The services will find bookstores that include the more targeted type of store who specialize in your topic area. More often than not you’ll sell more books in specialty stores than major chain stores.

The bookstore will require 50% of the book cover price as their commission. When you factor in a $20 book, $5 to print and $10 going to the bookstore, you’ll end up with $5 for yourself.

The challenge is that unless you become a household name, people will not typically walk into a bookstore to find your book. If they happen upon it on the shelf, who is your competition? Are they a big name author or well known in their industry? What will make someone choose your book over all others?

One of my friends in San Diego had his books in a major brand bookstore and after five years he received a call one day when he was told he had ten days to submit a check for over $100,000 to purchase the books back from the chain. The books weren’t selling and they wanted to open up the shelf space.

I always recommend my authors avoid putting their books in bookstores and only sell through bookstores when they are doing a booksigning.

One of the areas you want to look at is how many books you might be selling. Some of the distributors give you better rates the higher volume you process. Others base the distribution rates on the length of the contract.

You’ll want to be sure they base their service price on a consistent amount so you can keep track of your expenses. I found several that are very reasonable, just email me for the list and it’s yours.

Just be sure to stay away for Print on Demand (POD) companies that have a direct relationship with Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You’ll end up giving up all your profit if you use Lightning Source or any other POD connected to the on line bookstores.

Also, one of the biggest disadvantages of being in bookstores is a well kept secret. Imagine three years after selling an average of 20,000 books a year you get a phone call from Barnes and Noble demanding a refund of $10 per book that would require you to send a check for $600,000 within 72 hours for the return shipment.

It happens, and it happens more often than not. According to expert John Kremer, the average bookstore rotates books three to four times each year. The likelihood your book would fall into the rotation is too great to ignore.

Be absolutely sure that you have a “no buy back” clause in your agreement, or do not agree to the terms.

I looked to see what other authors do, interviewed authors and distributors and came up with a list of independent distributors that will guarantee your books end up in all of the mainstream bookstores as was as the independent stores.

One resource that is particularly is John Kremer who has been publishing his book 1001 Ways to Market Your Book many years and the newest updated version has just been released. John has many resources that you want to check on, but specifically, he has many distributors that he recommends.

So now, you can play with the big names on the same shelves, without giving up the 95% of the sales price of your book.

Take the initiative to sign up for your access to Creative Impressions Press and you will find more resources here than you could imagine. Check into the members area for the new updates on a regular basis because I’m always adding more great information to give you more ways of earning more money from your intellectual property.