My former employer, major independent book distributor PGW, is in dire straits. Its parent company, Advanced Marketing Services, has filed Chapter 11. Book business blogs are abuzz with the details of the debacle. One thing that's being reported is not entirely true, however, from http://news.shelf-awareness.com/nview.jsp?appid=411&j=156310#1189006 -- is this: since publishers' books are on consignment when they're at the Indy warehouse, they are *not* PGW's property -- however I'm sure it's true reclamation rights are limited due to CYA language in the contracts.

http://radiofreepgw.blogspot.com/ has some darkly sardonic content about this. I wonder who's writing it?

My mom (Kat Mulkey), who still works at PGW, gave notice last Tuesday. She'd been planning to leave for a while and the bankruptcy is no surprise to her, though she had no particular insider information. In fact last Spring she said something like, "Mark my words, in another year there will be no PGW. Or at least not as it is now." Many of her coworkers seemed to be in denial, and were shocked when it hit the fan.

I don't know how I feel about this. It seemed inevitable, but what sucks is that yeah, PGW management has been weak and ineffective for a long time, at least since Mark Ouimet left, possibly since Charlie left, but PGW was essentially a Good Company. AMS (who bought PGW in 2001, or was it early 2002?) has been unprofessional and poorly managed to an unbelievable degree this whole time, and everyone knew it. Anytime AMS tried to interfere with PGW it was debacle after clusterfuck after shitstorm.

My greatest hope is that PGW is sold out from AMS -- and once it's cleaned up a bit, can go back to doing what they used to do quite well. Though I won't have any close friends working there anymore I feel I invested a lot in the place and would like to see it resurrected out from under AMS's thumb.