Well, well, well. When I find something like this while "googleing" it makes me feel as though I were panning for gold and found it. My book on publishing will be a resource for information such as this. Click on the excerpt to go to the site where so much is explained:
What's the deal with returns?
Back in the Depression, when bookstores were going under right and left, publishers realized they had to do something radical to keep booksellers in business. They came up with the idea of returns—a system whereby any bookseller may return any book, with little regard for how long the book was kept or what condition it was in. No one told the book business the Depression ended 70 years ago. We still have a system that—not to put too fine a point on it—sucks. Few other industries operate on what amounts to a giant consignment scheme.
Myself and a few of my friends would like to change the last word in this excerpt to SCAM and not scheme.
This site also explains about "hurt" books or books returned from bookstores. LSI, my current POD publisher states in their operation PDF that your "hurt" book will be returned to you. However, when you ask why you are never given this option, LSI explains that it's because they destroy your "hurt" book and send you a new one for $2.00 waiving the printing fee.
Apparently POD presses like LSI and LSI themselves have decided that it isn't prudent to follow what it written in their own operations manual. They claim the wording just needs to be changed and why wouldn't someone want a new book anyway for just $2.00. Well, because that's one way a publisher can recoup some of their loss? DUH!
If anyone knows of a distributor who will actually make sure you get your "hurt" book back, I'd love to know about them. ;)
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