A simple question (which may go unanswered) is how a person would go about selling their book(s) to High street retail stores (nation wide), without the use of an agent or an official Publisher?
um...I know it's not that simple... a friend of mine tried to self pub and she ended up with five thousand copies in her living room three years later (still)
Distribution is really why you go the conventional way unless you have a family that will drive you all over the country selling to schools lol!
If you think it's hard getting an agent try walking up to a retail store and asking them to stock your book...
Its a good concept, however, when I have an interest in selling my books throughout various countries, it becomes quite a big impractical mess...
What I would really like to know is how Publishing companies and agents manage to have books stocked into high street stores, then build my own company and do that aswell....
Agents don't stock books, and they have nothing to do with how a book is sold or distributed to bookstores. Agents sell manuscripts to editors.
Publishing houses sell their books to bookstores via book distributors, such as Ingrams or Baker & Taylor. Major bookstores and most indies order straight from these distributors. High discounts are offered, usually (if I recall correctly) between 50-60% off cover price, which is how the bookstores make their money. This is how books end up in bookstores nationwide.
The big chains of bookstores have buyers who are courted by the sales depts of the publishers. These people make or break a book by deciding how many (if any) are going to be ordered and stocked throughout the chain. As a self-published author it is extraordinarily difficult to get to the buyers.
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