I figured the mystery out concerning Books-A-Million.

Several months ago I was surprised to learn that my local BAM had over 15 of my book Forever Richard in their local store when I'd just been told they could no longer order the title. They'd previously ordered 10 at my request and sold them all!

Confused because my publisher, at the time, had distribution through BookMasters a division of Atlas Books, I began to do a little investigating. I love search engines (so far google is my favorite.) This is what I learned and yes it is quite disturbing. No surprise that it points back to that return policy put together between publishers of the day to keep Bookstores alive during the depression.

First off you have to remember that distributors, when a publisher signs on, has "supposed" concessions on how to handle "hurt" or rather returned-from-the-bookstore books. For BookMasters (I called before possibly signing on with them) it is to take the "hurt" book and place those books in a special place in inventory for publishers to decide what to do with them. Remember, a publisher is charged a fee by distributors when "hurt" books come back on top of having to return the wholesale price of the book to the bookstores. For the record and from experience I can tell you that BookMasters does not operate the way they suggest they do. If they did I wouldn't have received a boxload of "hurt" books when I ordered new ones, "hurt" books that were signed and dated by me and with Barnes & Noble's stickers blatantly on the front. They sent out "hurt" books as new, books my publishers already paid fees on. My publisher had no knowledge of this, suggesting that BookMasters indeed places "hurt" books somewhere but not in a place where publishers have a choice about what happens to them. But back to the point.

American Wholesale Book Company is one of the places where Books-A-Million shops for books. If you go to American Wholsale's web site you will find that they ONLY sell "hurt" books! I read this several times to make sure that is what it said.

What does that mean?

That everyone makes money off an author's book but the author or the publisher.

In every instance that I've seen a distributor will either tell you that your "hurt" book is destroyed (LSI for example) or that your "hurt" book is placed in a special place for the publisher to do with it what they will. The reality seems to be that, since it cost to have "hurt" books returned from the wholesaler (or rather Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon etc . . . ) the distributors opt not to allow this to happen. A publisher, even if they ask, is NEVER allowed to see the "hurt" book again.

The "hurt" book, in some cases supposedly destroyed, ends up on bookstore shelves or for sale on-line (and yes, I have proof as I was sold "hurt" books as new by BookMasters.) The "hurt" books seem to be shopped out to places such as American Wholesale Book Company by "someone," (most likely the wholesaler ie . . . Ingram, Baker & Taylor) who has no need for the "hurt" books that most distributors opt not to take back.

Knowing this now helps me understand why BAM can't get Never Ceese for their brick and mortar bookstores. I made the book non-returnable thus making it so I can have no "hurt" books for distributors to "steal."

Those copies of Forever Richard in Books-A-Million can only be "hurt" books. My publisher nor I ever saw any money off those books. We only lost money.

The fact that there wholesalers and distributors operate like this all day long with no one calling them on it, makes me sick to my stomach!

Tum's anyone?