The Perilous Journey of Books: From the High Seas to Porch Pirates

Getting books is a rough road

Greetings book lovers. I know you are probably enjoying some books this week but are you marveling at the miracle it is that you have a book in your hands? Let’s get specific. Paperbacks and basic hardbacks aren’t an overall logistical nightmare (more on that below) but cookbooks, artbooks, anything Specialty is a Mad Max Ride!

For Specialty books, China was the #1 go to for decades. 

You probably know the major publishers have been moving away from China since 2020. From Tariffs to Humanitarian concerns or even  TikTok there are reasons galore cited for the move. 

Honestly though? China makes great books. They have all the machines that US manufacturers sold them in the 90’s that are worth a fortune to buy new. But having the machines does you no favors unless you know what you are doing. That was solved too. Chinese book makers were trained by US and Euro Publishers for 20 plus years as to what constitutes excellence for Specialty books. Besides this for much of that time period they had an overflowing, diligent workforce.

Right up there with Amazon reviews like “Book arrived damaged, 1 Star” the other one that boils my eggs is  Amazon reviews that say “Book is made in China, the Publisher is making cheap crap!!” Well, it might be cheap but more than likely, it’s an excellently made book. 

With publishers looking elsewhere to make books, we’ve entered an era of unexpected challenges for seemingly simple act of getting books from manufacturers to readers. While the shift away from China has been underway for years, the logistical hurdles involved in sourcing books from alternative locations paint a surprisingly complex picture.

At one time 90% of the work I did was with Chinese vendors but since 2020 that has changed for me and I ended up working predominantly with a US vendor. But I’ve looked at India,  Korea and even Mexico in the last few years with various results. I know Vietnam is in play too but I have no experience with vendors there. 

All of this moving around created a big obstacle for Publishers. As publishers diversify their sourcing, the new chosen locations might not have the infrastructure or trained workforce to handle the influx, leading to bottlenecks.

Good thing that was the only problem right?

Alas. 

Besides the move from China there is an added obstacle of traversing the globe. That existed even when China owned the bookmaking business but the Pacific Ocean was a pretty easy route. It gots its name from being the peaceful ocean, and sure there are exceptions but LA doesn’t have hurricane season does it?

The road, in this instance, the Ocean is a bag of crazy in itself. The Ocean from Vietnam and India is a tough route. Have you read The Wager?  It’s a different route, just across the Atlantic and under South America but The biggest threat to this ill fated boat was not Pirates or Natives on the Islands where they stopped but the brutal ocean water, the high waves, the roiling sea, and the cold.

Did you know 1,383 containers go overboard every year? I’m surprised it’s not higher. Check out this link and hold one eye open.  Moving real things around is always hard! An email won’t send and you just restart your computer. A boat won’t send and you sweat bullets made of blood!

 The Ocean won’t stop being the road any time soon so it’s sobering to read this headline from Boston Consulting that “Right now, more than 50% of global maritime trade is at threat of disruption in four key areas of the world.”

 Michael McAdoo goes on to say

  “These geopolitical risks could turn into a physical impossibility of moving goods to certain destinations. In the short term it will extend lead times on goods. In the longer term, it is likely to make firms seek shorter supply chains because of the risk and higher capital costs associated with maritime transport,” 

A friend of mine in publishing sent me this image. See those little shuttlecock shaped things? Those are boats. 

It’s a lot to look at right? 

Let’s break this down a bit and go from there.

India

If you print books in India and you get through India’s rapidly improving infrastructure and make it to port to get books from India you have to go through the Houthis to get to the Suez canal. Who are the Houthis? They are termed as a political military movement but they are disrupting the middle east ocean traffic. Here’s the website where the map comes from it’s called  Marine Traffic maybe do some breathing exercises before you look.

If you want to avoid that, you can go under Africa. How many boats are trying that?  45% less ships are going through the Suez canal, so that means they are going under Africa or or or going from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean to LA. Wowza, that’s a long road trip. Check out this Reuters article,( 45%, that’s almost ½. Thassalottaboatsbrother!! )for more on the Suez canal. 

The South Africa sea is big, it’s hard to police, and the waters are not regularly patrolled but don’t take my word for it, check out this from the Institute for Security Studies that states the threat of piracy in the modern era became real in 2010 or this article  on the return of Piracy in the new century. Arrrr it be back!

Ok, well, let’s just skip India and Vietnam for a bit. Let’s try “Nearshoring.” Ah yes, one of those cringe phrases like “bad actors.”  For the US that’s Canada and Mexico. I’ve looked at buying print from Canada before. They have some options but nowhere near the pricing of India, Korea, or China. As well, they seem limited in capabilities but that said I am by no means an expert on what’s available for print manufacturing in Canada. If you know some great ones, drop them in the comments. 

Mexico
I can’t find anything that specifically says if you buy cook books from Mexico you will pay graft to cartels but remember the Avocado press from about a year ago? In a nutshell, if you were enjoying guacamole you gave the cartel money.  Forbes said, “In Mexico, the lines between the worlds of organized crime and legal business activity are blurred and sometimes totally missing.” 

