Last year just before BookExpo America, Ingram Book Company announced that smaller publishers would have to have a distributor of record in order to continue to do business through them.

As a new self-published author, how many books should you really expect to sell a month? How long should it take for your books to start generating significant sales volume? What’s the fastest way to find thousands of people who would gladly sell and buy your book? Listen to our interview with the father of Guerrila Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson as he discusses the most important things you need to know about selling your books.

Everything I’ve learned about self-publishing I’ve learned from my authors who have sent me their books to edit, design, and follow through to marketing success.

Too many independent publishers use the Christopher Columbus method of planning. They do not know where they are going. When they get there they do not know where they are.

There are four stages in the life of every book: writing, producing (printing & binding), distributing and promoting. Each step is a uniquechallenge and each challenge must be met. Authors write and promote, publishers produce and distribute and self-publishers do all four. Now let’s look at distribution.

“To really get bookstore attention, you need to do a fancy PR campaign,” someone advised me. “It can cost $10,000 a month!” But I got attention—and sales—from every bookstore in the country. My monthly expenditure? $50.

I’ll try to not get involved with a lot of techno-babble in answering this question. Let it just suffice to say that the printer wants to be able to say, with certainty, that “It is not my fault” when a problem appears on a proof.