We submit new books for advertisement in the Ingram Sales catalogue around 10 months before publication, as well as compiling our own biannual catalogues, however, trade buyers do not make their initial orders of stock until around 4-6 weeks prior to publication. The distributors then dispatch these orders to the trade accounts in the weeks leading up to publication.
We’re not able to report your pre-order numbers to you automatically.
We aim to have printed stock in the warehouses by the first day of the month in which your book is published, so we place a print order the month before publication. It takes varying lengths of time to get into the shops:
USA: Ingram needs up to 10 working days to process, pick, pack and ship books to a US customer by Standard Ground UPS. It will take longer at the end of the month when the warehouse is busiest (add 2 working days) or if the customer is offshore or hard to reach (add 5 working days), and if books need to be restocked from the printer (add 14 days). Large retailers, such as Barnes & Noble, buy centrally; the books go to their central warehouse, then out again, adding a week or so. For an event, allow two months and give as much notice as you can.
Canada: It can take an extra month, 30 working days, because of border customs. It can take longer to get books a few hundred miles from Pennsylvania to Ontario than a few thousand miles from England to Singapore. British Columbia is worse still.
UK: Ingram, supplies large wholesalers like Gardners and Bertrams daily, but for efficiency they only supply small independent shops once a week. Small shops allow for this by timing their order carefully, placing larger orders or using a wholesaler. Generally Ingram needs 5 working days to process an order, pick & pack and deliver books to a customer on UK mainland. It will take longer if Ingram receives the order after 4pm (add an extra working day), if customer doesn’t order frequently (add up to 4 working days), if customer is in highlands and islands (add 2 working days), and if books need to be restocked from the printer (add 14 days).
Other regions: For South Africa allow 5-6 weeks to deliver books which are in stock (please be aware that there may be a Customs charge when books enter South Africa), China and Singapore 6-8 weeks, Australia & New Zealand this can vary between 2 and 12 weeks.
- For initial orders, particularly those needed before publication, and for all orders for over 10 copies, authors should order direct from the order form on the author homepage, giving:
- Quantity of books.
- Where you would like them sent.
- When you need them by (note; we need at least three weeks’ notice from the time payment is received for USA, UK and Europe; more for other countries).
- Payment needs to be by transfer. We will assume that the address to be billed is your author address in your Profile.
- Delivery is charged for all orders placed through the office.
- Our standard author discount is 25%. For one-off orders of 500 copies or more, we offer the following discounts: 55% on 500–999 copies; 60% on 1000–2499 copies; 65% on over 2500 copies. The 55%+ discounts do not apply to later smaller orders.
Please note
- Discounted author orders do not count towards your overall sales figures for royalties, but do count towards the sales figures that automatically trigger extra publicity at every 500 total copies (print and e-book) sold to customers.
- Distributors ask for payment from individuals and authors on ordering, and generally accept all credit cards if they have the book in stock. We cannot offset payments against royalties, because the accounts the distributor holds with you are separate from the ones we hold.
- The books you buy with the author discount are non-returnable so it is important that you estimate the quantity you require for events.
- You can sell the books at whatever price you choose.
Most bookstores prefer to order through a wholesaler. The main book wholesalers in the US are Ingram and Baker & Taylor, and in the UK Bertrams and Gardners. Otherwise the bookseller can order through the distributor in their region.
If the bookseller plans to order in quantity for an event or other special promotion, they may need extra discount, delivery by particular day or have other requirements.
Please let us know of any trade orders that you are involved in. We also gauge how many to print by looking at the Marketing page for any Promotion plans and Marketing Activities. Above all please advise any bookstores with which you are in contact to allow us time to replenish stock if necessary. We need at least three weeks’ notice for USA, UK and Europe, more for other countries.
Stores, for whom books are only a small proportion of their stock, may be able to order books through their usual wholesaler.
How to run a promotion to your network at extra discount
Occasionally we offer books at discount to readers or booksellers, or invite authors to offer this to their networks. These offers to authors are only effective for books by several authors with wide ranging and deep networks of potential buyers. Promotions are run at our discretion.
We set up a promotion code and an offer discount and special ordering details with each relevant regional distributor.
To run this promotion authors and Crystal Peake could:
- share with their networks by email or on social media
- add to the end of an article or blog post
- list on a retail order form distributed at conferences, shows and meetings
- include in a newsletter to readers.
Other ordering issues (Inaccurate information, Non-availability, Non-visibility)
We spend a lot of time dealing with queries from people saying the book is not available. Very occasionally, it’s because sales are going faster than we expected, and we’re temporarily out of stock (usually two weeks max.). More often, the answers fall into the following kinds of categories:
Inaccurate information
- Your friend has gone into a local shop asking for something like “it’s by Herron, with two ‘r’s, and it’s got ‘well-being’ in the title.” And they say they cannot find it, without going into more detail. The problem is, there are several hundred books by the surname “Herron,” there are over 10,000 with “well-being” in the title.
- Or they miss out a digit on the ISBN or a letter in the title. This happens with the distributors as well. If someone rings up Ingram for instance quoting the title as Jeremiah rather than Jeremiad they will search and it will show as unavailable. They cannot spend time searching amongst more than 100,000 titles they have in stock. Nielsen and Amazon track around 12 million. A tiny error in the detail and your book may not be found.
Non-availability
Sometimes a bookstore in one part of the world or another complains that they can’t get hold of a book from our distributor. This is usually for one of the following reasons:
- The bookstore does not place backorders. So, for example, a bookstore orders a title from a wholesaler before the wholesaler has received their stock, so the order isn’t fulfilled and it isn’t kept as a backorder.
- Their account is on stop, because they’re late payers.
- They only want to order one copy, and the distributor has a minimum order level of 10 units to obtain the best discount, and the shop is waiting till it gets enough orders to reach 10 copies.
- There’s a freight-free level which the bookshop wants to reach, and the orders are held until they reach that.
- If it’s a chain store, it is usually because they haven’t actually ordered it. Or the store ordered it before publication, but the central office of the stores will not let the distributor hold advance orders, because they do not want those financial commitments to show up in their figures, and they do not want to say that to the person asking.
There’s a raft of similar reasons. Do let us know if you come across any problems. But be precise. Press the shop for details—“Which store? Which manager dealt with your book? What date was the invoice sent? For how many copies? What was the invoice or order reference number?” And send those to us, with the ISBN and title of the book. Distributors get thousands of orders from stores each day. They need the order reference to check. Virtually every time we look into this, the distributor is not at fault.