February 22, 1999
Editor
ASJA Newsletter
To the Editor:
I beg, respectfully, to disagree, completely, with
Murray Teigh Bloom’s advice to buy up no more
than 20 copies of your remaindered titles from small
publishers, “applying [your] psychic energy
. . . to new projects.”
I had a critically successful,
widely reviewed kids’ book -- Looking at
Photographs: Animals (1995) -- remaindered after
only a year and a half by its big publisher (Chronicle
Books), which, like publishers large and small,
did nothing to publicize it. They also remaindered
it without the contractually requisite notification,
which would have enabled me to buy copies of a $14.95
list-price book for $2.50.
When I found out about this,
I wrote to the publisher, and the person in remainders
I spoke with was so embarrassed by the error that
she called the company that had bought up the remainder
stock -- some 3000 copies -- and arranged for me
to buy as many of those copies as I wanted for $1.00
per copy plus shipping, which is what that company
had paid for them.
I bought 1000, for a total
cost of $1050. Yes, I now have $15,000 worth of
inventory half-filling a closet in my house. But
they sell (at list price) at a steady clip -- off
my website, at my lectures and workshops and book-signing
events. No “psychic energy” is involved,
just the task of toting a dozen copies with me to
public engagements, in a suitcase full of my in-print
titles (which I buy at deep discount, for sales
through the same venues). In the 18 months since
they arrived, I’ve already amortized three-fourths
of that initial cost; once I sell another 15 copies,
the rest is gravy. And my markup is 1400 percent
-- not bad by any retail standards. Eventually,
over seven or eight years, I’ll earn $15K off
that $1K expenditure. Does Mr. Bloom have a better-paying
investment to propose?
There’s no more important
investment I can make than in my own books. And
if a writer won’t make such an commitment to
him- or herself, why should a publisher be expected
to do so?
Regards,
A. D. Coleman
/s/ A. D. Coleman
Staten Island, NY
This letter appeared in print
under the title "Letters: Those Leftover Books"
in the ASJA Newsletter, Vol. 48, no. 4 (April
1999), p. C12. This publication is the newsletter
of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
