Confirm trade distribution and terms
Check returnability and trade discount
If you set your own wholesale terms, decide on a trade discount and returns policy that bookstores can work with before you ask any bookstore to stock the book.
Authors often hire help with this: legal or contract, metadata or distribution.
Why it matters
Bookstores order on terms, not on enthusiasm. An author who pitches stores with a short discount and no returns is asking the store to lose money on the book, and the answer will be no, usually silently. Setting the terms before outreach turns bookstore conversations from polite refusals into possible orders.
Your part
- What you do
- Do it. You normally do this yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Author and Distributor. Self-publisher sets terms on the platform; hybrid author asks the press
- When
- Before bookstore outreach, allowing time for changed terms to reach wholesaler systems (Confirm trade distribution and terms: twelve to three months before publication, before preorders open)Checked September 13, 2026
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
When a bookstore orders a book through a wholesaler, two settings decide whether the order is worth its while: the trade discount (the percentage off list price the store pays) and returnability (whether unsold copies can be sent back for credit). Traditional publishers set these at industry-standard levels, typically a discount in the range that lets the store and the wholesaler both take their margins, with returns accepted. Bookstores are used to those terms and often will not stock a book on worse ones.
Self-publishers set these terms themselves on their print-on-demand platform, and the defaults can be wrong for bookstore sales. A low discount leaves the store with almost no margin after the wholesaler's share. A non-returnable setting means the store carries all the risk of unsold copies. Either one is a reason for a store to decline, and they will rarely tell you why.
The trade-off is real. A higher discount and accepting returns reduce your income per copy and expose you to the cost of returned stock, which on print-on-demand can mean paying for copies that come back. Some authors choose bookstore-friendly terms only for the print edition they expect stores to carry, and keep tighter terms elsewhere. There is no single right answer, but there is a wrong one: not knowing what your settings are.
Hybrid authors should ask the press what terms it sets; some hybrid presses use bookstore-standard terms and some do not. Traditionally published authors can skip this item; the publisher controls it.
Common mistakes
- Leaving the platform's default discount and wondering why no store will order.
- Setting returnable without understanding what returned print-on-demand copies cost.
- Changing terms the week of a bookstore pitch, before the wholesaler record updates.
- Assuming a hybrid press uses bookstore-standard terms without asking.
Identifiers for Check returnability and trade discount
Set a status on any record and it joins this step. All book identifiers.
| My status | Identifier | Why this matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ingram The wholesale catalog most bookstores and libraries order from, plus IngramSpark, the self-publishing platform that feeds into it. | This decides whether a bookstore or library can order your book through the channel most of them use, and on what terms, so when a shop says it cannot order your book this is usually where the answer sits. Ingram's data also reaches many retailers and library vendors, so an error in the record can surface in several places. Traditionally and hybrid published authors normally ask whether the title is in Ingram wholesale, at what wholesale discount, and whether it is returnable, since those are the two terms a bookseller checks before ordering; if you publish the book yourself, you set the discount and the return policy in IngramSpark, and both have real money attached. Get the discount and return terms in writing, then check that the title record matches the other major listings. | Nothing to record |
A template for this
Bookstore event inquiryA courteous inquiry to a bookstore's events contact proposing a specific event, with date options, the reason it suits the store's customers, and ordering details.
When to use it: Use this when you have a real connection to a store, or the book has a clear local or subject audience, usually three to four months before the dates you propose. Do not use this when the store publishes an event request form. Use the form and adapt this text for it. Do not use it at all for a store whose customers have no particular reason to want this book.
What done looks like
- Your current discount and returns settings for each print edition looked up and recorded.
- A deliberate decision about whether to use bookstore-standard terms, with the income and returns risk understood.
- Settings changed where needed, allowing for the platform's processing time before they show in wholesaler systems.
- The terms ready to state plainly when a bookstore asks.
- A note of the date and settings in your Book Identity Sheet.
Sources and last checked
- Official source
- No single official page for this step.
- Last checked
- September 13, 2026
- How confident we are
- Verified
Rules and deadlines change. We last checked this information on September 13, 2026. If you see something that needs updating, please tell us.