Distribution and Discoverability

INDEPENDENCE comes at a price. While supply-chain optimization, technological innovation, and shifts in reading and buying habits have lowered operating costs for many in the book business, publishers included, the price of independence is still mostly paid in the form of costs related to diffusion, such as fees paid to third-party sales and distribution companies, without whom it would be logistically impossible for indie presses—at least those like Europa Editions—to deliver books to our retail partners and, through them, to readers.

Despite dramatic changes in the industry, absorbing the costs of diffusion is a vexing problem for publishers today, much as it always has been.

It remains to be seen whether blockchain technology and distributed ledger systems will ultimately have the kind of impact on how