A-Infos (en) France, UCL Press Release: Makassar's Bankruptcy: When a Distributor's Fall Threatens Independent Publishing (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Founded in 1995, Makassar primarily distributes graphic novels, 
children's books, and specialized books (particularly in the social 
sciences) from the independent publishing sector. The distributor's 
difficulties stem from a cyberattack in 2024, as well as market 
developments. Several of its largest clients have undergone receivership 
or liquidation in recent years, leaving Makassar with significant unpaid 
invoices that have severely impacted its cash flow and cost it other 
clients dissatisfied with the service.

For many years, the books of our publishing house, Alternative 
Libertaire, self-managed by UCL members, have been distributed in 
bookstores thanks to Makassar's work. Often overlooked in the publishing 
world, distributors have become essential for ensuring our books are 
easily accessible in bookstores, both independent and otherwise. 
Responsible for inventory management, they are also behind a large 
portion of the financial flows and act as intermediaries between 
publishing houses and bookstores. When a book is purchased from a 
bookstore, the purchase price includes several components: the 
bookstore's share, the distribution and/or sales costs, the publisher's 
share, the manufacturing costs, and the authors' share. The money thus 
flows up the chain, and it is the distributor who then pays the 
publishing houses their share. Makassar's bankruptcy is blocking 
essential funds for publishing houses, which have already incurred 
related expenses.

Makassar has been experiencing serious financial difficulties for 
several years and is now threatened with bankruptcy, potentially 
dragging down a whole segment of independent publishing with it. Nearly 
200 of us currently work with Makassar. The bankrupt distributor means 
that all the publishers' annual sales revenue will never reach its 
intended recipients. But the consequences are also far less visible: 
lost sales of books already in bookstores, the inability to obtain 
summer sales figures, return costs for print runs that generated no 
revenue, and unrecoverable stock for some publishers. It's a blow from 
which many may not recover.

While the decline in book sales undeniably plays a role in the 
situation, the pressure from the far right and the concentration of the 
publishing world under Vincent Bolloré must also be denounced: 
censorship, the acquisition of publishing groups to control what is 
written, and also the overproduction of books by these large groups, 
which directly puts smaller distributors in difficulty. More books 
produced despite the overall drop in sales means more stock and more 
returns for these smaller distributors to manage. Add to this the recent 
bankruptcies of numerous independent bookstores swallowed up by an 
increasingly capitalist market management: higher costs and lower 
revenues create a losing combination for distributors like Makassar, 
which has long championed access for small publishers to the mainstream 
market. Today, however, independent publishers are mutually dependent: 
if one collapses, the others lack the resources to compensate for the 
resulting financial losses, and this is the current reality for many 
publishing houses distributed by Makassar. We know all too well that, 
ultimately, the consequences will be artists and authors whose voices 
and resources are being taken away.

Culture cannot be silenced by the far right. It controls an increasingly 
significant portion of cultural production and promotes a capitalist and 
competitive logic that threatens editorial pluralism. We know this: 
publishing houses will disappear if this latest blow materializes. And 
which distributor will now accept the future of politically engaged and 
economically uncertain publishing houses? What additional cost will 
independence now entail?

We call for support for Makassar so that the publishing houses that 
depend on it can survive and continue to spread their vision of a 
culture that is inclusive and accessible. Beyond our distributor, we 
also call for direct support for independent publishing houses and 
bookstores, without which our dissenting voices are also threatened.

Recent days have seen a surge of initiatives on social media. We urge 
all those who share our political ideals to concretely support these 
efforts to prevent the collapse of the structures supported by our 
colleagues and comrades: crowdfunding campaigns to try and cover 
deficits, direct orders for publishers with independent stock, 
withholding returns for booksellers, solidarity among publishers, and so 
on. Supporting these publishers also means learning about their catalogs 
from our independent booksellers, talking about what's being created 
outside the major publishing groups that flood the market, and raising 
awareness of the content our publishing houses are trying to keep 
visible despite financial and political constraints. Supporting the book 
industry also means doing our part to free it from capitalist 
constraints: no longer waiting for your book order to arrive in less 
than 48 hours, choosing independence over the convenience of large 
bookstores and international sales platforms, rethinking a system of 
outright purchase as opposed to consignment sales, which aim to 
constantly renew bookstores' offerings at the expense of long-term 
sales, and also defending self-management in the dissemination of our 
knowledge to preserve its diversity. Let's not allow our ideas or our 
jobs to disappear.

Against the hegemony of the sector, long live publishing and a free press!

Libertarian Communist Union, July 20, 2026.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Faillite-de-Makassar-lorsque-la-chute-d-un-distributeur-menace-l-edition
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