Book Distribution channels

Book distribution is structured very similarly to how you sell your e-books.

There are publishers, wholesale distributors and retailers in both. If you compare paperback distribution to how ebooks are sold through clickbank there are quite a few similarities.

Putting your book on clickbank gives you access to more retail outlets (websites) and using Gardners or Bertrams similarly gives you access to more bookstores. Some bookchains even insist on using only one wholesaler and you would not be able to get your book in there unless the wholesaler took on your book. The same way clickbank takes a cut of every sale, the wholesaler will want to take their share of the profits too.

However that is where the similarity ends between the wholesalers.

The book wholesaler will insist on a higher discount than any retail outlet will ask for. Paperbacks will need to give a 55% to 60% discount (the book industry's version of "commission") before they will be accepted into the wholesaler's database. The wholesaler will tell YOU what discount you will give them where as YOU tell clickbank what the discount is. They hold the books physically in their storage. Clickbank simply diverts the sale to YOUR storage on your server.

Clickbank manages payments and pays you within 14 days of making a sale of your ebook. The book wholeseller will usually pay 3 months after the invoice date for any books they have bought. Although most notably, Amazon will pay you within 30 days for any books they have sold within a specified calendar month.

WH Smith operates their own wholesale operation, or at least used to, and buy books in large quantities all at once. It should be a priority for you to get into their systems. MBS titles work well for their airport range (Mind, Body, Spirit).

Now, the steps to get books distributed to begin with are pretty straight forward although there are country specific variations.

First of all you must have an ISBN number on your book.

If you use your own you have more control over the distribution than if you use one from Lulu.

Secondly you have to register the book information with a book database for your area. In the UK the Nielsen PybWeb Database is the "go to" place.
Their website is http://www.nielsenbookdata.com/pubweb/PubLogon

This is their service to add or edit your book information. You can register from that page too by downloading a registration form and emailing it to the address on the form. You can also receive orders through this system if you select to self distribute.

If you go for printondemand-worldwide then self distribution is really the better choice although they do fulfillment too.

The next step that most publishers do is to provide an Advance Information Sheet or AIS. This is the "sales page" that the publisher sends out to all the bookstores. Now this is not a place to include your typical “website sales letter”. The AIS sheet simply includes the factual information about the book. This means it has an image of the book cover, the suggested retail price & discount rate, the ISBN number, the name of the publisher and how the book can be ordered.

You should also include marketing information that is relevant to the bookstore. Why should THEY stock the book? This part of the AIS is still very brief and maybe a paragraph or two. If you can describe why a bookstore should stock your book in a single twitter message then that is the perfect length. This marketing part can include details of any traditional marketing initiatives to drive people into bookstores to buy the book as well as existing sales results from other outlets, customer feedback and if you have received press attention/reviews include that too.

Press Attention
We always try to get press attention BEFORE we send out the AIS for one simple reason - You can't add press reviews until you've received some! This fact seems to escape quite a few small publishers. If you have media contacts, use them.

The best place to start is your local paper. Most of the larger city papers or regionals actually syndicate their articles and on the back of one interview in the Portsmouth news we have had one piece in a ladies weekly, two articles in the broadsheets and three in the tabloids and we were approached by a publication in Belgium for an interview with our non-existent writer (that's the risk of pseudonyms for you)

If you are approaching the newspaper, make sure you tell them about something newsworthy. At the moment that would be that you have turned the financial crisis into an opportunity and has decided to publish books etc etc. Take the human interest angle as my wife would say. And that is as much publicity advice as can give.

Beyond this all you have to do is apply your ebook marketing aptitude to generate more book sales.