Yes! The final edit has been completed, and the ms. is now enroute to production. I suppose I will see the proofs soon.
I also asked my publisher about distribution and also the "Search Inside The Book" feature on Amazon.
My publisher believes that samples are icing on a cake. It's rather time consuming and they don't see real benefits in doing so. I can understand the time consuming part, but I do think people want to read samples when they buy online, especially if the author is someone with whom they're not familiar. That's why I'm putting up a sample chapter on my website. So far, a few people have read the sample and told me that they definitely are looking forward to reading my book when it comes out. So I do think sample chapters are good sales tool.
As far as distribution goes, it's good to know that it's on my publisher's agenda this year, and they're in talks with a few distributors at this point.
For those who are not familiar with the difference between distributors and wholesalers, here's a short explanation.
A distributor gets the books into bookstores. They usually have a sales force, and they help push the chains or individual stores to order books from their catalogs. A good distributor has connections with major chains or stores nationwide, and they have a dedicated sales force. They also take a sizeable cut from the sales. While the publisher runs a risk of getting their profits significantly cut down (the distributor gets a cut, no matter if the books are returned or not), they also improve their sales by getting their books into bookstores nationwide. Most people still buy books at stores.
A wholesaler like Ingram, on the other, only makes the books available for the stores to order. They don't go out and push the books or advertise them. In a way, they're just big warehouses. So it's a passive system. For a book seller to order the books, the publisher needs to do more work in PR, advertising or employing their own sales staff.
