About the only one I have heard mentioned in regards to small press is Independent Publishers Group, but I have no idea if a small press that uses IPG is a good thing as in good chances to get in the stores, or is just barely better than using Ingrams, etc.
IPG is a very good distributor - one of the best. I have several friends whose books are distributed by IPG. But they aren't the only game in town. There are a number of very good, smaller distributors out there who are getting the job done very nicely.
Factors that publishers need to look at with distributors is their reputation and their sales teams. Do they have good relationships with the genre buyers? What are their sales like for their clients? Are we talking a couple hundred or a few thousand units? What's the percentage they pay out and what is their payment schedule? How do they handle returns?
A big thing to consider is how they negotiate orders. I know of a couple distributors who go for the highest order numbers. At first blush, this seems like a cool thing - yeah! we got B&N to order 10,000 units! Break out the champagne. Problem is, 5,000 of those books might be returned because the sales team/distributor oversold the book. In the meantime, the publisher had to fork over thousands for the print run. How or why they oversold the title can be a couple of factors. One may be that they're simply idiots. Yes, I've seen this - not with my distributor, but with others. Two, they may not have had an honest PR plan from the publisher, in which case the publisher should be flogged and shot out of a canon. In short, a publisher needs to be with a distributor who isn't afraid to be conservative. If the book sells out, the buyers will most definitely order more.
There's also the "buy in" money. Some companies can charge a huge amount to join their ranks, hello IPG. Regardless of the amount, that buy in creates a partnership where the distributor invariably sets the rules. Everything is negotiable, but no one's under any illusion as to who is calling the shots. And those shots encompass to whom they'll pitch, advertising, marketing, and signing authors.
Can the publisher get their rep on the phone easily? There have been many times when I needed to get in touch with my distributor because we had a late breaking event and needed the books shot out to the store. Or we may have gotten a great PW review and we wanted it in the sales people's hands before they had their meetings with the buyers in NY.
Do they have yearly sales meetings (usually held in NY in Dec.) where they meet the head sales teams and pitch their upcoming lineup? I've been told many times by the head sales guys that they were oftentimes swayed by the way in which I presented a title vs. their simply reading the tip sheet. They've fought harder for some of our titles based on my presentation.s and sales reflected it.
Some distributors insist on having final say as to whether an author will be signed or not. They have to be a part of the party because they have to believe they can sell it. I've had any number of authors I wanted to sign only to have my distributor come back and tell me they can't sell the story. I have to listen to them since they're the ones out there in the trenches talking to the buyers, and they know the market sometimes far better than we do. I have a friend who signed an author against their distributor's advice, and the payback was that the distributor refused to include that title in their catalogue. It was a costly game of chicken on my friend's part.
This was a long way of saying that a good distributor is paramount for small presses if they have any designs on staying in business. Ingram is nothing more than a centralized warehouse distributor for bookstores to place their orders. They don't have a sales force who goes out and pitches titles to the genre buyers.
I’ve known people who were distributed by some very big companies and their books sold very modestly. I’ve known others who were with smaller distributors who sold tens of thousands of units. For the author, none of this is germane. What they need to know is that their prospective publisher has a distributor with sales teams who cover the entire US and that their books on store shelves. Most publishers list their distributor on their website, either in the ordering info section or/and the contact info. Lastly, look for longevity. If a publisher has been around for a while, they’re doing something right to remain in business. And that something right is that they’re selling books to the stores – not the authors.