Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:
You pitched your book to traditional publishers, far and
wide. You spent years chasing that brass ring, without success. After a while, you
heard that self-pub was the way to go: You can retain control of your book, and
keep more money for yourself. It all seemed so easy, and so promising. Sound
familiar?
But after the first year, the book only sold a few dozen copies.
You were stunned to learn that brick-and-mortar stores wouldn’t stock it. What
went wrong? There are many reasons why bookstores don’t (generally) handle self-pub
books.
Let’s consider the example of a typical 80,000-word romance novel:
