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?

Why is there an official Christian distributor?

Actually that question is designed to make new Christian (non-affiliated) publishers think. I spoke with an up and coming publisher yesterday who, when I asked, said they were considering going with STL(Send the Light or something like I thinkt.) I asked the publisher if they understood that this distributor primarily sent your book out to CBA affiliated bookstores. The publisher said they were actually considering paying to become a member of CBA.

To that I said, "so you desire to write targeted evangelical, preach-to-the-choir fiction for CBA's core market audience and not for the general market of Christians which is the larger audience?"

That brings me back around to why are there so many Christian distributors. Well actually there is only one. Spring Arbor. Spring Arbor started out as CBA's exclusive distributor then CBA sold Spring Arbor to Ingram. Frustrated (according to several blogs I found which you can google for yourself and find or scroll back through my blogs here and find) MANY CBA affiliated bookstores were LIVID!

You have to remember, part of that fee a publisher pays to CBA ensures that member books are automatically flooded onto member bookstore shelves. Actually in the beginning and even now ONLY CBA member publishers could get into an affiliated Christian bookstores. Duh! That's why CBA was formed so CBA could provide targeted fiction to Baptist Bookstore visitors because the usual fiction often written by authors of faith was too "secular."

When Christian bookstores learned that Spring Arbor would not adhere to their exclusivity rules and would in fact approve non-affiliated Christian work . . . guess what happened? All of a sudden or maybe slowly over time, quite a few OTHER Christian distributors started popping up. Guess who they shop your work out to? Why affiliated Christian bookstores of course and if you're not affiliated with CBA the stores they shop you out to will never take your work. They don't tell publishers this when they sign on or at least that's been my experience. They just take your money and then come back with all kinds of reasons why the "Christian" bookstores they shopped you out to won't take your book. And some of the reasons border on insane. My first publisher was told once by their "Christian" distributor that Family Christian didn't want their book because they didn't like the color blue on the cover?

The solution to the publisher I talked to, before I explained my experiences with "Christian" distributors was to join CBA. It seemed by the time I finished talking to them that they might actually reconsider or at least talk to a few other publishers who've already been this route.

I sure hope so.

Spring Arbor is the official Christian Distributor. They accept ALL work by authors of faith for many different Christian readers. They can get you into ANY Christian bookstore for absolutely free. They can't get you into affiliated bookstores who provide targeted fiction for a very exclusive targeted audience.

Bottom line is that to succeed in publishing as a publisher you better dang well know your market.

Addendum: Interesting comment left on this blog (see comment by clicking) to correct the "insinuation" that CBA owned Spring Arbor. Perhaps I might've been clearer on that but it truly wasn't the point of this blog. That's right. CBA doesn't OWN and never OWNED Spring Arbor though I have in the past written it out like that. Sorry and thanks for clearing that up? Spring Arbor at one time was CBA's exclusive distributor OWNED by someone else I guess. The fact is they were exclusive and didn't provide anything but CBA member books to CBA member bookstores. Several other distributors have tried to pick up where they left off but are failing miserably (oops. That's another opinion I guess.) Spring Arbor is the distributor to the official Christian market but no they can't automatically get you in to affiliated Christian bookstores. But neither can CBA member distributors . . . unless you pay to be affiliated with CBA. ;)