National Bookstore Distribution

It is every author’s dream to see their books on shelves of major retail bookstores such as Exclusive Books and Bargain Books.

The first thing to ensure is that your physical copies have a spine (the reason is bookstores only take on books with a spine). You also need to ensure you are able to print copies on demand as the distribution warehouse may often run short of copies for stock to fulfill orders from stores on-demand.

 

The first step would be to fill out an Advance Information Sheet (which we will provide to you). This form is filled out by the author with all the information about the book. It is then sent back to us and we submit it to the National Distributor who will review the application and let us know whether or not your book will be applicable to stores (they usually base it on current trends, for example, in late 2022, Romance Novels were not doing too great and only in February 2023, a romance novel called "My Dearest Deception" by Jolene Logan was accepted for distribution).

Once the Distributor gives the go-ahead, you will be presented with a Distribution Contract which sets out the terms and conditions of the distribution process. Within this document, there are a lot of clauses, but I will highlight the most important one's below so you are aware upfront:

- Upon signing the document and agreeing to the terms, you will need to pay the Distributor a once-off listing fee. This listing fee is a once-off cost and ensures you are listed on their catalogue of books that stores can choose from for as long as you are under contract.

- You will need to supply their Head Office with around 6-8 sample copies of the title/s you wish to distribute. These copies are not returnable. They go to their sales reps who liaise with regional managers and store management to promote your book to be purchased for their shelf. This is an ongoing basis, meaning more stores who do not initially jump on, may do so later.

- They will also give us an amount based off how many copies they will require for the warehouse. It could be a minimum of 20 copies or a maximum of 80 copies - you need to have these copies ready. They will advise. Upon which, you will first have to courier them to us, as we have to apply our watermarked vendor code label as well as the Purchase Order number on the box before you foot the bill for courier from us to the warehouse. Most authors bypass this bump stop by sourcing a quote from us and have us print the copies, thereby only paying for printing and one courier bill instead of two, but this is entirely up to the author.

- Once the copies are off to the warehouse, then it is the waiting game (could take a month or 2) before we start getting notifications from the people on the ground that the book was spotted in stores - you will never know any other way as the Distributor does not provide a list of stores since they are constantly changing and adding week by week as mentioned above. Our job will be to market the book as available in stores to the consumer market.

- Here's the most important part - stores will purchase copies in anticipation of sales, meaning they will buy on invoice value with a bulk discount applied (discounts are applied to convince stores to buy copies). This is the amount paid to you 90 days after purchase, these are NOT guaranteed sales.

- IF, 6-9 months after purchase, the stock has not been sold, the store has a clause in the contract to return the book back to the Distributor in exchange for the money back - the same money that was paid to you 6-9 months prior for those copies. So you need to ensure that you keep that money on hand, in case of returns. If 12 months pass with no returns, then you can safely assume the copies were sold.

That is the basic gist of the Bookstore Distribution process. And yes, this process includes major retail bookstores across the country including Exclusive Books, Bargain Books, CNA, PNA, Wordsworth and more.

 

We can also request for in-store books signing sessions for authors with regional managers where the author is based or more comfortable with doing a book signing session. These sessions are done FREE OF CHARGE, but usually take place on Saturdays.