When someone tells you they will give you national distribution, ask how.  Do they have a warehouse?  a sales force?  a marketing and publicity manager?  How do they convince the book buyer at a major chain or independent bookstore to stock your book?  Who will create the sales materials to get your book on the bookshelf?  Who will encourage bookstores in your area to shelve your book on the new and noteworthy shelf or in the local author category?  Who will negotiate in-store promotions to get your book in the front of the store or in the store’s window?

For some companies, their distribution strategy is to ensure that your book is listed on every bookseller’s database.  This means that if a bookseller wants to order your book, they will know where to order it from, the price, publisher and terms of sale.  Here's where the problem begins.  Most booksellers expect to order a book at a 40% or higher discount.  Wholesalers expect as much as a 50% discount and normally will not pay freight.  Almost all booksellers will only buy a book if it is fully returnable for any reason.  Many publishers who offer pay-to-publish services offer your book for sale but under terms that almost ensure that most will be sold online through a web site — yours or theirs.  Booksellers will not stock the book but will make it available as a special order item.  If the customer will wait 6–8 weeks for your print-on-demand book, fine.  If not, the customer will likely not buy your book.  

We have direct accounts with major book wholesalers and distributors to ensure that your book is available.  We tailor your distribution package to the scale of your project.  Some projects need immediate, national availability, while others need just regional or even local availability.  All our clients' books are available and distributed to Amazon.com, frankly because Amazon is easy to deal with, they are the top online book retailer and they are very efficient.  I wish that more folks would buy books on line.  As online shopping grows in popularity so will the playing field level for independent authors and publishers.

Virtually any book in print is at least listed on Amazon.com and you can be sure that if it is in print, it is available from them too.   

You can also work directly with Amazon to handle order fulfillment for your titles.  Even if your book bears our name and logo, you just sign up with your SSN or Tax ID number and the rest is up to you.  This can be a rewarding experience as you monitor the impact of your online and offline book promotions.