ABSTRACT
The 500 or more independent wholesalers (IDs) in the US and Canada have a variety of shapes and sizes, depending in large measure on the shapes and sizes of the markets they serve. In the way they handle the distribution of books, they range from indifferent to excellent. That range may reflect the quality of the markets the ID services, or the nature of the ID's service may affect the quality of its markets. Certainly, a territory with a number of colleges and universities, good public school systems, a substantial increment of white-collar industry and an above-average per capita income offers an ID more attractive demographics than a territory that is educationally impoverished and dominated by heavy industry and/or agriculture. Books may be delivered by IDs to stores either prepackaged, along with prepackaged magazine assortments, or separately from magazines in bookmobiles: trucks carrying only books, several thousand dollars worth per truck each day.
