Our Friend The Book Distributor by 'S'

Because I wasn’t paying attention during an e-mail exchange with Madame Zelda, I find that I’ve agreed to do an overview of “Our friend, the book distributor.” (The heat has leached any brain activity and I thought I was agreeing to be nice. Obviously I should have read all the words in the e-mail she sent.)

But her plea of authors needing to know what a book distributor is and why they should care did touch my heart so here is an overview of why book distributors are important in sales. (Remember sales? Once you get published, sales need to be considered.)

The short answer is that book distributors exist so libraries and bookstores can order a variety of titles at one time from one place. Yes, libraries and bookstores can order directly from the publisher, but there are a lot publishers and that’s a lot of paper to have to track. If you can order the majority of the popular titles from one vendor, you have fewer invoices, fewer places to contact with shipping concerns, fewer places to send remainders back, and fewer catalogs to read.

Basically, life is short and book distributors are efficient.

Now your next question may be, “That’s nice. Why do I care?” A good question. Not all publishers have agreements with book distributors. The larger ones do but a smaller press may not. If you are self published, odds are book distributors won’t carry your book. They too need to think big and will generally have a minimum number titles by a set number of authors to before doing business with a new small press/publisher.

Book distributors vary too. Some focus on certain types of materials, such as academic libraries and university bookstores, others on school libraries, others on mainstream materials to libraries and bookstores, or even focus on media, such as DVDs and CDs. So a library may buy popular books from one distributor and DVDs from another one. One size does not fit all when talking about book distributors.(Of course I'm going to continue to make more generalized statements about book distributors now that I've told you that you can't generalize. I'm aware that life is unfair.)


Distributors do have online catalogs and generally have updates of quantities in warehouses. So if a book group wants to read your new title and need 20 copies, the bookstore needs to know that it can get 20 copies at the same time.

Distributors can also setup standing orders for bookstores and libraries. The lists are designed to simplify everyone’s life. A bookstore knows about how many titles of a Stephen King hardback it needs and how many Nora Roberts hardbacks it needs. And it can setup accounts that say, “Every time there is a new Nora Roberts hardback send me X number of copies. Every time there is a Nora Roberts paperback original, send me Y number of copies.”

This kind of thing makes a lot of groups happy and simplifies a lot of planning. The libraries and bookstores know how many they need and can fill out the forms and stop having to think about whether the new Nora Roberts got ordered or not. The book distributor can track how many libraries and bookstores have new Nora titles on a standing order and use that to start to figure out how many titles are going to be needed. (Not all libraries and bookstores use standing orders, but it’s a good gauge.) So the book distributors can work with the publishers to make sure there are enough books to cover the demands too.

The fewer things people have to think about and track, the easier life tends to get.

Some standing orders will be based on types of materials. For example, a library might order 10 copies each of 20 paperback original romances and 10 copies each of 20 paperback original mysteries as part of a standing order. In this case, the library doesn’t know which 20 new titles of romance and which 20 new titles of mysteries it’s going to get each month, but the library does know that its patrons will check these out quickly .

For this type of plan to work the library also has to trust the book distributor to include titles and authors that will grab the attention of the library patrons. 20 random new titles can’t be selected for these lists to be successful.

Strangely enough, people have to be involved in the creation of these lists. People are also involved in the initial decisions of how many titles to order for the warehouse/warehouses. (Some distributors have a single warehouse. Others have multiple warehouses across the country.)

Now you’re bound to be thinking, “Who are these people and can I bribe them?”

And I would have to encourage you to let that idea go. There are just too many people involved.

You all know that advance copies get sent to reviewers and bookstores and some libraries. Well, they also get sent to book distributors. And there are people who read advances to decide how many copies are going to need to be ordered. If it’s a mid-list author who’s written something big, like when John Grisham wrote “The Firm,” the buyer may call bookstores and talk to the person who does ordering and say, “There’s this fun book that’s going to be published in a few months and I think you’re going to want to order this. Have you read the advance copy? I think this may go somewhere.”

And you may ask yourself, why? Isn’t that the publisher’s job? Well, yes but the book distributor is a bit different. The book distributor is selling its expertise in knowing the book market. It’s not selling for the publisher. To a certain extent, it has no horse in this race except it wants libraries and bookstores to buy from it. It needs bookstores and libraries to thrive so it can distribute to them.

Because the book distributor has set itself up as an entity that can identify what the public wants, it has to have programs and processes in place to remind the bookstores and libraries of its ability. (Remember the standing orders earlier? No? That’s exactly how I ended up writing this blog. I couldn’t retain what I’d read earlier. Go back a few paragraphs and review.)

