Return to Sender

The more I blog, the more I realize that the publishing biz is rife for complaints like almost no one else. But as Agate publisher Doug Seibold points out in this new article for The Book Standard, many of the complaints can be traced back to one source: the returns policy.

At BookExpo 2004, in Chicago, the most popular freebie in the aisle occupied by Consortium, my company’s distributor, was a small, navy-blue lapel pin that bore the discreet legend “Returns Suck.” Their little fishbowl had to be replenished as frequently as if they were M&Ms. There was nothing discreet about the reaction they got: Everyone who saw them laughed, albeit a little bitterly.

Returns do suck—on that there seems to be almost universal consensus. But is anyone doing anything about it? More importantly, does anyone want to do anything about it?

So what would happen if returns — where the publisher allows bookstores to give unsold books back without penalty or charge — went away entirely? There are pros, but of course, there are cons as well:

To start, there would surely be fewer huge frontlist advance orders pushed into stores, so many of which just occupy floor or warehouse space until they get sent back (only to reappear, now, as low-price remainders that discourage buyers from paying full price for new titles).

Printing and shipping, which are already very efficient, would be deployed even more efficiently by publishers who’d now be printing far more conservatively. Stores would have to manage their inventory far more closely; sales reps would have to provide even more support to their customers to get them the books they needed as they needed them.

Backlist—the established books that readers most want—would become an even more dynamic piece of the publishing mix.

Marketing—or whatever you want to call the process of reaching out to readers and making them aware of books that would interest them—would have to command more of publishers’ available resources, and it would have to be done in ways that are smarter, sharper and more effective than ever.

What else might happen? Perhaps it would be harder for agents to negotiate whopping author advances, if publishers couldn’t count on that big first shipment out to justify paying them. Advances paid to unproven authors would shrink, which would alleviate the “one-and-done” phenomenon that has raised the stakes to career-crippling levels for so many first-time authors. Maybe this would help turn publishers away from chasing so hard after the next big thing and back to devoting more resources to developing authors book by book, and promoting their books in sounder, more consistent ways.

I think returns are a classic example of what happens when a business model that worked in an earlier era fails miserably today. But who’s going to make that first step to change the model? That, of course, is the $64 question…