So here we are at the end of January. No one could have predicted this time last year that such a seismic change would be about to hit the UK Christian book trade. The changes to date are beginning to feel like a long running saga with multiple episodes!
Biblica USA started the merry-go-round when they put IBS-STL UK into administration due to well-publicised financial difficulties. The sale of this business at Christmas introduced a number of new (and potentially powerful) players into the marketplace; STL Distribution now owned by John Ritchie Ltd, Authentic Publishing (including Paternoster Press) moving to Koorong of Australia and Authentic Music subsumed into Kingsway Communications. The jury is out on what a Koorong owned publishing house will look like but it’s an interesting move; one worth watching closely.
The 40-strong Wesley Owen Bookshop chain has effectively been emasculated and broken up. Koorong have possibly taken the strongest of the shops and will bring their own ethos quickly to bear, not only on the shops but also for the first time on the UK as a whole. My view is that this could turn out to be the biggest impact on the trade of this whole sorry tale. CLC have increased their own portfolio of shops and at the same time introduced a potentially divisive two-tier remuneration policy into their group. This change of direction could turn out to be as difficult to manage as the incorporating of the shops into their existing roster.
However, the biggest unknown is just how the Nationwide Christian Trust will fare in taking on up to 19 of the 26 shops still left out in the cold. I wish them well and am all for ensuring that as many Christian shops stay visible (and viable) on the High Street as possible but it’s a ‘big ask’ for them. I truly hope that the groundswell of goodwill being generated in the trade at present towards them will translate quickly into success on the ground. A couple (or perhaps) more of the remaining shops will move into local ownership and some could close for good. I guess that the outcome is far better than we could have imagined and at the very least we are not witnessing the complete demise of the chain as we did in the case of SPCK Retail.
The announcements and changes keep on coming. Today the latest being that Kingsway Communications are taking their own distribution back to Eastbourne from Carlisle; not that unexpected in the circumstances. I’m not sure that too many publishers will want to put themselves back into a situation where they are so dependent on a third party in the same way ever again – but we’ll see. I suspect that the new Ritchie owned STL Distribution will ‘stick to the knitting’ and do what STL always did best – the wholesaling of the widest range of product as possible as fast as possible to as many accounts as possible.
The trade is now far more fractured than it’s been for many years. It will be fascinating to see how this all pans out and where the various players will be in a year’s time. More seismic shifts anyone?
Eddie Olliffe, currently Charity Manager at CWR, was previously Managing Director of Wesley Owen and STL Distribution.
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A report from Anna Moyle
