Little was working in Tony DiCostanzo’s favor when he decided to go into bulk book distribution.
It was 2008, the recession was kicking, and consumers had all but stopped spending. Borders Group Inc. was on its way to bankruptcy.
“I had friends who’d say, ‘You’re crazy,’ and, ‘How [are you] doing this when everyone else seems to be declining?’ ” he said. “I saw an exciting niche that people weren’t servicing—an opportunity.”
BookPal LLC in Irvine beat the odds by streamlining the process of purchasing books in bulk. DiCostanzo brought the old, somewhat-complicated process online and made it transparent. BookPal is an e-commerce website with tiered pricing clearly posted for everyone to see—and comparison shop.
“The big differentiator between people that have tried to do this before us and my approach to the business is that everything is laid out right there,” he said. “I made their life easier, and ultimately that’s what they want. I’m a straight-shooter. They could see that Goldman Sachs working with us wouldn’t have a different pricing than a small company in Iowa—and they can compare us to Amazon to see we are offering competitive pricing.”
BookPal saw $5.1 million in revenue for the 12 months ended June 30. That’s a 50.1% increase from two years earlier, placing it in the No. 121 spot on the Business Journal’s list of fastest-growing private companies based in Orange County (see list, starting on page 50).
It’s the third year in a row on the list for BookPal, which started its streak in 2011 with a spike that came on what DiCostanzo called a “lucky break” in the form of a $2 million military contract. The company was commissioned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide “pallets of engineering books” for six universities in Afghanistan.
“It was an effort to educate their own population so that they can rebuild their country,” he said.
The deal provided DiCostanzo with the resources to make a crucial investment in his business.
Hurdles
BookPal was reaching out to publishers to carry their books but faced data management hurdles to showcase its entire lineup of titles. The revenue from the contract to supply the Afghan colleges allowed DiCostanzo to purchase a license for a database from New Providence, N.J.-based R.R. Bowker LLC. The database contains bibliographic information for book titles published worldwide, giving visitors to BookPal a ready way to browse its offerings.
The investment helped the company more than offset the revenue lost after the military contract expired.
Last month it moved into a 4,000-square-foot space at 18101 Von Karman Ave., where 10 employees handle orders of printed books for more than 2,000 customers.
BookPal’s virtual shelves are stacked with more than 1 million popular titles, and the company is looking to add to that list with its new e-commerce platform.
That’s a small fraction of what Amazon.com handles, but plenty for a company that’s focused primarily on bulk sales to businesses, DiCostanzo said.
“We have a pretty significant number of Fortune 500 clients, and now it’s really a matter of getting our name out there,” he said. “Boeing found us last year.”
DiCostanzo recently hired Wpromote Inc., a digital advertising firm based in El Segundo, to help propel an email marketing program as well as BookPal’s newest endeavor¬—e-books.
The bulk book distribution market was somewhat sheltered from the recent gains made by digital tablets, DiCostanzo said.
For corporations “sometimes it’s easier to buy a book and give it out,” instead of trying to figure out who has an iPad or Kindle and who has neither device.
That’s changing, though, and more customers now ask for e-books.
BookPal’s e-books program, which is expected to launch before the end of the year, will feature alphanumeric redemption codes for books that clients can then distribute and download on any device.
E-books are easily replicable and can be available to customers immediately. A printed book can take as much as 16 weeks to reach a customer, depending on where it’s produced, a lag that can sometimes make the difference between getting an order or not.
DiCostanzo said he sees BookPal growing “significantly larger” in the next five years with the e-book component, which is poised to give BookPal “tremendous additional exposure.”
