Distribution is key--if you can get it.

It's not a matter of proving this so much as it is educating those not involved in publishing (as in publishing novels.) Actually, those involved in publishing need educating too in many instances.

Here's an example. I pinged an international publisher recently (trust me, saying one is international isn't the same as saying "I run with the big boys" or even come close. Far from it. At any rate, they attempt to act like the "big boy" publishers.

They were open for submissions and I'm always open for anyone who has achieved some level of distribution through the corporate bookstores that doesn't come back to bite the publisher and author in the butt.

I explained that I technically have distribution through a "non-distributor" distributor, specifically Ingram's Lightning Source (it isn't distribution if you never see your returned-from-the-bookstore book again,) but I was always searching for that less-than-large publisher who has managed to work a viable contract or deal of distribution with the larger bookstores that hasn't been achieved yet.

Here was their response:

(name of company) print books are all fully returnable, because if we don't allow them to be so, booksellers generally won't stock them.

I'm not quite sure what you're looking for, but it might be that, because of this policy, (name of company) doesn't suit your needs at this time.

If you would like us to consider a manuscript, though, you're very welcome to submit one.

So sad. 

I explained in return what I was looking for and asked to know who they used for distribution so I could decide whether it was worth my time to send them an MS. But the the first line of their response pegs how they distribute. 

The large corporate bookstores made a deal with large publishers back in the day, when large publishers were the only publishers. It stated, in effect, that they did NOT have to pay to return the massive inventory of books they'd order from publishers to help quell some of the cost of on-hand inventory for publishers. That has morphed into large corporate bookstores sending books back hand over fist which is an okay policy if you can snap a "large" distributor which isn't easy to do because it all comes down to sales which a small publisher can't possibly generate given the current state of affairs. 

Ingram's Lightning Source and Amazon's Create Space, two of the larger distributors for "small press" (technically non-distributors) never get the returned-from-the-bookstore books back if you play along and make it returnable. LSI will "print you a new copy" for a sizable fee which they say is to cover shipping of a book that is never shipped. The publisher is then out the cost of the book, the cost to print the book and the money they made . . . before the bookstore decided to send it back because they can.

Such is the state of publishing. 

*le sigh*