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Those Leftover Books
by A. D. Coleman

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.

Copyright © 1999 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. For reprint permissions contact Image/World Syndication Services, POB 040078, Staten Island, NY 10304-0002 USA;T/F (718) 447-3091, imageworld@nearbycafe.com