For many authors and publishers, getting the major chain(s)*to order your book is a sort of Holy Grail.
Unfortunately, my experience (shared by many independent publishers) is that it is very difficult indeed to get the attention of the buyers at Barnes and Noble or Borders. For one thing, money talks: big publishers use co-op dollars to buy those great spots on the front display tables. For another thing, there is just a lot of clutter.
The strategy I have adopted is intended to optimize the cost-effective use of my time, and, to be perfectly candid, to maximize my sense of personal dignity. Over the course of my life, I have found that it is rarely productive to spend too much energy chasing the girl who won’t have your or the dream job that is always just outside your reach. It is usually far better to just be yourself, do your job, and trust that things will work out. If a book is good enough, sells enough, and generates enough customer interest, it will get the chains’ attention, and their buyers will order it. That is their job; that is what they do. And, to be perfectly candid, a book has to be a pretty strong seller on our “micropublishing” scale to break through, but it has happened on several occasions.
Bottom line: focus your energy elsewhere, on the aspects of marketing wjere your efforts are most likely to be cost-effective.
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* I write “chain(s)” because it looks like Borders Group (BGP) is not going to be around very much longer.
** PS — this s is simply my point of view, and reflects only my experience and my situation. As Marion Gropen pointed out in a thread on Pod_publishers a couple of months ago, there are indeed well proven paths for getting the major chains to pick up your book.
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