Book Biz — Distribution and Returns

by | Dec 19, 2014 | Book Biz, Techniques of Fiction

I’m working on a long, multi-post entry on Trauma and the Fragmented Narrative. But in the meantime, I’m going to post a couple of times on the Book Biz. I received a royalty check for The Master of Monterey not too long ago. Why is this significant, beyond the fact that it’s cool to get paid for work that was published more than a decade ago? It illuminates some aspects of the business, specifically advances, sales, distribution, and returns. When The Master of Monterey was put under contract, I received a small advance. The book was published, reviewed well in The Los Angeles Times, The Monterey Herald, and elsewhere, and sent out to bookstores. I did as many appearances as I could round up, landed one interview on KAZU, the Monterey NPR affiliate, signed stock wherever I went, and waited. After some months, I found that I’d sold enough copies to cover my advance, and I received another check. My publisher pays royalties bi-annually. That was the last check for ten years. Here’s what happened. When bookstores have books they want to rotate out of the store to make room for new releases, they ship them back to the publisher, and receive 100% credit for any unsold copies. Those returns were charged against my account, and suddenly I had a negative balance. It might be depressing, but books in bookstores are often treated like any commodity. Just as Campbell’s Soup pays for prime space in the aisle of the grocery store, large publishers pay for prime space – table displays, special endcaps – in bookstores. If a book hasn’t sold...