The Supply Chain Odyssey of 'Lady Day': How a Picture Book Experienced the Pains of Global Logistics

Nichelle Gainer had planned to release her curated photography and tribute book about Billie Holiday on April 7, the music legend's birthday. However, the first batch of pre-sold books didn't arrive until more than two months later. On the original release date, instead of promoting the new book, Gainer took to Twitter to describe the unusual predicament—she learned about it from the publisher's freight forwarder.

"Lady Day: Body & Soul" was stuck in the mud of the Chesapeake Bay.

Gainer spent about two years researching, compiling, and editing this 100-page coffee table book, only to have it run aground on its release date, along with containers on the Evergreen Ever Forward cargo ship, in waters off the Maryland side of the largest estuary in the United States.

The journey of this book illustrates some common and not-so-common problems facing international supply chains. It also gave Gainer a painful lesson all too familiar to industry insiders: supply chain disruptions never happen in isolation.

"My book is just one of those things," Gainer said in April. "But who knows what else was on that ship?"

Watching the headlines, tracking the cargo ship

"Lady Day: Body & Soul" set sail from Shenzhen, China, early in the year, fortunately avoiding the COVID-19 lockdowns in March that shut down that manufacturing hub. The books were destined for New York, where the containers would be unloaded and then trucked to a warehouse in Pennsylvania.

The ship's month-long ordeal in the mid-Atlantic began on March 13—after a stop in Baltimore, it became stuck in several feet of mud north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The U.S. Coast Guard is investigating the incident.

Workers spent a month removing hundreds of containers to help the ship float, finally succeeding on April 17. During this phase, Gainer and her publisher faced a dilemma common to many businesses in complex supply chains: visibility was extremely limited.

After receiving the initial notice of the grounding, they could barely track their own container. They weren't dealing directly with Evergreen, and their freight forwarder could neither tell them how much longer the books would be delayed nor confirm whether their container was among those being lifted onto barges to help with the refloating effort.

"They were going to try to refloat the ship, that's all we knew," said Conway. "From there, we just had to get whatever information we could from various news websites."

After the Ever Forward was safely refloated in the Chesapeake Bay and retrieved its offloaded containers, it continued to Norfolk, Virginia. The cargo ship then experienced another wait in congested queue waters outside the Port of New York before it could unload the containers holding the books.

"It's been so long, it's frustrating," Gainer's publisher, Rocket 88 Books, tweeted on May 9 in response to an inquiring customer. "Probably about another week or so."

On May 30, Gainer announced that the books had successfully been offloaded in New York.

An ode to the "essence of cool"

For "Lady Day: Body & Soul," Gainer gathered photos and quotes from numerous magazines, museums, and collections.

Whoopi Goldberg wrote the foreword for the book, calling Holiday "one of the most moving women we have ever seen or heard."

Jazz and blues giants emphasized Holiday's influence. Miles Davis said her voice "didn't need a horn; she was a horn herself." Etta James admitted she grew up listening to her mother play records of "only Billie Holiday." Duke Ellington called Holiday the "essence of cool."

The photos show a range of elegant and everyday moments in Holiday's life. In some, she sings soulfully into a microphone or rehearses with band members around a piano. In others, she lounges in a robe, laughs with friends, and plays with her beloved boxer dog "Mister" and her Chihuahuas "Pepe" and "Chiquita."

The final result is a deeply moving photographic ode to the life and legacy of the Baltimore-born singer—whose achievements are sometimes overshadowed by her struggles with addiction.

"The Billie Holiday I grew up hearing about was a drug addict who lived a tragic life," Gainer said. "You'd think she had a miserable, painful life with no joy at all... I really wanted to focus on her art and her work, not the tragedy."

Gainer worked with the independent publisher on the project in collaboration with the Billie Holiday Estate. Rocket 88 sells and distributes its books directly, focusing primarily on music, and had previously published two of Gainer's "Vintage Black Glamour" series books.

John Conway, general manager of Rocket 88, said other ocean shipments for the publisher have also encountered bad weather or congestion outside busy ports. On one occasion, a container was held for three weeks waiting for an available truck to pick it up.

He said the publisher has become accustomed to "common pandemic issues" disrupting shipping plans. But "Lady Day: Body & Soul" was the first shipment to be stuck on a grounded cargo ship.

Most other situations, Conway said, "weren't that dramatic."

"I didn't expect it to arrive immediately"

Tara Hines received her book in California in mid-June, about 10 weeks after the original release date.

Hines pre-ordered "Lady Day" from the publisher's website late last year and didn't mind the wait "because it's so beautiful," she told Supply Chain Dive in a Twitter message.

Despite the delay, Hines said she received email notifications for her pre-order when it shipped and was delivered.

"Given the pandemic and supply chain issues, I wasn't particularly surprised," Hines wrote about the wait, adding: "It's not Amazon, so I didn't expect it to arrive immediately."

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"It's not Amazon, so I didn't expect it to arrive immediately."

Tara Hines

"Circle of Honor" member for "Lady Day: Body & Soul," received her book in mid-June

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Douglas Kent said he would order a copy of "Lady Day: Body & Soul" after learning about the book.

Kent is executive vice president of strategy and alliances at the Association for Supply Chain Management. He said the book's journey reflects how disruptions impact well-planned supply chains.

"These shocks are making any predictable, smooth flow nearly impossible," he said.

While global shipping hasn't become more reliable, it has become more expensive. Kent said container freight rates are 8 to 10 times higher than two years ago, and air freight prices have tripled in just the past six months.

When placing his order, Kent noticed the shipping cost for "Lady Day: Body & Soul" was £26 (about $31), while the book price was £66 (about $79).

"Almost every mode of transportation is unpredictable these days, whether it's the certainty of supply—will it arrive when I expect it?—or the associated costs," Kent said.

"Companies are getting smarter, trying to analyze different scenarios to figure out... 'When should I rethink that network?'"