Distributor for small press slashes staff

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 15, 1997 by Tony Case

Looking to streamline its operation and attract investors, Austin, Texas-based Fine Print Distributors, which has contracts with about 2,000 publishers, has laid off 12 of its 34 employees.

"Our place in the industry has changed, and we needed to be leaner and more competitive," says general manager Kristin Alkire. Marketing manager Laura Renshaw adds that Fine Print is exploring buyout offers from a number of companies, which she declines to identify.

The decision is only the latest in a round of cutbacks at Fine Print, a national operation that specializes in the small press. Alkire recalls that when she joined the company in 1994, it had a staff of 54 and retained a slew of temps on top of that. "We realized we were horrendously overstaffed," she says.

Fine Print handles mostly alternative titles such as Curve, Might and Provocateur, but the company also contracts with a handful of larger players, including Rolling Stone. The distributor deals with leading bookstore chains--Barnes & Noble, Borders--and specialty stores. Fine Print used to handle other major consumer titles (Us, Spy and Ms. among them), but company executives thought a more targeted approach made more sense. "That's not really a realm we wanted to compete in," says Alkire. "Somebody else can do that better."