Read and Return
29/5/07 10:20![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madrobinsOkay, I wrote about this elsewhere, but it's still gnawing on me.
At the airport in Cincinnati on the way home, I came upon a Paradies bookstore that was advertising a "Read and Return" program. I didn't have time to ask the questions I would have liked to ask; maybe someone trundling through here knows more than I?
* The program write up says: buy a book in Anchorage (for example), read it, and return it within six months (with sales receipt, of course) for a 50% refund. As a reader I say: cool. As a writer, maybe not so much so.
* Given that chain bookstores generally get their books at about 50% of cover price, this suggests that they're making no money if someone returns a book. I suspect they're relying on sloth (my favorite deadly sin) and disorganization: people buy books intending to return them, but forget, or aren't done with them when they're near a Paradies store, or give them to Aunt Myrtle instead. That would keep the losses down to a minimum.
* But some people must be returning the books. What happens to them? Are they resold as new? (That would be Wrong, but Wrong doesn't always stop corporations. I'm not saying Paradies is reselling them as new, I'm just curious.) Are they taken off to a deep-discount remainder bookstore and sold there?
* It's also not clear to me whether this program extends to all books or just to bestsellers, hardcovers, trade paperbacks. I mean, you can return a hardcover with nary a mark on it, if you're the tidy sort. But it's hard to read a paperback--especially a fat, juicy airplane read--without cracking the spine. And (I hang my head in shame) I dog-ear. Will they accept dog-earred books? (Imagining, briefly, the Dog Ear Police, thumbing through, tut-ing angrily.)
This program has been in operation for several years. I haven't heard any outrage from SFWA or MWA or much of anyone else, which suggests that no one thinks the writers are getting gypped out of anything. But I sure would love to know the mechanics of the program.
At the airport in Cincinnati on the way home, I came upon a Paradies bookstore that was advertising a "Read and Return" program. I didn't have time to ask the questions I would have liked to ask; maybe someone trundling through here knows more than I?
* The program write up says: buy a book in Anchorage (for example), read it, and return it within six months (with sales receipt, of course) for a 50% refund. As a reader I say: cool. As a writer, maybe not so much so.
* Given that chain bookstores generally get their books at about 50% of cover price, this suggests that they're making no money if someone returns a book. I suspect they're relying on sloth (my favorite deadly sin) and disorganization: people buy books intending to return them, but forget, or aren't done with them when they're near a Paradies store, or give them to Aunt Myrtle instead. That would keep the losses down to a minimum.
* But some people must be returning the books. What happens to them? Are they resold as new? (That would be Wrong, but Wrong doesn't always stop corporations. I'm not saying Paradies is reselling them as new, I'm just curious.) Are they taken off to a deep-discount remainder bookstore and sold there?
* It's also not clear to me whether this program extends to all books or just to bestsellers, hardcovers, trade paperbacks. I mean, you can return a hardcover with nary a mark on it, if you're the tidy sort. But it's hard to read a paperback--especially a fat, juicy airplane read--without cracking the spine. And (I hang my head in shame) I dog-ear. Will they accept dog-earred books? (Imagining, briefly, the Dog Ear Police, thumbing through, tut-ing angrily.)
This program has been in operation for several years. I haven't heard any outrage from SFWA or MWA or much of anyone else, which suggests that no one thinks the writers are getting gypped out of anything. But I sure would love to know the mechanics of the program.