An era is ending at Consortium Book Sales & Distribution in Minneapolis with president Julie Schaper announcing plans to retire in June 2026.
Schaper has worked for more than 30 years at Consortium. She began her career there as a sales director in 1994, at which point the company, launched nine years earlier, was still an independent distribution company that represented just 27 publishers and was owned by Bill Brinton. Today, Consortium represents close to 170 companies and is known for its portfolio of literary presses and publishers of poetry.
Schaper was named president of sales and marketing in 2001, following the retirement of then president and CEO Randall Beek. The company was acquired a month later by investment banker-turned-catfish-farmer Don Linn, and Schaper was promoted to president soon after. Linn sold Consortium in 2006 to Perseus Book Group, and the company was later acquired by Ingram Content Group in 2016 when Ingram acquired Perseus’s distribution arm. (Hachette acquired the publishing side of the business.)
Schaper told PW last week that Ingram hopes to hire her replacement by January, and that she will work with that person through June “to make sure that everything goes as smoothly as possible.” She’s already reaching out to people she knows whom she considers a good fit for the position which, she says, “requires a true leader” to guide the Minneapolis-based 17-person team, including sales and marketing personnel, as well as operations and back-office staff.
After her retirement, Schaper says, she intends to “turn off my brain, to separate myself from my work,” and travel with her spouse, Steve Horwitz, a retired publisher’s rep who worked for Abraham Associates.
"Consortium is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and Julie has been the heart and soul of it for over 30 years," Meredith Greenhouse, Ingram Content Group vp and general manager, told PW. “Through countless shifts in the publishing landscape, Julie has led her publishers with vision and integrity, growing the business while staying true to its indie spirit and roots. We’re proud of Julie as she steps into retirement and deeply grateful for the generous runway she’s given us to find her successor. That next leader will carry forward her remarkable legacy, championing Consortium’s mission and leading our extraordinary independent publishers into the future.”
Prior to her long tenure at Consortium, Schaper worked in sales at New York houses, including HarperCollins and Penguin Putnam, and as a bookseller at the now-defunct Pages & Pages Bookstore in Louisville, Ky. In 2022, Schaper contributed an essay to PW's 150th anniversary issue about the changes she's seen in the industry over the decades she worked in sales and distribution.
This story has been updated with further information.
