Quest for best seller means lots of returned books

Anonymous Patron writes “Quest for best seller means lots of returned books: Originally from The Wall Street Journal on book returns (not the kind outside your library). Returns are the dark side of the book world, marking not only failed expectations, but the crippling inefficiencies of an antiquated business. It’s a problem that’s only getting worse. The industry’s current economic model pushes publishers to generate a small number of blockbuster hits. But picking winners is a quixotic enterprise, and as publishers ship an ever-increasing number of books to stores, hoping to hit the jackpot every time, stores are sending an ever-increasing number back.”

June 4, 2005 by Uncategorized 3

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3 Responses

  1. Bibliofuture says:
    June 4, 2005 at 11:50 am

    Taxes and Books
    I heard once that publishers were not keeping books in their warehouses because of a tax decision about taxing inventory that gave incentive not to keep books around that were not selling quickly. I did some research and found that the tax case was called “Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue”. I found this article that people may find interesting How Thor Power Hammered Publishing

    Reply
  2. birdie says:
    June 4, 2005 at 2:45 pm

    It’s a fact of bookselling these days
    This is sadly true, and tolerated but hated by the bookselling community. The big wholesalers order thousands of books of one (big) title, and dozens or hundred of (smaller) titles. They warehouse them (mostly in La Vergne TN), returning whatever doesn’t sell to the publishers sometimes after a year or even two. Of course then the pubs have to credit the wholesalers. Most often the books are slammed around, damaged, dusty, bent, sometimes even run over by fork lifts etc. And then you get the books that were out for a few months on the shelves (at big box stores, Walmart, toys R Us, etc.) that little children have scribbled in while their parents weren’t looking. These too go back to the pubs. And of course they all have price tags, stickers, decals etc. stuck on them with gooey stuff which never seems to come off. I have even experienced the wholesalers charging additional money for “warehousing” the publishers books for these two years (these being two years when the publishers could have sold the books to someone else). It’s an awful horrible racket, and if you want to play the publishing game and succeed financially, you have to play.

    Little publishers don’t have much of a chance.

    Reply
  3. GregS* says:
    June 4, 2005 at 6:10 pm

    dazed and confused
    What happened to print-on-demand? Why should publishers bother printing huge quantities of a title or wholesalers bother buying huge quantities when they can just print/buy smaller runs and print what they need when they need it? Why doesn’t B&N and Costco just have books on display with a big fancy printer in the back ready to spit out the book of your choice? Would this work with the new Harry Potter coming out? No. Would it work with the majority of books being published? I think so.

    “In most other industries, manufacturers don’t have to take back products that don’t sell. If a department store can’t move a line of clothing, for example, the items are pitched at lower prices.”

    I got a kick out of that. Books as slaves to fashion. There’s a humbling moment.

    Reply

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