This isn’t another Best of Bridge story, but it has potential to give off similar sparks.

And when word hits the street, the four godmothers of Calgary’s Ink Tree Ltd. will be ready.

Publicity is their business, and Ink Tree’s principals are past masters at creating – and maintaining – a buzz.

During previous lives as authors, two of the four, Denise Hamilton (Fit to Cook) and Linda Matthie-Jacobs (The Fire’n’Ice Cookbook, The Hot Sauce Bottle Cookbook), talked up their respective volumes with Mike Bullard, the bullet-headed late-night maestro, and Vicki Gabereau, Canadian TV’s daytime doyenne.

Shannon Oatway, Business Edge
From left, Joni Hamilton, Denise Hamilton, Linda Matthie-Jacobs and Debbie Black are turning a new leaf with Ink Tree Ltd.

They chinwagged with Valerie Pringle on Canada AM. They’ve been interviewed by print journalists from Prince George to Toronto. They’ve been featured in innumerable magazines.

For the moment, however, Hamilton and Matthie-Jacobs have shunted authorship to a rear burner.

Because Ink Tree Ltd. isn’t about writing books; it’s about selling them. And that’s the hard part. Ask anyone who’s tried.

Along with Debbie Black and Joni Hamilton, who complete the quad, Denise Hamilton and Matthie-Jacobs have attracted a sizable stable of clients, independent publishers from across North America.

Some of their authors write like angels. Others create artwork and page designs to put A. J. Casson to shame. All have shelled out serious money to print worthwhile, beautifully produced, mostly non-fiction books.

But they couldn’t sell a flat of empty Coors cans to a recycling depot.

Ink Tree Ltd. helps by offering three tiers of service. It includes traditional consultation (advice on improving content, graphic design, presentation, format, colours etc.), as well as media drum-beating. But what sets this group apart is its target market sales division, a truly creative wrinkle.

The company sets out to find a niche buyer – preferably corporate – and “marry” that buyer to a client’s book, most often for promotional reasons.

This represents a departure from the norm, which means placing the product with Indigo, hoping browsers will stumble across it, then waiting for the inevitable returns.

A light came on for the partners when a U.S.-based marketing group flogged 188,000 copies of Denise Hamilton’s Fit to Cook cookbook to Pfizer Inc., the U.S. pharmaceutical giant.

The book’s fitness-nutrition theme appealed to Pfizer as a promotional tool, to help doctors and dietitians educate their patients.

“They reprinted them in a smaller version, with the Pfizer information on (the cover),” Denise recapped.

Pfizer then shipped them to doctors’ offices throughout the U.S. The physicians recommended the freebie editions to their Type 2 diabetic patients.

For the uninitiated, a sale of 5,000 qualifies a book for Canadian best-seller status. To move 188,000 copies at a whack is to leap into Anne Rice country.

Ink Tree’s target marketing strategy is unique in Canada. Ideally, it translates to high-volume sales, and no returns – benefits traditional distribution and sales channels can’t match.

There are reasons why even the best independent publishers find it tough to make a profit.

To illustrate, Matthie-Jacobs explained her relationship with the U.S. distributor that handles her cookbooks.

“At my cost, I have to ship my books to their warehouse in Memphis, Tenn. They take a 68-per-cent cut,” she said.

“Of the remaining 32 per cent, I have to pay for my book, cover shipping costs, secure any kind of profit margin I can manage, and the return rates have been as high as 50 per cent.”

Retail bookstores take lesser-known authors on consignment, and keep a significant percentage of sales, with payment turnaround of 120 to 180 days. “And if the books aren’t selling, they turn them out of their inventory, and back to you,” added Matthie-Jacobs. There they sit, stacked high in the garage.

Ink Tree is poised to close a major deal with Regal Catalogues, which proposes to purchase titles in volume from two client publishers.

By the way, these are NOT vanity press items – no long-winded memoirs by dorky dullards, no abysmal verse, no whackoid religious tracts.

Client titles with which the women are working include a kid-friendly hockey book entitled: Dear Don Cherry, Does Hockey Love Kids (it includes Cherry’s reply); a splendidly presented guide to container gardening; Calgary writer Monte Stewart’s Carry On, a biography of centenarian Tom Spear which sold well locally; and an Aspen, Colo., scribe’s exquisite children’s gem, The Adventures of Fraser, the Yellow Dog.

It’s not that the godmothers of Ink Tree Ltd. don’t respect tradition. But they’re finding it far more rewarding to create one of their own.