will be accepted without permission." ASDI is asking that customers pay all outstanding invoices before August 31, 2005.

Soon after the news of ASDI's closing, Bert Herrmann, the founder of ASDI and publisher of Alamo Square Press, announced in an August 16 e-mail, that he would be opening ASP Wholesale (a division of Alamo Square Press) and expected to be ready for business on September 15. Herrman had sold ASDI four years ago to buy a retirement home in New Mexico.

In his e-mail, Herrmann wrote, "These are hard times for wholesalers and also particularly hard times for smaller gay/lesbian/sexual alternative presses. Many who could withstand the shock of losing money with the loss of Koen and ASDI still have to deal with not having a wholesaler."

Herrman continued, "I have devoted much of my life to this industry and I have decided to step back to the plate and try one more time to keep our small presses alive.... Part of the problem is that wholesalers have been married to an old paradigm and could not convert to meet the weakening condition of the book market." -- David Grogan