The same book may be read and assessed by completely different groups at a large distributor or even a specialized distributor. Stephanie Mayer started out in the Teen/Young Adult section. Once her titles started showing up on lists showing increased sales and Publisher’s Weekly lists and New York Times lists, and people realized adults were buying these books too, the adult buyers for book distributors had to keep up with the new titles so they could identify similar types of authors/trends to include in existing lists or start new lists. Now adult fiction buyers, young adult fiction buyers, paranormal fiction buyers, and romance buyers all read Stephanie Mayer and include her works in lists.

You may be thinking, “Oh, I’ll just bribe a few.”

If only it was that simple.

Now, this is generalized but will give you the broad strokes of what next happens. Once a title gets into the system, decisions have to be made about shelf space. You have to know which titles that haven’t been selling need to go back to the publisher and how much shelf space you’re going to need for what may be a lukewarm versus a hot title. (Shelf space is more important than people think when they think about books. If you’re adding something to a warehouse, something else is getting taken away.) It’s hard enough for me in real life. The idea of doing on a warehouse scale makes my eyes cross.

It makes a lot of people’s eyes cross which is why inventory and sales reports tend to run through programs so the inventory of the warehouse will match the demand by the bookstores and libraries.

Now you have to bribe programmers and these are pricey guys. And you’ll probably have to bribe several of them because several programs may be involved. Now you’re having to track buyers and reviewers and list makers and programmers and lions and tigers and bears, oh my. (Well, okay. Just track through the programmers. But that’s still a lot of people per book distributor.)

Because if you’re going to bribe these folks, the other folks you really need to bribe are the ones that clean up the publisher descriptions and make sure that there is a cover image in the catalog. Here’s what I mean. Think about searching Amazon or B&N’s site. You can see that a book by Christine Feehan, “Ruthless Game,” will be published in January 2011. Right now, there is no cover art and no information about the plot.

As the publication date get closer, the publisher will send out a new feed , probably with the cover art and some plot information. But sometimes the cover art doesn’t translate well in the feeds or doesn’t come. And the wrong plot can be attached to the wrong title or missing too.

This happens enough that some distributors have a group that reviews the information in the system with the physical book when the physical book arrives in a warehouse. They confirm things are good when that’s true and fix things that are missing or wrong.

And if a library orders your book, it may order it “shelf ready.” That means that there’s a cover and barcode on the book and catalog record to load into the library’s catalog so the library can unpack the box and put the book on the shelf. This can take time and you want the book distributor creating the catalog record to spell your name correctly. If a library has a lot of local quirks to its cataloging, getting a shelf ready book to the library will take longer. Don’t get me started on the myth of “all library use the same cataloging rules. (I have to stop now before the eye twitch comes back.)

With this, book distributors have to keep track of getting materials to libraries and bookstores as close to the release date of things as possible. The bookstores and libraries aren’t supposed to release the materials prior to the release date so everyone is on a level playing field. If Bookstore A’s box of books arrives on Thursday and the release is next Tuesday, it still can’t put out the books until Tuesday. Bookstore B’s box of books may not arrive until Monday. But it still can’t put the books out until Tuesday. And the library can’t let the patron have the books before the bookstores can sell them. That’s part of the agreement. If you can’t meet the agreement, your books don’t get shipped to you until after the release date.

As a proud book geek, I know when titles I want to read are to be released. I will go from bookstore to bookstore searching for these titles on that day. (Yes, I should get a life but at this point it would simply confuse me.)

So with release dates in mind, book distributors have to factor shipping time with when titles leave the warehouse. Arrangements have to be made with groups like UPS, mail, and local carriers to make sure boxes get picked up and delivered in time.

So the short information is, book distributors are your friend. Libraries and bookstores like to order through them. A lot of people, work, programming, and physical assessments go on so your book can get to your readers. And then your readers can buy your work. And now we're back to sales.

Lovely, lovely sales.



As authors, the more you know about what is involved in getting your work to your readers, the better to spend your bribery money.

Bio:

" 'S' has spent a lifetime haunting bookstores and libraries. Faced with nothing else that interested her, she continues to spend time professionally and personally in bookstores and libraries."


A note from Tina:

A big thank you to Madame Zelda for securing 'S' for us. An even bigger thank you to 'S' for agreeing to be with us. Today Seekerville is giving away a copy of the Seekerville book of your choice to one commenter. More lovely sales!! Winner announced in the weekend edition.

And as a special help we've included these book distributors so you can browse their site and do a little home study.

• Ingram Books
• Baker & Taylor
• CBD