Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Scott Flora on January 20, 2010 at 4:40pm

Patricia,

Good question! In fact, it is so good and important that we created a Distribution Group that is moderated by experienced distribution company staff member, Gail Kump.

You can join the group and see Gail's post at http://www.spannet.org/group/distribution

Thanks,

Scott

Scott Flora

Permalink Reply by Jeanne Webster on February 2, 2010 at 10:56am

Patricia, I'm a small publisher too and I did 2 different runs, one from a traditional press and then I went thru Lightning Source for my online market. Lightning source will hook you up with Ingram and Baker and Taylor and Amazon and the cost is very reasonable to have your books set up. But another thought on this....I don't sell as many books in a book store as I do in other venues. When your in a book store, your one of many, many books so I look for other outlets and target my books for their market. These stores out sell book stores by a country mile. I use Baker and Taylor and Ingram for validation and because book stores will check to see if your on their lists...

And this puzzles me....I hear indie bookstores calling for customers to support them instead of the big chains and yet when I approach them with my company, they give me the doubt eye because I'm a small publisher, so where is the support for the small publisher through the indies stores?

Your model may be different than mine...I go with regional first way before I tackle the national or international market. To me, for small publishers, word of mouth and ground swell is still the best way to get the book out there.

Permalink Reply by Patricia Sullivan HYPD Publicati on February 9, 2010 at 7:20pm

Great input - I'll check them out. Thanks a lot Jeanne.

Permalink Reply by Angie Epting Morris on April 21, 2010 at 8:31pm

I have recently been told by a reliable source that distributors (such as Ingram) will not even talk to you until you have 'at least' 10 books published. That doesn't mean books you've personally written and published - just titles published through your small press company. (NOTE: My source previously worked in the distribution department of Ingram.)

Permalink Reply by Jacqui Smith on May 18, 2010 at 4:08am

I am amazed and grateful to hear that you only need ten books published to be listed with a distributor, I have had nothing but rejection from big distributors, can anyone tell me, I have heard that you can club up together if you are a lot of small publishers, and present as one entity to a distributor to get distributed. Does anyone know of people I can club up with? If not, do you other small publishers want to club up with me?

I did find one group LSN Libary distributors and although they will put you in shops, they charge for it. I got a package that will display your books in shops in London and New York. The London option cost £3 so it sounded good at first. I live in London and so I camped out at one of these shops to see what happened. The book wasn't featured, it was just on display among other books on the shelf. So far what has happened when people have picked up the book is, they have said 'I dont know this book' and put it down again. I pay £3 a week and although I get Londoners and international tourists looking at the book, I have been on sale there for 3 weeks and no-one has bought my book! It is frustrating! I worked so hard to get the book out there, and for what? To be rejected on account of, I'm not famous! Meanwhile the book cost me £5.50 to print because I didn't shop around when I got it printed - I have since found deals at half that price - and I am asking £6 a copy. Has anyone found a better way?

Permalink Reply by Jacqui Smith on May 18, 2010 at 4:18am

I just wanted to add to Jeane, that I understand what you've been through, my hubby and I tried going around to independent bookshops and half the time, they let us leave a copy for the 'manager' (who never got back to us) and the other half would hold up a hand as soon as they saw us approaching with a book and say 'no no! We get people in here every day trying to put their books with us, there are too many' (and they won't even look at our books). I would love to know what your other strategies are - it sounds like you have some!

Jacqui