Re: where to buy books

[Peter Kent <techwr -at- ARUNDEL -dot- COM>]

Eric Ray said:
> Actually, in the world of computer books at least, Pam is right.
> Big bookstore chains get enormous discounts from the
> publisher because of the volume they buy. Most author
> royalties are stepped -- rate 1 for books purchased by
> the small stores at standard price, rate 1/x for books purchased
> by big chains at a deep discount. Most of the books
> sold -- at least on our royalty statements -- are sold to the
> big chains.

> If everyone buying our books bought them at small fry stores,
> we'd do better.

Eric, I thought I'd jump in again and clarify what I said in an earlier msg
on this issue.

I said that an author's cut is dependent on the discount at which the book
was sold; the deeper the discount, the less the author earns, and with very
deep discounts the author's earnings begin to drop dramatically.

However, it's not always possible to figure out what sort of discount the
store is getting. For instance, the large wharehouse stores probably only
get a 50% discount. But that's still more than a small independent bookstore
ordering just a couple of copies directly from the publisher will get (a 40%
discount). On the other hand many small independent bookstores will order
through a wholesaler such as Ingrams, which will get a larger discount than
the big discount store (perhaps 60%). So you can't really tell how much the
author is getting based on the price of the book. While the author's income
depends on the discount given, the discount given is not always directly
related to the price the book buyer pays!

In other words...just buy the book wherever you get the best price and don't
worry about the author's cut! (And I'm a computer-book author, so this is an
important issue to me.)

> Final selling price on the books is a function of how much
> the bookstore paid, but doesn't affect what authors receive.
> That is, we don't take a hit when the books
> are remaindered. If they aren't returned to the publisher as unsold, they
> are
> calculated into royalty statements.

Well, yes and no. A bookstore is highly unlikely to remainder the stock it
bought at a standard discount from the publisher. In other words, a
bookstore won't buy a book at a 40% or 50% discount, try to sell it for six
months, then remainder it at 10% of its value. Rather, they'll return the
book to the publisher for a credit. (Actually, these days books are
generally returned before the bookstore even pays for them; in some cases
bookstores will return books for a credit on their account before they've
even paid for the books, then order the same books a day later so they can
stock them without having to pay for them until they've sold them...but
that's another issue.)

So, when you see remaindered books in a bookstore, these have generally been
sold by the publisher at a huge discount, a discount so large that the
author won't get anything from the sale. For instance, one publisher has
this in its contract: "xxx will not pay royalties on copies of the work that
xxx sells or disposes of at or below bound cost; e.g., the sum of printing,
paper, binding, packing, and transport." (That's a typical clause; all
contracts have something similar to this.) Remaindered books are generally
sold at or below bound cost--they're just clearing out stock--so the author
will generally get nothing from the sale.

Even if a book is sold above the cost of printing, the author still won't
get much, because contracts generally specify large cuts in royalty
percentages when books are sold at very deep discounts. Deep cuts in the
royalty percentage may begin at a 50% discount, though some companies cut
the royalty at 60% discounts. So, for instance, with a 60% discount or
above, the contract may pay no more than 5% of the net receipts. On a $30
book, at a 60% discount, with 5%  net royalty, the author will make 60
cents. On the same book at a more normal 50% discount, the author makes
$1.50.

Anyway, as far as remaindering goes all this is academic, because no royalty
is paid to the author on remaindered copies.

Peter Kent

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Coming in the fall, the revised Technical Writer's Freelancing
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more info. See http://www.arundel.com/techwr for more...
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