Book Distribution

Tips for Planning a Bookstore Event

Bookstore events are an exciting part of the book launch. Many authors look forward to readings, signings, and bookstore-hosted workshops and have visions of hundreds of people waiting in line to buy their book. Here’s how to approach to planning a bookstore event and some of the related pros and cons.

What's the Difference Between a Wholesaler and Distributor

Wherever you are in the process of writing or publishing your book, you’ve probably considered at some point how you’re going to get it out to all of your adoring fans. You might ask yourself: Once I’ve published my book, how will readers find and buy it? Wholesalers and distributors are the two main channels for getting your book into retailers like Barnes & Noble and indie bookstores, as well as libraries and schools, but determining how these channels differ and which one is best for your book can be confusing.

Let’s start with wholesalers. Wholesalers like Ingram, Baker & Taylor, and Bookazine are the middlemen between you—the author or publisher—and most major book retailers. These retailers generally order books from wholesalers, which act as depots for your book. Retailers do this because it’s easier for them to order from a small number of trusted sources (wholesalers) rather than hundreds of individual authors and publishers (you). Thus, if you’re looking for national distribution to major retail channels, you generally have to be set up with a major wholesaler.

Shelf Space vs. Sell Through

When you first become a published author there is much to learn about the ins and outs of this sometimes difficult to understand industry. There are some aspects that seem just plain backwards, particularly for those entering the industry from a business background. One of the hardest elements to come to grips with is the concept that a sale is not really a sale until it goes through two or three transactions. This makes calculating expected revenue difficult, to say the least. Add to that the returns factor (discussed here) and you are left with some confusing data to sort through.

If you’re working with a distributor, your distributor is going to sell your book to wholesalers and to retailers. (Learn the difference between wholesalers and distributors here.) Wholesalers play a very big role in all of this and it’s not uncommon for the majority of your books to first be sold to the myriad of wholesalers out there, big and small. Your distributor will report this is a sale to you and you will be paid for that sale (minus returns and reserves against future returns) but in the more explicit sense of the word, it’s not quite a sale yet. At this point, your book has been stocked in a wholesaler’s warehouse with the hopes that their customers (retailers and libraries) will purchase it from them.

Returns, Returns, Returns

Ask anyone that has been in publishing for more than ninety days what they like least about the industry and you will undoubtedly get the answer, “returns!” Returns are high on the list of frustrating and hard-to-accept aspects of the book business.

When I first began working in publishing years ago, I was told early on about returns during my training with our own Tanya Hall. I remember kind of chuckling when she told me that all sales could be returned for any reason at any time. Having never heard of such a practice in my prior retail, B2B, and direct to consumer experience, I thought surely she must be joking. Well, she wasn’t, but the hundreds of authors I have worked with over the years have certainly felt like the joke’s on them when it comes to returns.