Indie Distribution Models?

I was reading an article by Peter Broderick in IndieWire about how Indie filmmakers should structure their distribution channels to get the most bang for their buck. And it got me thinking about books...

The way the film industry works, you can finance and create your own project, and have it ready for the world, after which point you hand it off to your distributors. The distributors don't charge you to do this, but they take a chunk of your profits. And they're relegated to a fragment of the market. Hopefully the fragment they're best at exploiting. They're selective about who they take, but they're willing to make a buck off anything if they can.

I don't think we have a similar set up in Indie Publishing. Does anyone know if we do?

What I'm thinking is some kind of organization that has connections with booksellers, knows how to market etc, and will take a cut of profits in exchange for getting the books into the hands of readers. You obviously don't need to worry about ONLINE distribution (given LSI or CreateSpace), but the offline world is still largely impenetrable. It would probably be segmented by region and outlet size, so you might be selling your offline rights multiple times around the world.

Are there such things out there? If so, how do you find them? They'd be awfully useful to a great many people right now.