A company hired by a publisher to make the publisher's books available to the trade (ie: bookstores and wholesalers), often taking the place of a sales and fulfillment department for the publisher. Like a wholesaler (whose responsibility is to the stores and libraries it serves), a distributor takes and fills orders, but also (theoretically) creates a demand for titles by using sales representatives. In this respect, a distributor's primary responsibility is to the publisher. Distributors either have staff sales representatives or commissioned sales reps that travel to bookstore accounts to sell publications. Distributors also sell to larger accounts, such as chain bookstores and wholesalers. Distributors charge a percentage of sales revenues for their services; the general range is 20% to 40% of net sales (ie: after discounts given to bookstores). They may demand other charges, such as fees for catalog listing, trade show display, return processing, warehousing, and shipping/handling. They may offer marketing services (for a higher percentage or a fee). Payment terms can be as long as 120 days. Distributors often ask for some kind of exclusivity in sales territory. You can often work out a deal where you are allowed to sell directly to Small Press Distribution, however. If there is a certain type of venue that you feel can be better reached by someone else (comic book stores, gift stores, etc), by all means negotiate the freedom to sell to those directly in your contract. See audience, audit, wholesaler.