A new system for a Book Wholesale and Distribution business

The Books Council of Wales is a registered charity, set up over 50 years ago to ensure that Welsh books or books of Welsh content are distributed effectively. After a period of growth, it acts as a distributor to some publishers, and as a Welsh wholesaler to other publishers. The distribution business has a net turnover of 2.7m GBP per annum and employs 15 members of staff.

The current system was introduced in 1996, and several developments over the period has meant a complex relationship with other bespoke products including ONIX feeds, EDI ordering, finance system, order to cash, title database, customer database and the e-commerce platform.

The Books Council of Wales (“Books Council”) is a national charity (number 505262) which supports the publishing industry in Wales and promotes reading for pleasure. Due to the lack of distributors in Wales, it has acted as a book distributor since the 1970’s, focussing mainly on Welsh customers. The charity’s core functions are to provide specialist editing, design, marketing, and distribution services to ensure high standards of book production and publication in both Welsh and English. Funded by the Welsh Government, it also administers and distribute grants to publishers in Wales from our headquarters in Aberystwyth. Another vital element of our work is the active promotion of reading and literacy across Wales through a range of campaigns, activities, and events.

The Books Council is not a publisher and does not publish its own titles, it is concentrated on the Distribution, Wholesale and Consignment of books for Client Publishers.

The Books Council predominantly distributes books focussing on Wales and the Welsh language. Roughly 50% of the titles distributed are written in Welsh and the Books Council promotes titles published both by established Welsh publishers and individual authors. Most of the Welsh language publishers are in an exclusive distribution arrangement with the Books Council, whereas English language publishers will have another main distributor, but will use the Books Council to distribute in Wales. Titles cover multiple subject areas, both fiction and non-fiction, children’s books, academic and professional publishing. Books Council also distributes a limited range of non-book items, e.g. toys, especially where complimentary to a book, or meets the requirement of the customers (schools primarily).

The Books Council’s primary market is the Welsh book trade, libraries, schools and colleges in Wales and sales to the public. It does sell books to the wider UK markets, with some export sales, and acts to some extent as a wholesale operation buying titles from other UK publishers for resale – for example travel guides to Wales, sports titles about Welsh teams and individuals, etc. The Books Council also supplies books on consignment to some customers. It also has the ability, as it does for several clients to provide ‘White Label’ distribution services.

The Books Council wishes to engage a winning bidder with the capability to deliver a book distribution (wholesale and distribution) system and professional and technical consultancy support to replace several its existing IT Systems between 2020 and 2022. It plans to replace both its existing system and websites. This Invitation to Tender is only focused upon the system replacement, but proposals should include the system’s ability to interface with other systems, including selling websites.

It is expected that companies choosing to tender will be specialists in the book trade with their systems designed around this. They should be able to provide current and recent examples of successful implementations with other companies in the book trade, and the Book Distribution Industry.