THE INDIE PRESS NETWORK GUIDE

Distribution

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Distribution is really one of the most vital aspects of your business – it’s the method by which your books get to market. Whilst it doesn’t have the same glamorous reputation as Marketing and Publicity, it’s important to get it right from the outset to make sure your readers can actually buy your books.

The options: visualised

The ‘traditional route’ (as marked with light-blue arrows above) is for the publisher to print copies, send them to a book distributor, who then supplies retailers both directly and via a wholesaler (Gardners). But there are other options, and we go through the routes and implications in this post.

Contents

This is a long post – jump to:

Self-distribution | Working with a Distributor | POD | Printer Distribution Services/Storage Schemes | Other Routes and Overseas Options | Implications | Resources

The DIY approach: self-distribution

Do I need a distributor? Can’t I do it myself?

There is no hard-and-fast rule that says you can’t do your own distribution, but if you’re thinking of doing your own distribution, think hard about all that entails.

In general, it’s the very small, often new publishers and the very large publishers who are able to run their own distribution. If you’re just starting out, you have one or two titles and you only want to sell to bookshops you already have a relationship with, you could absolutely distribute yourself.

What this entails is choosing your printing option and, realistically, setting up a relationship with a wholesaler (Gardners) to liaise with retailers on your behalf. The pro is there’s no middle-man to pay; the con is it’s much more work for you, and you need to store the books…

Working with a distributor

Using ‘the traditional model’

Many indie presses run on far fewer staff than is really comfortable, and there just isn’t the time to be boxing up books, invoicing, processing returns, chasing non-payment, etc. – or the room to house so many books!

Most will find that outsourcing your distribution to a specialist book distributor will free up much of your time, and will provide you with an invaluable relationship for getting books to customers on time. With dedicated resources, their warehouse will likely have better conditions than your cellar or shed for storing books; they will have the flexibility to meet rises or droops in demand; and in an ever-changing marketplace, particularly with post-Brexit legislation changing the way distribution over borders operates, their specialist knowledge will be important.

Which distribution company should I use?

If you’ve made the decision to use a distributor, do a little homework about who looks best for you. Go with a specialist distributor (even if a craft-glue or dairy distributor offers to take you on, it’s a very different industry, so won’t do you much good), and have a look at their publishing clients. There aren’t loads of companies around, so it shouldn’t take you too long. We’ve added a short list below (which aren’t necessarily recommendations), but if you’re a member of the IPG you might find that they have a more extensive list. You can also find out who distributed presses in the Indie Press Network here – most will be happy to discuss their experience.

Distributors will likely have requirements for application – they might want you to have a list of two or three titles, say, or some of the bigger distributors might want you to have hundreds or a high turnover.

Think about what you want from your distributor – do you want a basic service, or are you looking for a company that also does sales representation? Also does print on demand? UK and Ireland only or also Europe? Worldwide?

It’s also important to note that not all distributors want to hold physical stock – if you only want to do print on demand, this might make your choice easier, but if you want to print and hold copies you’ll want to check this first.

Bear in mind that, while it might feel like ‘the bigger the better’ in terms of market resilience or reach, a distributor isn’t your sales rep (although some do include marketing activities, and some do offer both services!), and a small indie distributor probably also has a good bookshop client base – and it’s worth thinking about whether it’s important to you to be able to swing by and collect your books in person too.

On the other hand, if you just want everything to be as slick as possible, maybe you’re after a more automated system where there’s perhaps less room for human error?

And of course, we live in an era where we cannot ignore the environmental implications of business. Look into what your shortlist of distributors are doing – look past the greenwashing. Are they using renewable energy? Using ‘responsible deliveries’?

What terms should I expect to see in a distribution contract?

What might initially come as a surprise is you shouldn’t expect to be paid immediately. Distributors stagger payments slightly – usually by three months or so – meaning that sales made in January will likely be paid to you at the beginning of May.

They should, irrespective of this, inform you of sales every month (and/or via an online portal so you can check live or near-live sales data).

You will be paid for your sales, minus distribution charge (plus VAT), minus your sales representation fee (if you have it, and also plus VAT). (If you’re setting up a company now, do consider registering for VAT (of course discuss this with your accountant). For the most part small presses are selling zero-rated goods (books, not services) and paying VAT, so as long as you don’t mind the work you can reclaim VAT every few months.)

