Something wholesale

I suspect that few – if any – of you have heard of Bertram Books. You could be forgiven for thinking that they are a lesser-known series of P.G. Wodehouse novels, but in fact Bertram Books is a book wholesaler, a large yet overlooked part of the book industry.

It strikes me as peculiar that there is this invisible middle man between publisher and bookseller, known about by everyone in the industry, but by nobody outside. No one buying a book from a bookshop would have a clue that Bertram’s has been instrumental in getting it there. Most customers assume that books come to a shop directly from the publishers rather than via this third party. It is a gap in people’s understanding which makes me wonder how many other unsung heroes of industries there are, how many other invisible middle men exist to ease the way we buy and do all sorts of things.