Distribution

One of the big issues in books is distribution. You need a distributor to sell in stores. I guess in theory you might not need one, but then you'd need to sign a contract with every book store you want to sell in - and that is a major problem. Sure, you could sign the standard contracts for a Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, but it gets dicey after that. It is very hard to sell to new people if the books can't at least be ordered through bookstores. So I sent off marketing kits to 8 distributors that specialize in small publishers. I got rejected or ignored by 7. Guess who I'm using :) Just to be sure, I tracked down some of their publishers and asked how their experiences had been. Yes, this place seemed to have some weakness in presentation - but people said they'd done well and we're cheap nickel and dimers. I signed the contract and we were off. I was very very happy to have cleared this bar. Without distribution, nobody in the business (book stores, reviewers etc...) will take you seriously. They'll just think you're a self-publisher. And with 175,000 books published a year, they don't need a self-publisher.

So, what do you send these guys? The answer is a marketing plan. I've talked about that some already.