With a background in digital content and a law degree, Prichard now finds himself, after 2½ years at Ingram, presiding over a restructured company with an international sales reach.
His challenge is to guide Ingram Content Group — actually a dozen or so corporate entities that dabble in everything from making and delivering physical books to helping publishers reinvent the world as e-readers and other new technology spread in the book trade.
Prichard discussed his love of books, staying a step ahead of changes in the digital world and possible expansion with Tennessean Business Editor Randy McClain.
RelatedWhat is Ingram?Describe how your career has developed in the information industry.
I'm a lawyer by training. I started at a company called LexisNexis, which really transformed legal publishing from a physical process to a digital process in the late 1960s and early '70s. They were one of the pioneers in terms of the digital space.
Then, I led a company called ProQuest, which was in the educational and library space. We worked (with) libraries and a variety of educational products. We digitized all the historical newspapers of some of the biggest papers in the country — for example, The New York Times , Atlanta Journal-Constitution , et cetera.
My whole career has been about these sorts of transformations. I love change and complexity, where there is no easy answer. The real idea, though, is to transform the book so it becomes an experience, a social community; you add in audio or video. Those things really are just in their infancy.
How is Ingram being transformed as digital book sales, e-readers and other publishing changes occur?
Ingram, going back a few years, was known as the largest trade (book) wholesaler in the U.S. Reviewing that strategy, though, led us to move toward transforming the company. One of our first steps to do that — one of our earliest investments — was to create Lightning Source, our print on-demand manufacturer based in La Vergne. It started about 12 years ago, and prints books — hard cover, soft cover, photo books — as they are ordered. The average print run is 1.8 books per order.
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