Helping connect CANADIAN AUTHORS worldwide

Distribution a bust.

I could go into a song & dance about the perils of being a "direct vendor" (that's how one Amazon.ca's contact labelled me) & having no distributor. I could whine about how Coles wanting to charge me 45% commission becuz I don't have a distributor. I've been on the phone all day & I've exhausted my google searches.

But I'm going to spare you guys the details & get down to brass tacks. (Don't you just love cliches?) Can anyone recommend a distributer who's willing to negotiate with one lone author about distributing their title in Canada?

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Permalink Reply by Lauralee Proudfoot on July 28, 2008 at 5:10pm: I wish I had a solution for you *sigh*

It's tough to get a break - but you're already WAY ahead of me ... you've finished something!

One of the authors at this year's Leacock Festival in Orillia self-published his book - and ended up winning the Leacock Medal for Humour (and a publishing contract)... isn't that cool?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by joylene butler on September 4, 2008 at 4:44pm: That is cool, Lauralee. I'm no closer to finding a solution, but I'm okay with that. I'm going to find a cheaper printer/distributor & keep trying. Thanks for the response.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Bruce Atchison on September 4, 2008 at 4:01pm: You're story sounds just like mine. I tried the book-signing thing but I lost money. Furthermore, I didn't bother with Amazon since they charge 55% for distributing my books plus I was asked to pay the shipping there and back for any remaindered books. Lately, Booklocker is taking Amazon.com to court for monopolistic practices. Details of this are on the www.writersweekly.com page. I've done best online and at local kraft sales. Searching for an agent is difficult but I'll give that a try after How I Was Razed is published. If you can get an agent, that would help a lot toward getting a break in the chain stores.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by joylene butler on September 4, 2008 at 4:46pm: It's a sad state of affairs, that's for sure. I'm going with another distributor. My only problem is it's going to take another year. But I asked for it when I decided to self-publish. I've learned a great deal. Hopefully, #2 book will be easier. God forbid it's nabbed by a publisher.

Best of luck with your endeavour.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ed Bebee on March 30, 2009 at 3:58pm: Have you tried the old method of loading a bunch of boxes of your book in the back of your car and driving to all the likely book stores within a 100 mile (200 kilometer) radius of youor place?
This worked for me in selling about 1100 of the 1200 copies of my first book and all 1000 copies of the second book.
What I did was try to figure out the target market for the book and then look for outlets that would cater to that market. A couple of the best outlets weren't book stores.
Now, I'm no salesman - I find customer contact difficult - I have to really screw up my courage to make an initial contact. I found that Chapters is a real mixed bag. They have a "local authors " policy but many of them really don't try to help very hard. The good ones were really good. It just depends upon the manager and whether or not they brief the staff on what's on the "local authors" shelves. I found some Chapters would take the book and then forget to put it on the shelves,, or forget to tell the staff about it. I had to pull the books out.
Anyway, I've concluded that I couldn't make a living doing this, but at least I've gotten my publishing costs back and a healthy contribution to the cost of publishing the next one.
My experience with "meet the author" is that I was lucky if I sold one book an hour. I only did them to keep the book store owner happy.

Anyway, my two cents worth - your mileage may vary.

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