In other words, both the publisher and the retailer are under the gun only to pick books that sell, and usually to limit the number of books on shelves:

• The publisher can’t afford to waste paying the publishing and shipping costs plus the co-op fee for a book that will get returned to them.

• The retailer can’t afford to waste shelf space on a book that won’t generate any revenue beyond the co-op fee—he has literally tens of thousands of other published-this-year titles in your category that he could have stocked in place of your book.

For this reason, both parties make decisions based on a risk-management model. The publisher would rather push too few books out to the bookstore, because if the book sells out, it can be re-stocked without penalty, and the bookstore would rather have fewer copies of an untested book on their shelf simply because they can’t afford to waste the shelf space on a non-seller.

When the bookstore buyers make a decision to stock and shelve a certain book, they decide on the number of copies and the amount of shelf space fairly carefully, and with an eye towards risk management.

That means they “grade” books based upon:

• An author’s past book sales with the retailer
• The publisher’s average sales for that category with the retailer
• The retailer’s current sales for that category\n\n Nowhere on the list is how important, insightful, well written or nice looking the book is. It’s simply not part of the calculation. Also, for a new author, the publisher’s sales performance for that category matters more than ever, simply because the author’s sales performance is an unknown.

Here’s what you need to know about getting your book into the local Barnes & Noble, or even the Hudson Booksellers at the airport:

• Practically speaking, the only way to get national distribution with brick-and-mortar bookstores is through a traditional publishing house. So you’ll need to choose your publishing options with careif you want to see your book on the bookstore shelf or on the newspapers’ bestseller lists.
• Just because you have distribution doesn’t mean that every store will stock your book, stock enough of your books, or that your book will be given decent placement on the shelves. A lot of this depends on how your book has been graded by the publishers and retailersand how committed you are to promoting your book.

If you’re serious about achieving great retail distribution for your book, you’ll find that our Major List Best Seller Campaign can help you achieve that.

Are you assuming book buyers will become paying clients? If so, you’re not alone. Most authors assume just that—if they even think about it at all. But the book-to-business transition rarely happens. Making the jump from book to higher-priced services skips too many steps and requires too big a leap of faith for most readers, which means the author’s success stops with the sale of the book.

If you want your book’s success to translate to your business, you have to plan those transitions and provide your prospective client with the baby steps between buying the book and engaging you at a higher level.

This kind of planning is where Promote A Book stands out from the rest of the publishing and book promotion industries:

We actively plan how to make the transitions happen where other’s simply assume, hope, and wish.

Don’t leave the success of your book and your business to chance—hire Promote A Book and make it happen.