Ha ha, that's honestly the best part: There's an entire infrastructure already set up and waiting for publishers to utilize it. I'm gonna lay out exactly what I do, here. https://twitter.com/LoneWolf343/status/1199532121901223937
- There are two systems, NetGalley and Edelweiss+, that are basically distro points for PDFs of upcoming books. People with access-- often reviewers, librarians, and bulk purchasers for chains-- can read them, and the systems tells you how many people are reading them.
- And there are long lead and short lead ARCs (advance reader copies), which you mail out to the same sort of people who would sue NG and E+, but a lot of them only accept hard copies. Ideally, the long leads are in people's hands 6-to-8 months before pub date.
ARCs are like the finished book, but they have info in the front about why you should buy them, who the book is for, etc., general promo stuff. They're also, occasionally, not-fully-finished; half-colored, last half is pencils only, etc., because sometimes, the book isn't done!
A couple of months before release, journal reviews come out, which are, like... the epitome of The Thing You Didn't Know You Should Care About. These are places like School Library Journal, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Foreword, etc.
The best comparison I can make is JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association). It's important, but unless you're a doctor? You don't read it, don't know what's in there. Those books are like that, but for librarians and bookstore owners/buyers.
Anyway, good reviews in those journals are a big boost. And STARRED reviews-- They literally have a little star by the title in the review header-- are absolutely awesome. It means the reviewer thinks your book is a cut above, a must-have.
Here, for example, is a starred review for the upcoming @ironcircuscomix book "Banned Book Club," from Booklist.
(In general, the more starred reviews you have, the better it is for you. Three seems to be the magic number that opens the floodgates, in my experience.)

FWIW, Kirkus, considered by many the top dog, has a program called Kirkus Indie, where they'll review your book for a fee.
The Good: That means even your self-published book can have a bona fide KIRKUS REVIEW, which may grant it access to libraries and bookstores the world over!

The Bad: It'll cost you +$400, and if you don't have distribution already set up and easy to access, may be for naught.
Publishing is CROWDED, and purchasing budgets are finite. Librarians/chain buyers/etc. often use journal reviews to the separate the chaff from the grain, because while by nature they're book lovers, reading everything would be impossible.
And recently, a VERY EXCITING THING happened (if you're a publisher), and the American Library Association formed the GNCRT: The Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table.

Basically, a group of librarians who advise on "collection development." They tell libraries what to buy.
And lemme tell ya, if a book you're publishing goes on a list the GNCRT sends out to +100,000 libraries, labeled "THE ALA RECOMMENDS YOU BUY THIS?"

Yeah, you're gonna be alright. It's a good day.
The downside to all of this, BTW: This all costs money. Printing and mailing ARCs, having digital ARCs hosted (And frankly, it's the bare minimum a publisher should do for you). And if a book takes off, having enough copies on hand to fill demand? That's a layout, too.
I ABSOLUTELY do not recommend someone self-publishing attempt to engage with this infrastructure. Doing it for one book a year (let's pretend that's the assumed maximum a single creator can manage) wouldn't make sense, and wouldn't see a return that made it worth the effort.
ICC books headed for national/international distro all get this treatment, and it's thousands of dollars a title. I can bear it because the cost is shared among the 10-15 books I publish yearly. A single creator would probably be crushed trying to keep up.
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