Released April 2021
The Family Business
The history of the Ingram Content Group is one of the most important and remarkable business stories that almost no one knows. Launched as a favor to a family friend, it started as a local textbook distributor―one tiny division within a thriving corporation focused on oil, construction supplies, and shipping. It grew into the world’s largest book wholesaler, then into the most influential and innovative supplier of infrastructure and services to publishers around the world.
The Family Business was the first book to recount the story of this strategic powerhouse that everyone in the publishing industry does business with, and that practically everyone admires―but that few people really understand. A must-read for people in the book business and the world of media, and anyone else who wants to understand how this vastly influential industry really works, this book fascinates with the story of the ways today’s electronic information technologies are transforming the world.
“My longstanding respect and appreciation for Ingram's enormous contributions to book publishing have always been matched by curiosity over how this privately-held company came to be so essential to our business for so long. As only an insider can do so authoritatively, Keel Hunt has entertainingly relayed so much I never would have known about the story of the Ingram family and organization and their indelible impact on the book economy and our culture.”
- Madeline McIntosh, CEO, Penguin Random House US
FROM THE FOREWORD BY TIM O’REILLY
“Another lesson we learned from Ingram is the need for constant reinvention. When we first began working with them, distribution of books, software, and music was all a matter of moving physical goods; today, the bulk of distribution is digital. Yet Ingram somehow thrived through the transition and has helped its partners also thrive. Reading this history, I learned how the companies process of constant reinvention began long before the current era. This is a story right in both inspiration and practical lessons for any business that intends to stick around for the long haul.”
“The Family Business, by Keel Hunt, tells the story of another company, Ingram, which not coincidentally, played an indispensable role in enabling Amazon's initial success as the world's largest online bookstore.”
–Tim O’Reilly, CEP & Founder, O’Reilly Media
“Meticulously documented. It is a great story, a great education in the book business, and a book everyone in the business of books should own.”
–Porchlight Books
“Hunt, an advisor to the Ingram family since 1995, gives an inside look at the Ingram Content Group, one of the publishing industry's key players, in this comprehensive account . . . Anyone interested in learning about the modern history of book publishing would do well to check this out.”
–Publishers Weekly
"The Family Business is a somewhat timeless story of the twists and turns in one business' life, and the lessons that can be learned from it."
–Clear Purpose
"There's one company responsible for bringing just about every book you've ever read into your life, and you may not even know it exists. In The Family Business, author and journalist Keel Hunt charts the history and contributions of Ingram Content Group, a little-known, family-owned business based in Tennessee that has shaped the publishing world for 50 years."
–BookPage