I work for a book retailer on a college campus. We place many of our special orders through the book distributor Ingram Books. I placed two preorders for Pathfinder the RPG to fulfill some customers' requests well before the Paizo recommended deadline in July to place preorders with vendors/distributors. At that time, Ingram had on order 400 copies of the book.
August 13 came and went, and I called the vendor. They never received a single copy of their preorders. They're being told that it won't be until at least mid September before they do (and, since I've been hearing here that the reprint won't be out until November, I know that that estimate is flawed, too).
I'd just like to know why Ingram didn't get their order in the initial send off. It's definitely hurt my customers and my sales, and I'd just like to understand exactly what happened. Because they should have definitely gotten their order in before the deadline. Can I get any insight from someone at Paizo? Just to sate my curiosity?
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Well, I cannot say for sure, but based upon the information you provided it SOUNDS like Ingram probably messed up their preorder, didn't actually PLACE the order or whatever, and is giving out random info that shifts the blame to delay things until they can get the books and put it behind them.
That just sounds like the common corporation way of doing things. "Not our fault we didn't make the order in time. Here's some bogus info to shift the blame. This should send you off on a wild goose chase and buy us some time. Thank you, and good-bye."
Now, not saying 100% that is what happened, but take whatever they said with a HUGE grain of salt.
Because they should have definitely gotten their order in before the deadline. Does not mean they actually DID get their preorder in on time.
I'm inclined to believe that a company who was showing 400 copies on order well before I placed my order isn't just making things up and claiming that they ordered them when they didn't. I work with Ingram all the time to order items for special events and orders, and I have access to their website and their very systematic on-hand and on-order status details. If they show having something on order, they likely have something on order. It's not like it's some guy in a garage claiming he'll get an order out - this is a major book distribution channel with four main distribution warehouses around the US that provides books to stores nationwide.
So I'd just like to know why they didn't get their order, and won't be until the second printing.
Chief Technical Officer
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Our book trade distribution is handled by Diamond Book Distributors. Ingram buys from them, as do Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and a bunch of other chains and mom-and-pop bookshops.
We shipped every copy that Diamond ordered from us before our order deadline. And that was a lot of copies. However, some of the big guys did *not* get their orders in to Diamond on time, and some of the ones that *did* get in on time placed reorders after Diamond's initial order but before the release date.
The upshot of this is that Diamond got exactly as many books as they initially ordered, but that turned out to be a lot less than they actually wanted, and they alone get to decide which of their customers will get books from the first batch and which will wait until the reprint arrives.
Fair enough. Diamond does seem to have issues with supply and demand, at least in my experience recently. The Watchmen action figure debacle my company went through was largely because they had inventory shortages that they shouldn't have, so it doesn't surprise me quite as much. Thanks very much for the response, Mr. Wertz. Now at least I can explain it to my customers better.
I was going to post this exact question, since we pre-ordered from Ingram too (though I obtained my personal copy directly from Paizo). I'm guessing we're going to have to tell the customers who pre-ordered from us that we're not getting them their copies any time soon. :(
I know that this isn't Paizo's fault, and I appreciate that you've posted an explanation.
We got our order from Ingram yesterday.
Today we are sold out. :D