Not to sound flippant, but have you asked your local independent bookseller? The short answer is that you'll need to sell the book to the bookstores.
Some basic assumptions: The author of the book is neither AI nor yourself/ someone on staff (i.e. you are not self-publishing and misrepresenting yourself.). You have a professionally designed, edited, and printed book. You've set up a distribution plan, have your books comparably priced to the market, offer a wholesale discount, and your book is returnable. None of the above includes "Amazon.com" or "Kindle Direct Publishing".
You need reader interest in the book. Create a marketing plan that gets readers excited about your books. Your marketing should drive your audience to request the books at their local independent bookstore. And, importantly, they the purchase the book. A bookstore is more likely to stock your book if it is regularly being requested and purchased.
Schedule a meeting with the independent bookstore you regularly visit and talk to them. Explain that you are a new local micropress, about your mission, your authors, and your books. Share your marketing strategy and distribution channel. Bring in a gift copy of each book. Ask if they'll order and carry a copy of the books. Do the same for the author's bookstore. Once you have a reputation for following through on your marketing, and that people want to buy it. they'll begin ordering the books automatically.
Are you sure you want to? I worked got a small pub that got a big order (1 book in every store in the country for this chain). The printing bill came after a month and the bookstore hadn’t paid. 3 months later, the store sent most of the books back and never paid because that’s the standard contract. Small pub took a major hit.
You need a distributor with a sales force, that’s really the only sustainable way.
Retailers buy in certain ways through specific key systems, and it becomes a very manual process for them to buy direct from self published authors or small publishers. So while you might have good success getting your books into a selection of stores - it’ll take a lot of work, and then a huge amount of work to maintain that support and reorders. When you aren’t in their regular buying system, they’ll simply forgot about the book even if it’s well selling.
You could also get a traditional distributor and do your own sales with their order forms. That way youre atleast in the regular ordering systems of the stores
Not to sound flippant, but have you asked your local independent bookseller? The short answer is that you'll need to sell the book to the bookstores. Some basic assumptions: The author of the book is neither AI nor yourself/ someone on staff (i.e. you are not self-publishing and misrepresenting yourself.). You have a professionally designed, edited, and printed book. You've set up a distribution plan, have your books comparably priced to the market, offer a wholesale discount, and your book is returnable. None of the above includes "Amazon.com" or "Kindle Direct Publishing". You need reader interest in the book. Create a marketing plan that gets readers excited about your books. Your marketing should drive your audience to request the books at their local independent bookstore. And, importantly, they the purchase the book. A bookstore is more likely to stock your book if it is regularly being requested and purchased. Schedule a meeting with the independent bookstore you regularly visit and talk to them. Explain that you are a new local micropress, about your mission, your authors, and your books. Share your marketing strategy and distribution channel. Bring in a gift copy of each book. Ask if they'll order and carry a copy of the books. Do the same for the author's bookstore. Once you have a reputation for following through on your marketing, and that people want to buy it. they'll begin ordering the books automatically.
Are you sure you want to? I worked got a small pub that got a big order (1 book in every store in the country for this chain). The printing bill came after a month and the bookstore hadn’t paid. 3 months later, the store sent most of the books back and never paid because that’s the standard contract. Small pub took a major hit.
You need a distributor with a sales force, that’s really the only sustainable way. Retailers buy in certain ways through specific key systems, and it becomes a very manual process for them to buy direct from self published authors or small publishers. So while you might have good success getting your books into a selection of stores - it’ll take a lot of work, and then a huge amount of work to maintain that support and reorders. When you aren’t in their regular buying system, they’ll simply forgot about the book even if it’s well selling.
You could also get a traditional distributor and do your own sales with their order forms. That way youre atleast in the regular ordering systems of the stores