> I am stunned at how large the discounts are for some of the big celeb names. I’ve seen new children’s titles offered to us at up to 60% discount. This is very

> I am stunned at how large the discounts are for some of the big celeb names. I’ve seen new children’s titles offered to us at up to 60% discount. This is very tempting for retailers because we can sell them at full price and make a tidy profit. If you list your book on Ingram Spark (as I did), you have to choose a retail price and a discount for every country they sell in. You're given the printing cost, and it's quite possible, if you do it wrong, for your book to end up with a negative profit margin in some countries. From memory, the usual discount is 55% and (I guess) if you offer the retailer less, they just don't stock it. Of course, that assumes they'd stock your book anyway. That's why this is just a meaningless game to me. They warn you about negative profits, of course. You fix the problem by making the "retail price" even higher. Of course, you have no idea what the bookstore is actually selling it for. It's interesting to hear that some big publishers get around that by taking a loss on the book. I suppose they do that to get shelf space. (Maybe someone who understands book publishing better than I do can explain it?)