I hesitate to make any assumptions but most sources paint a troubling picture, this article from the Carnegie Endowment states that Migration, Drug Enforcement and trade between the two countries is a thick complex situation. 

Check out this comment from Vanda Felbab-Brown  “ It’s kind of notorious that if you buy an avocado in the United States from Mexico, you have paid money to a cartel. You can extend that to corn and citrus too. Water distribution to Mexican citizens is deeply penetrated by Mexican criminal groups. So very many domains of what the state should be in charge of are, at minimum, interfered with and sometimes outright controlled by vicious criminal groups. For the two countries to deeply integrate economically requires rule of law in Mexico, and we have the opposite of it.”

I encourage you to read more about it, one thing I found fascinating was Mexico lost tons of jobs to China in the early 2000’s just like the US did. 

One thing that surprised me is buying books in Mexico is about the same expense as buying in the US and once you pay the trucks and bring it across the border. In the end it’s not much savings at all. But they do have capabilities and in some cases they have the capacity, two things the US might let you down on. This was key especially in 2021-22

It’s a real shame because there are some great book makers in Mexico and Brazil.

The Carnegie article sums up the reality along with the incredible news that Mexico is now the US’s largest trading partner. It’s funny when immigration is the biggest news story on the US new’s cycle which has it’s own economic impact but the fact that Mexico surpassed China as our trade partner isn’t bigger news is baffling. 

“Earlier this year, Mexico became America’s largest trading partner, surpassing China. Bilateral trade during the first four months of 2023 represented over 15 percent of all the goods exported and imported by the United States. In addition to growing trade, Mexico is a site for American companies to invest, for global firms to move production, as part of a growing trend toward nearshoring. And Mexico’s economy minister said that some 400 companies were interested in relocating facilities from Asia to Mexico.”

 It should be a slam dunk win win but meth. Well, apparently meth be damned it’s still a win for a lot of business. 

OK, well clutch your pearls. 

Let’s say you just stick to domestic.
Safe, right? 

Even the US is fraught with freight fright. Check this out-Apparently the latest trucking fun is a manufacturer contacts a trucking company to come pick up a good. These calls get farmed out and a non legit “vendor” picks up the order and then resells it or demands a ransom for it. This article in the Wall Street Journal detailed the fun a yogurt seller experienced.

How big of a deal is this? Apparently it’s an $800 million dollar problem. 

$800 million seems like a pretty big problem. Have you been adding up all the money we’ve been talking about here? 

Ok, let’s assume your shipping does make its destination and is shipped to customers. If you’ve never watched Mark Rober’s videos on glitter bombing Porch Pirates, here’s you chance Porch Pirates are the final barrier to you getting your book. There is no shortage of front door footage of bandits taking off with people’s goods. Probably more often than not a disappointing haul. 

Capitol One has some stats here 

“According to a 2023 report by Capitol One, porch pirates caused $29.2 billion in losses in 2022, affecting 14% of Americans. In 2023, an estimated 119 million packages were stolen, resulting in $6 billion in losses. The average stolen package is worth $112.30”

Honor Among Thieves? Maybe that was an Agatha Christie novel. 

What can you do? I don’t know but I’d like to try to figure it out. Bake in an airfreight forecast? Take the longest, safest route, consolidate elsewhere? None of those are long term solutions.

Really as goods go, books aren’t that expensive. Remember this is happening to everything. Computers, microchips, and yogurt.

You lose books to porch pirates, it’s $3.75 or so but shrug it off and one day added up over time the cost for this makes its way back to you. You ship books to a store. Let's say 4 cartons of 24 books. They cost maybe $2.00 each. Now, remember you paid to ship them so you're out that cash too–but in the moment the biggest loss is the opportunity to sell the goods. Ebooks and audiobooks are safe-right…but that’s part of why a book feels so valuable, it’s a miracle you got the dang thing in your hand. 

The idea, the P&L, the manufacturing, the Ocean, the porch pirates, all of it. 

This is a funny thing about books. 

In our hearts, or at least mine, they are really valuable. Often much more valuable than their MSRP though I might balk at their MSRP if I know it’s hogwash but even then I understand I am paying for the content not the vehicle. 

Buying a book feels like buying a vacation or a friend, having something in your day that is important, meaningful, romantic, even moment? 

If this stat from Forbes is correct, US retailers are losing “ a portion of the estimated $45 billion that crime networks steal from US retailers every year, Dugan says.”

Of course that’s getting passed on to legit buyers in many ways but at some point the MSRP and the value get out of whack and no one still buys. They bat an eye as it were. Is this what what makes real physical goods feel more important? The world is constantly making it harder to make things? 

What about ebooks? Well, those pesky digital pirates cost us a lot of money too. 

Well, I leave you with this-

Suez Canal Authority via AP