Richard

You are quite right. I've always believed that the terms of supply for front list and backlist should be completely different. The economics, risk taking, promotion for each are quite different.

It doesn't make sense to mix them up together- and the (genuine) sales for each would be increased if they were managed in different ways.

Some publishers do do that.

I wonder if Tim Coates took books on SOR when he was involved in the Victoria emporium ??

Consignment retailing is the pits.

As for Richard commments re Waterstone's : I have little faith in the present management at Waterstone's to do anything other than to take the company into administration, much in the manner of Fopp, overburdened with debt and trying to imitate the supermarkets and Amazon who are not dependent upon making a profit from their own predatory priced new book sales.

Thankfully many smaller publishers realise that dealing with Waterstone's has at the present time no long term prospects with the ludicrous central distribution payment and discount terms which the suits are looking to impose. Why should a publisher be reduced to cover price inflation just to counter-balance the Waterstone's supply terms, when there is a vibrant independent sector which takes a high percentage of the publisher's sales.

Larger publishers will suck up to Waterstone's because they are petrified about the power and control which the non-specialist bookselling corporates are starting to wield.

If the publishing world had an ounce of spunk it would just tell everybody - everybody, including the suits at Amazon and Tesco - that as from Jan 1st 2008 all books (front and backlist) will only be suplied firm sale. Firm sale holds not the slightest worry to myself and most indie bookshops.

As interest rates rise worldwide and there are less low-cost easy havens from which to refinance debts then the terrestial bookshop chains are going to have to start to be run as proper retailers, with handselling, percentage autonomy for each branch to cater for local needs and not the edicts of a marketing computer, and of course ownership liability for all the stock within each outlet.

If any bookshop is incapable of trading with all stock taken firm sale then it would benefit from trading cabbages and cauliflowers, chickens, fish, turkeys, or beef - try and see how many farmers will let you have stock SOR. In this small town (1,075 population) we have two butchers, a wet fish merchant and greengrocer - betcha they get plentifuly SOR allowance !!! They all survive against a predatory Tesco here, which says it all as far as I am concerned.

I've said it before......publishing should take a look at what the airline business has achieved and how they've done it.

At the Victoria Emporium I preferred to take stock as non-returnable, the net book agreement was just ending at we could set many of our own prices. There were, however, promotions of newly published titles of which we could take large quantities - and sell more with big displays etc- but then it seemed sensible to do those on a Sale-or-Return basis. in these cases, quite reasonably, in those days, the publisher didn't want us to sell at different price from their other customers, so this was a way of dealing.

We shouldn't forget that the newspaper and magazine distribution industry has a far larger rate of returns than the book industry- about twice as much. They manage it quite efficiently and regard it a part of normal trading.

There is an argument for returnable stock where it improves the profit from the risk taking-- but the return should always be of credit, not the physical item. Moving the stock backwards and forwards really is a waste of money, creates global warming etc.

Sales of backlist- as Richard says-- should be like selling loaves of bread and be susceptible to decent stock control management--and have no need for returns at all. It is however, notorious, as he says that a change of ownership or even managing director, usually precedes a huge return of stock.

Judging by the feedback which I have received from numerous indie publishers one chain are notorious for "freshening up" their backlist stock by returning copies, only in the next breath to be re-ordering.

Books, unlike newspapers, are not printed to be discarded within (at most) a few days : yesterday's newspapers have little value compared to a book published yesterday. The ability to differentiate between a book with a 30 days lifespan (at most) and one which will be sellable in 10 years time is something which is absent from many buyers, hence the tolerance of SOR terms and the ridiculous supply chain wastage.

The book supply chain has to be the most inefficient, environmentally unfriendly of any on the UK high street.

Print On Demand?

Yeah, print on demand is a good idea!

Yeah, print on demand is a good idea!

As an independent bookseller, (Dulwich Books, SE21 8SW)) I have followed the recent firm sale discussion with interest. We buy mainly from wholesalers (Gardners) where we have a 5% return allowance. This means that we need to be 95% accurate in all our buying, as do most of the other 1,400 independent bookshops throughout the UK and Ireland. As experienced booksellers we can achieve this and I agree with the comments that titles such as Remains of the Day or any George Orwell title should not be returned, that is a waste of time and energy on everyone's part. The titles and author who will suffer if firm sale on backlist is introduce are not your James Patterson, PD James, or Alan Bennett, the authors who will not get into bookshops are the next Khaled Hosseini, or Charlie Higson. This would also remove the ability of all bookshops to introduce new sections or ranges. Recently we introduced a graphic novel section to see how they would sell in Dulwich, this was a trial which we knew we could experiment with because of the 5% return allowance and I am pleased to say it has been a success. We rarely use up our % to the full which we are quite proud of, but firm sale on ALL backlist would result in us being more cautious. I would support firm sale on the bestsellers of any publishers backlist, but not 100%. Having work in publishing previously I understand fully the cost of returns, however I never saw a book chosen randomly off a publisher's warehouse shelf by a customer browsing, just because they like the look of the cover!