Eight Independent Publishers Form Cooperative to Share Resources, Cut Costs

A group of independent publishers has formally incorporated as the Publishers Cooperative, a new organization aimed at leveraging collective buying power and sharing resources. The cooperative, which received its articles of incorporation this year, is currently seeking seven additional mid-sized publishers to join its eight founding members: AdventureKEEN, C&T Publishing, Gibbs-Smith, Mango Publishing, Mixed Media Resources, Mountaineers Books, Schiffer Publishing, and Ulysses Press. Membership will require publishers to meet certain scale requirements, to maintain the group’s collective buying power.

Amy Barrett-Daffin, publisher at C&T Publishing, said that the organization began informally in 2021, when several publishers started meeting monthly to discuss industry challenges. The founding members—Brad Farmer of Gibbs-Smith, Pete Schiffer of Schiffer Publishing, Tom Helleberg of Mountaineers Books, and Barrett-Daffin—“would try to meet monthly, and we were just sort of talking through what’s working, what’s not working,” she said, adding that the organization’s mission is “to increase profitability, to raise all boats for the co-op.”
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