Writers Tricks of the Trade Volume 5, Issue 5 | Page 22

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WHAT SMALL PUBLISHERS SHOULD KNOW
ABOUT BIG BOX STORE RETURN POLICY
You have jumped into self-publishing like many authors have these days, or your
book is published by a small press. You dream of seeing your book(s) on the shelves
of Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart and the like. Well, then you need to know
about the return policies for these Big Box stores because it's an important piece of
the book publishing business that few authors (and readers) understand.
Can you think of any other industry where returns are allowed months into the
future if the product doesn’t sell, and in any condition and invoices don’t have to be
paid for months? Well, it is the norm in the publishing industry and should be a
concern to small presses and self-published authors when aspiring to those big
orders. The fact that books are returnable for full credit in the first place, in time
frames that would be unacceptable in almost any other industry, raises the red flag.
For one thing, that policy causes retailers to order quantities of books that have less
chance of selling than a snowball in Hell not melting. And, on the publisher’s side,
one of those big orders from a chain store could be the big score, so they rarely
push back on what might be unrealistic orders because it gets their product in a
position where it might really move.
Stores like Barnes & Noble, Target, Costco and Walmart tend to take large up-front
buys at horribly steep discounts, but every single one of the books they order is
returnable at full tilt. They generally take at least a 60 percent discount, leaving 40
percent to cover the cost of producing the product, shipping and then paying
royalties (in the case of a small publisher) and hopefully posting a profit. With the
likelihood that the book might be returned in large quantities, there has to be a
hold on the royalties, but all of the up-front production and shipping costs have to
be paid by the publisher or self-published author. This can amount to thousands of
dollars, depending upon the size of the order. When news of the big returns come,
many find it’s cheaper to have the unsold books/returns destroyed rather than ship
them back in a undetermined condition, because the also publisher pays to ship
returns. One large, unsold order can sink a small publisher, and be devastating to an
author.

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However, it isn’t all gloom and doom Barnes & Noble isn't quite as bad as a
superstore. You can submit your book through the Small Press Department, and if
they decide to order it the quantities are generally small for the first order and
limited to stores they think the author can interact with to promote the book. Even
if the books don’t sell, so never get paid for, the dollar amount isn’t enough to hurt
that badly. It’s as though you took a gamble and lost. The bad part is publishers
have reported that the books B&N returns are often damaged.

SEPT - OCTOBER 2015

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WRITERS’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE