You don't have to actively list anything with Ingram. They'll include just about anything with an ISBN in their catalogues.
In trade publishing terms, "distribution" means having your books represented by a distributor. They carry stocks of your books, they sell them at a good discount, fully returnable, and--most importantly--there will be some sort of sales effort happening for your books, selling them into book shops and other retailers. They handle all order-processing for you, both in and out.
You don't have this, therefore you don't have distribution. That you don't understand this, when you're a publisher, is a big worry. And 40% is not the industry standard.
I am really uncomfortable here.
I am very surprised that Bloomsbury employed an intern specifically to be a proofreader. That's not how interning usually works in publishing: it's usually a general position, with interns assisting in all sorts of departments and with all sorts of tasks.
You said earlier you interned there as an editor, but an editor is not the same as a proofreader, and people who have done those jobs understand that.
I see so many errors in your posts here that I don't see how you could have ever worked as an editor or a proofreader. You just don't seem to have an instinct for the work. For example, you wrote "I edited for students' dissertations". That says the students' dissertations employed you, not that you worked on the dissertations. And it's not usual for dissertations to be edited by a freelance: you'd need specialist knowledge in the subject concerned to do the job properly; students can't usually afford the cost of it; and it's just not really done here, in my experience (which admittedly, is small in this area).
Having a writer refuse to engage with readers isn't the best situation for a publisher to be in, but it shouldn't affect sales to the extent that you've suggested. Consider the success of Steig Larsson, for example. He couldn't engage with his readers when he was published because he was dead. And yet his books have sold very well indeed.
All I can see is a reasonable, and not particularly robust, discussion of your publishing business, and the problems we see with it. But if you consider any posts here to be inappropriate, report them. It's more professional and useful than carping about it in-thread.
As I said earlier, Ingram will list almost anything with an ISBN. Of course it's something you should have known about. It's standard. It makes me wonder how many other publishing-related things you don't realise.
BookBaby is not a distributor.
IPG is not likely to work with you, based on the number of books you've published and the quantities you've sold. See their website, here:
Once you've published a sufficient number of titles you'll need to show a strong sales record and a coherent marketing plan to get a full-service distributor interested in working with you. You'll also have to hold stocks of your books, and that means using offset printing rather than digital.
My bold.
I'm not sure what that highlighted sentence is meant to mean. And your writing is full of problems like this.
I don't mean to be nasty here, but I simply don't see how you can charge anyone for editing services when your own writing is so poor.
It's good that you've employed an editor: but you don't seem to know even the basics of how publishing works, and that's going to cause problems throughout your business.
BookBaby does present itself as a distributor. See here:
I agree with you that they present themselves as a distributor, but that doesn't mean they are a distributor, and once again your lack of understanding is the problem here. People who know trade publishing understand what "distribution" means, and would see immediately that what BookBaby offers is not full distribution.
Again, I'm sorry to be so blunt. I don't doubt your good intentions, or your passion for the work. But I am very concerned by your lack of knowledge and understanding of how publishing works. It will have a direct impact on the books you publish, which will have an impact on those writers' careers. Please: step back. Learn more before you publish anything else.
