From Elsewhere
From
elsewhere in these boards:
ByGrace said:
Say Bantam publishes a romance novel by Lovey Dovey. It's placed in bookstores across the US. Some don't sell. The covers are ripped off. (I don't understand that.) Then the books are sent back to who? Ingram or Bantam? I doubt it would be Bantam.
A better person to ask would be Hapi -- but Hapi hasn't been back much since we changed to the new board.
Anyway, this is how it works....
First, the ones that have their covers ripped off are the mass market paperbacks. The reason they have their covers ripped off is to prove that they didn't sell. This is because, for the purposes of distribution, mass market paperbacks are specialized magazines. Mass market piggybacks on the distribution system developed to get newspapers and magazines into bus stations and drugstores. You wouldn't send back last week's TV Guide (and expect to sell it somewhere else). The system of ripping off magazines' covers and newspapers' mastheads extends to the paperbacks.
Often times the books that have been on wire-rack spinners aren't in salable condition anyway, even if they are returned. And it is quite literally true that it's cheaper to print a new copy than it is to ship an old copy back, inspect it to see if it's still salable, and restock it into a warehouse somewhere.
The covers are torn off, and the physical books go into the Dumpster out back. (Sometimes, in major cities, you'll see guys on the sidewalks selling paperbacks arranged on blankets, all face-down. They're selling them for a quarter a copy or something -- current best sellers even. If you look at those books, they all have their covers torn off. Those are from someone Dumpster diving, looking for money for wine.
That's mass market. Those are the books you see in grocery stores in the wire-rack spinners. (You will, of course, also see them in bookstores -- but this system was developed when bookstores were still rare.)
Oftentimes these days, the merchant doesn't even physically send back the ripped-off covers. They just sign an affidavit swearing the books were destroyed.
Next come the trade books. Those are the trade paperbacks and the trace cloth (hardback) books. (They're called "trade" because they're designed for the "book trade" rather than the "mass market.")
Those are whole-copy returnable. The trade paperbacks are sturdier than the mass market books. They are, in effect, cheaply bound trade cloth.
Those books, when they don't sell, are put in boxes and sent back to the warehouse they came from. Which is either the publisher's warehouse or the distributor's warehouse. The printer isn't involved. The distributor or the publisher then uses those same books to fill other orders.
(Note: "Trade" paperbacks aren't determined by size or price. There exist "rack size trade paperbacks" which are visually identical to mass market paperbacks. The difference between trade and mass market is what happens to the copies that don't sell.)
And where is the money in all this? Except for the money that comes in at the cash register from sold books, there isn't any. All the returns and stripped books become credit for the bookstore's next order. In effect, a returned book magically becomes a different physcial book, a book that
might sell where this one
didn't.
Please notice that readers, and what they pick up and pay money for, drive this system.
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ByGrace said:
Isn't it just a matter that the publisher would not get payment for unsold copies, and that Ingram or Lightning Source would take the loss on printing the book?
I missed this part of the question.
The distributor and the printer both get paid, by the publisher. Neither take a loss on an unsold book. The only people who are taking a risk are the publishers. Bookstores aren't taking a risk -- the books are returnable. Printers aren't taking a risk -- publishers pay them directly. Distributors aren't taking a risk -- publishers give them a percentage of the price of the book for each copy that moves through them. The authors aren't taking a risk -- they're paid in advance.
And that's the way it should be. Publishers take the risk because they selected the book, they edited it, they produced it, they marketed it. And the readers, seeing that book on the shelf know that the publisher is standing behind it. That somewhere there's an editor who's saying "I'm betting the company's money that you'll enjoy this book. If I'm wrong, I'll get fired."
Readers don't get that feeling with vanity books. There, they hear the author saying "My mom thinks this book is swell. Even if it sucks, she's still my mom."
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You keep hearing self-published authors tell one another that they have to believe in their books: That'll make the readers believe in their books too.
But where is the author who doesn't believe in his own book? The reader is looking for something that will tell him that
someone else besides the author believes in this book.
When a reader enters a bookstore, he's the most selfish guy in the world. He isn't thinking "Today I'll give a new author a chance!" -- he's thinking "What would I enjoy?" It's all about the reader. The reader's motto might as well be, "Yeah, but what's in it for
me?"
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A minor gripe:
Guys: "Sale" is a noun. "Sell" is a verb.
You don't say "I'm going to sale my books." You don't say "How many sells did you get?"
Nouns. Verbs. This is basic English. If you're shaky on grammar your local bookstore is full of review and study workbooks.