Usually your distributor charges for their service irrespective of returns, so if a bookshop returns a few copies six months down the line they won’t refund the deductions for their service.

In terms of the distribution charge itself, this will be slightly different if you’re talking about print on demand as well (which you should consider as printing plus distribution charges), but in general a distributor will charge somewhere between 10% and 20% of sales. (Bear in mind that distributors’ bills have gone up hugely with staffing, heating, lighting costs, and many have passed on increases recently rather than going bust.)

You might find you’re able to barter, and bring the cost down a bit, but so long as you’ve got quotes from several distributors (as you would when getting quotes for any services, be it printing a book or getting a tap replaced), you’ll get an idea of what the average is.

Ask about other services – are there any additional fees? Storage charges over a certain volume? Handling fees for returns? Carriage charges for gratis orders? Slow-selling title surcharges?

POD

Print on Demand/POD

Finally, there are other options – worldwide print-on-demand wholesalers, for example, who give international retailers access to your back catalogue – perhaps best known in this arena is Ingram Spark/Lightning Source. The big pro here is of course zero-inventory (so you’re not tying cash up in stock); but it comes at the cost of a high unit cost, and you’ll find that you’re not able to extend booksellers as generous a discount (anecdotally presses find that, if they offer a wholesale discount of, say, 40%, the POD supplier will take a cut, so the bookshop buying at the other end will have some 10–15% lower discount), which can lower sales.

Printer storage and distribution schemes

More recently, various printers have started offering a storage/distribution service, which offer variations on a theme, allowing publishers to ship their stock direct from the printer, usually to Gardners. See our dedicated page for this growing offering, here.

Some of these schemes require you to make your own consignment agreement with Gardners (we can put you in contact with someone who knows about the schemes), while other printers own the consignment agreement – the distinction is of course important. On the one hand, owning your own consignment agreement means you have more control (and likely pay less to the middle-man); while on the other hand a managed service means less work for you. If in doubt, speak to both, get the numbers, speak to presses who use the schemes.

Overseas distribution and alternatives

When you’re slightly more established you might start looking for a distributor in different markets. It’s worth noting that different territories have different expectations of books – you might think, for instance, it makes sense to make a distribution agreement for North America, but you should remember that American and British readers are used to different formats of books, and we have different spelling and punctuation conventions, so it’s worth thinking about this hard before putting too much time or resources into it.

Most UK distributors will limit their contract to the home market – UK and Ireland – although some will also factor in Europe. Most will allow you to process orders through them internationally if you want, so it’s worth thinking about whether you need another distributor.

There are also environmental factors to consider in shipping books around the planet, so make sure this is a big part of your planning.

The implications

When you’re making the decision about which route is best for you, it’s likely a huge decision, and will impact the shape of your business for a long time to come. If you opt for POD distribution, you can later switch to the ‘traditional route’; but it’s far harder to do the reverse, if you’ve signed an exclusive distribution contract and have lots of copies of your books in a warehouse somewhere.

‘Availability codes’ also impact sales. If you know how certain ISBNs are printed (if a title has been printed by a POD company it usually has a barcode and information on the final page of the text block) you can search Gardners’ website to see what the ‘availability code’ is. The gold standard is ‘Available: N copies in stock’. If a book is only available via print on demand then it will likely answer as ‘Extended Catalogue’, and since returns are usually impossible or expensive via POD, most presses switch off returns, triggering a ‘firm sale’ code to appear too. While there’s no research available to presses on how availability codes influence sales, most agree anecdotally that ‘firm sale’ and ‘Extended Catalogue’ put off booksellers, who like to be able to return copies, even if they don’t use the facility.

Perhaps the most important considerations are:

  • Financial – can you afford to print and hold stock, or do you need a zero-inventory approach?
  • Costs – if you expect big sales (an educated guess, rather than high hopes – most presses overprint in their early years), higher print runs equals lower unit costs.
  • How reactive will your stock need to be? If you plan to print little and often, perhaps a printer storage scheme is best for you, if costs are attractive, rather than relying on the slow turnaround of bigger runs and POD?


Resources

A selection of UK book distributors 

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE
Last updated: 19th August 2026
Author(s): Will Dady, Renard Press