Andrea M. Rotondo - Favorite Books

Resources — Wholesale Distributors

Wholesale distributors do not sell to consumers. Instead, they purchase books from publishers at a steep discount and then resell them to booksellers, librarians, and specialty retailers. This allows one-stop shopping for bookstores. Instead of opening an account with a dozen different publishers, they simply deal with a whole distributor. If you’re self-published, you’ll need to concentrate on finding a distributor. Otherwise, your book will not get placement in many stores.

Major Players

Ingram Book Group
Ingram represents over 43,000 imprints and services 30,000 retail customers. The company warehouses over 1,000,000 titles and lists nearly 3.5 million titles in its proprietary database, iPage.

Baker & Taylor, Inc.
B&T is a worldwide distributor of books, videos, music, and games. The company has about 385,000 products warehoused, and another 1.5 million available by order. YBP Library Services (formerly Yankee Book Peddler) is a division of Baker & Taylor.

Distributors for Independent Publishers

Biblio Distribution
Biblio provides sales and fulfillment services for small presses on an exclusive basis. The company has a sales director who sells to national accounts and manages a commission sales force of 20 reps. Biblio also has a full-time employee working at Ingram.

CDS (Client Distribution Services)
A Division of Perseus Books Group
CDS services more than 50 independent publishers, including Abbeville, Assouline, Harvard Business School Press, Parragon, Taschen and TOKYOPOP.

Independent Publishers Group (IPG)
IPG sells to the book trade, as well as museum stores, teacher supply stores, computer stores, specialty retail, and mail order accounts.

Midpoint Trade Books
This relatively new distributor (founded in 2000) represents about 150 independent presses.

Publishers Group West (PGW)
Established in 1976, PGW is headquartered in Berkeley, CA with a national sales office in New York City, and a distribution center located in Indianapolis, IN. PGW represents over 150 independent publishers

Note: If you’ve self-published a book in a niche area (music, crafts, etc.), consider seeking distribution with a publisher who has strong ties to that market. For example, if you’ve self-published a book about music, contact publishers such as Hal Leonard, Watson-Guptill (Billboard Books), or Music Sales Corporation (Omnibus Press). You can sign an agreement for the company to represent you to the book trade (bookstores), the music trade (Mom and Pop shops, chains like Guitar Center, etc.), or both.

Click here to download a sample distribution agreement.

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