This is going to be a pretty individualized post, I think, but possibly it will be useful to others? I pay very little attention to the publishing side of this business, even when I'm self-publishing. (I know, I'm bad, but... I just don't care about it.) Anyway, I just discovered Walmart has online book sales, including a Walmart e-book reading app, and I'm wondering how it all works. I see I've got books from publishers on Walmart, and I accept that the publishers made this happen, but some of my self-pubbed books are up as well. I guess I ticked the right box on whatever book distribution thing I use (Smashwords? Or... shit, I don't know. Somebody.). But the part that's confusing me is that I have two self-pubbed books in the same series, and when I click one it says it's sold and shipped by Walmart (https://www.walmart.com/ip/Feral-Book-One-in-the-Shelter-Series/53863099) and when I click the next in the series it says it's sold and shipped by Books Direct (https://www.walmart.com/ip/Lap-Dog-Book-Two-of-the-Shelter-Series/907279484). Now, Books Direct was one of the alternate sources for the first one, so I guess maybe they just put Walmart first, since it's dramatically cheaper directly from Walmart? But then why isn't the second one available from Walmart directly? Does anyone have any experience with this?
If you distribute epub with Kobo your books will wind up available as ebooks from walmart due to Kobo's tie up with Walmart for American operations (that will also apply if you go to kobo via an aggregator like smashwords or draft to digital ) with physical books if you do extended distribution through ingram spark then your books can wind up more or less anywhere that can order from a book catalogue like Gardiners including walmart (and I guess books direct)
Who else does physical book distribution? I'm pretty sure I've never done anything with Ingram Spark.
Amazon KDP print if you do the extended distribution ... Lulu that's about it for the big players in PoD Of course there's any number of printing companies that will do print runs and distribution, but you'd know if that were the case
Now that you mention it, I just found my book on Walmart. That's probably because I published through Draft2Digital as well as KDP.
