How hard can it be to have your books available in stores? Apparently very hard.

The past few weeks I’ve been on a journey of discovery fraught with frustration, learning that because my imprint has global distribution with Ingram, the world’s largest distributor, does not mean I have access to bricks and mortar store distribution. Apparently Ingram is what’s considered in the publishing industry as a wholesale distributor. What the bookstores, like Indigo/Chapters require is a book distributor, meaning they want their hands held by a sales rep who comes out to them every quarter or half, discusses their book lists and assists the buyers in placing an order.

Bad enough giants like Indigo/Chapters require a 48-55% discount. The book distributors, however, require up to a 60% discount.

So say I have a manuscript I’ve acquired from an author, running 300 printed pages, 6 x 9 trade paperback, retailing for $24.00. By the time I pay my author a 10% royalty on retail, pay for printing, 60% to the distributor, allow 5% for promotion and other overhead like, oh, say, freight which I’m expected to absorb, I, as a publisher, get to keep all of $1.44 of that $24.00. Unless I were to go offset, purchase several thousand copies, warehouse them, and get to keep closer to $2.00/book.

And then of course up to a year later a book seller can decide, oh, no, these 50 extra copies I ordered haven’t sold so I’m going to send them back and fully expect, and receive, a refund! So even though I, as a publisher, may have banked those sales in December, come the following September the returns may start flying in and there goes the overdraft on my account and my sales.

It simply does not make sense. Why should a distributor get to keep 60% when it’s the author and publisher who have done all the work? Why should a bookseller over-purchase and then be allowed grace for their mistake?

Purely rhetorical, I assure you. Likely farmers have been asking the very same question for decades.