Part two prompted some very interesting comments but none are more revealing than the one posted by my publisher who has been there and back. Since comments to blogs are almost better than the blog itself I will post my publishers response here. Just know I was actually considering going the route my publisher went after talking with the distributor they went with until that distributor couldn't promise me any help if books came back unsellable. The only thing the distributor would say is that she would GUESS that only 5% were ever returned damaged. If that's true then explain why my current publisher is now being charged over $900 for one month for returned books. Now I'm no expert at math but that sounds like a LOT more than 5%!!!!
Without further ado, my publishers' comment:
What really gets my goat is damaged returns to the distributor. Neither I nor my authors is physically responsible for the damaged book! yet, who sucks up the cost?
The distributor stores the book, they package and mail it to the buyer. Somewhere in this process a book is damaged. I pay for a) original fulfillment fee, b) the book printing, c) reimburse the buyer for what they paid, d) pay the distributor for their return admin fee and, e) have one less book to sell. And, I haven't even touched the darn book -- I pay the distributor to do it.
Perhaps the "damage" occurred in the printing? well, most of my books are printed by the same company that distributes them. But, I don't see them offering to eat the damaged return.
For a small publisher, it is the middle man that reaps the benefits -- not the bookstores or the publisher/ author.
All I can say is: What a RACKET! Must be nice to be able to pull this kind of SCAM and have it be legal. How do the people who do this to small publishers and authors sleep at night? I'm sure they're laughing all the way to the bank. And the only way to fight it is if ALL authors and publishers LEAVE the system. Cut off the distributors and middle men completely. No Ingram. No Baker & Taylor. No Atlas. No BookMasters. No nobody.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I know. Never happen. Not as long as we have big publishers like Random House with a monopoly on the big-name authors. But if one big-name would break out, say... Tom Clancy, Stephen King, or John Grisham... self-publish and make deals direct with bookstores and individuals, but refuse to do business with distributors or accept returns by the old rules, man, the whole thing would collapse like a house of cards.