Oh, oh. That's not good.

Got an email yesterday from my main new book supplier--Baker & Taylor--that they are getting out of the wholesale to bookstore business. This leaves Ingrams, which is the biggest wholesaler.

This is like Ford giving up the field, leaving it to General Motors. In a way, Ingrams will have a monopoly, which is always worrisome.

I've been dealing with a monopoly in comics for 25 years now. Diamond Comics is a benevolent dictatorship, if you will, but the potential for disaster is always there. All the eggs in one basket, so to speak.

It's been Diamond or nobody ever since the boom and bust of the mid-90s in comics. As it happens, they've been a positive force, helping keep the industry afloat right after the bust, and then never really taking predatory advantage of their monopoly.

But I'd always prefer to have alternatives--just in case. What happens if ownership of Diamond changes? What if they get into trouble?

Anyway, over the last fifteen years of so I've slowly but surely moved into selling new books. When I first approached the book wholesalers, the biggest Ingrams, wouldn't give me the time of day. But the second biggest, Baker & Taylor, was welcoming.

After a few years, Ingrams came to their senses and started welcoming "comic" shops. For one thing, there are a ton of graphic novels, and some of them sell very well, especially the young adult ones.

I've always been about 2/3rd B & T, and 1/3 Ingrams, even today. B & T's search engine is much easier for me to navigate, and they give me 4% better discount. They are two days shipping versus the one day shipping from Ingrams, but that didn't seem much of hurdle.

Even more importantly, neither distributor has all the books I want. I figure I can usually get about 70% of the books I want from B & T, and if they are out of stock, I can pick up 80% of what's left from Ingrams, so that overall, I get like 90% of the books I want.

Now I'll probably have to settle for about 80% of what I want. The hit on the discount isn't great either. But mostly, I'm just worried about the power a monopoly gives to Ingrams.

I can order direct from publishers, but all of them have minimums and shipping, and it complicates ordering quite a bit. I'd much rather deal with one or two companies.

Anyway, I guess it shows how competitive the business is, probably due to Amazon. If Ingrams falls, that might mean the end of most indie bookstores, just as if Diamond falls, that would almost certainly be the end of most comics stores.

There will always be survivors, people who are willing to take an extra measure. But damn, as if it wasn't already hard enough.