I work for a small title, and we use one of the biggest fulfillment service bureaus (FSB) in the U.S. We could never fulfill in-house. Our business would come to a grinding halt. The sheer quantity of services that the FSB provides is staggering.

Fulfillment has solidly managed to do what it does well, but it has been slow to adapt to digital, relational, and customer needs. Back in the good old days when a publisher had subscribers’ names and addresses, and all it needed was to mail renewals and bills and keep track of expiration dates, one database was sufficient.

Proliferating APIs

But like all things, publishing grew. The problem is this: Many FSBs spent so many years designing a system made for the primary focus that they can’t go back and amend the system. The systems they built are big and outmatched by newer, sleeker technology. There exist marketing databases and customer service databases and list rental databases, all of which talk to each other through APIs and add-ons, and all which cost stupid amounts of money—stupid amounts of money for information that we pay the FSB to house the first place.

Best Practice Sharing Is Key

And FSBs remain reticent about sharing what other publishers are doing. I’m not talking about giving away company secrets; I mean sharing practical experiences with connecting to an FSB’s system. How are other publishers handling bogus agents? Who is so-and-so talking to at Amazon to get their needs met? How seamless was that publisher’s integration with Apple’s software? Which API has worked the best with the FSB’s systems? 

Fulfillment houses should be the conduits for these conversations. Instead they create a runaround effect. They need to find out how another publisher is doing something, then they approach that publisher and ask to share what they’ve found, then report back to me. This process could take two or three weeks, and the results are usually a basic statement that Publisher X isn’t comfortable with sharing information, which makes me reluctant to share when I’m approached. It’s a frustrating cycle.

There are some houses that “get” it. That is, they’re newer, with better technology, and have built relational databases that are ready to rock. Remember ARGI? They got it. But what they understood in technology, they missed in basic fulfillment: Most of their fulfillment services were farmed out to other vendors. As a result, they cost a fortune.

Size Shouldn’t Matter

Big FSBs have fulfillment down, what they need is better technology. Unfortunately, there’s a catch-22: Bigger publishers are less likely to sign with a smaller fulfillment house because they don’t have other bigger clients, and smaller fulfillment houses have a difficult time attracting big clients because they don’t have any. So, the onus really lies with the publishers to trust a smaller FSB. 

So publishers have struggled to become more active, and FSBs have become reactive. It’s a classic defense move. I’ve worked with a number of people at fulfillment houses who have told me: “I don’t know how to do that.” “No one has ever asked for that before.” “I’ve never encountered that problem.” That’s it, end of discussion. They ask their buddy in the next cube if anyone has ever synced a subscriber and nonprofit database, for instance, and the answer is a tentative “maybe we could build an API, but it’s gonna cost you.” Again with the API!

The big FSBs need to change fast if they want to stay viable, because the first time a big publisher moves from a large FSB to a small one, an exodus will follow. If the big guys don’t move quickly, those little guys are going to outpace them triple time. 

Katelyn Belyus is the audience development and digital marketing manager for The Nation Magazine.