Andrea Tetrick brings 25 years of experience to her role with Ingram Publisher Services. She joined Publishers Group West in 1998, and she’s been with PGW through its 2007 acquisition by Perseus Books Group and Perseus’s 2016 acquisition by Ingram. “I take pride in the relationships I’ve built with publisher clients and booksellers,” says Tetrick, who works with more than 300 independent publishers including Spiegel and Grau (“a stalwart, with a very discerning eye”) and Two Dollar Radio (“punching way above their weight”).
Tetrick’s favorite thing about being a field sales rep? “I get to talk about books all day and they pay me,” she says. She’s currently excited about Layla Mártinez’s Woodworm (Two Lines), Simon van Booy’s Sipsworth (Godine), and backlist staple Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo (Grove). She’s still proud to have invented a signature cocktail for Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 debut, The Sympathizer (Grove). The libation flowed at Skylight Books’ launch party for Nguyen, “and then the book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize,” Tetrick says.
Amanda Qassar, a bookseller at Warwick’s, sings Tetrick’s praises. “She represents a dizzying array of imprints that should thank their lucky stars to have her championing their titles,” Qassar says. “She’s always available to attend to gritty details, a tireless partner in smoothing hitches in the supply chain.”
Tetrick handles some 65 accounts from her eastern Sierra home. Her territory extends across the Southwest, from Southern California landmarks (Warwick’s, Vroman’s, the Book Catapult, Chaucer’s) to L.A.’s specialty shops (Reparations Club, the Getty, LACMA) to inland destinations (Bookworks in Albuquerque, Collected Works in Santa Fe, Changing Hands in Phoenix).
There’s one wild card: “I sell to Diamond Comics, in rural Maryland, a big wholesaler to the comic book trade,” Tetrick says. Prior to PGW, Tetrick learned about the comics market while working as mid-Atlantic regional manager for Tower Books and Tower Records.
Now she sees her mission as being the “bridge” between indie presses and bookstores, she says: “I want to make sure smaller publishers get their moment in the sun.”
