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Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 17, 2022 18:49:59 GMT -5
Generally speaking, books are returnable for credit, with the vendors. There is no incentive for booksellers to sit on unsold copies. They will remainder them out, if nothing else. I worked for Barnes & Noble for 20 years. The average lifespan of a new book (not bestsellers and not perennial sellers) is 6 weeks. After that, all bets are of and bookstores will clear out stuff, if it doesn't sell. At B&N, we would give them 90 days, before sending them back. If a book continues to have strong, reliable sale, our buyers might set a "model" for the title; usually the equivalent of a month's sales. If the on-hand quantity of a modeled title falls below the model level, we would automatically order more. We had more modeled DC titles than marvel; but, that was largely a factor of availability. DC and Warner kept their books in print longer; so, we could resupply. Marvel was notorious for only releasing initial printings and not going back to press on titles, regardless of sales. They were more focused on the Direct Market model, while DC had far longer experience with the general book market, via Warner bros and its subsidiaries. The book market did change, by the 20-Teens, as the loss of Borders, the economy, and digital led to a reduction in overall real estate devoted to books, reducing the amount of backlist titles we carried (with said space being turned over to toys and games). Even reliable genres, like Mystery and Romance had their shelves thinned, with lower selling authors reduced to mostly their latest and even the big names reduced to the latest and their earliest and biggest long term selling books, but much of their catalog not represented. Even guys like Stephen King were cut down by a half to 2/3. Digital gave publishers a more cost effective manner to provide backlist titles and more of that is found in digital format than print. I've been gone from B&N for 8 years now; so, I don't know how much still holds true (especially with their newer owners); but, I suspect that not much has changed, except maybe even less print product on-hand. Leaving that aside, there are other factors that influence the book printings, beyond sales, like trademark maintenance. Watchmen will never go out of print or DC will lose control over the book, based on their contract with Alan Moore. They will keep that sucker going, even after his death, just to throw a middle finger at his heirs, if nothing else. I was actually just in Barnes and Noble again this afternoon, and none of the comics I saw for DC had a publication date older than 2018, so it's safe to say that yes DC still does keep their books in print pretty well. And at least in the one I go to in Walpole they've actually started bumping up the space given to genre fiction after years of shrinking them down. There is still a huge gaming and toy section but if that helps them keep the lights on I'm all for it. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 17, 2022 22:23:01 GMT -5
Generally speaking, books are returnable for credit, with the vendors. There is no incentive for booksellers to sit on unsold copies. They will remainder them out, if nothing else. I worked for Barnes & Noble for 20 years. The average lifespan of a new book (not bestsellers and not perennial sellers) is 6 weeks. After that, all bets are of and bookstores will clear out stuff, if it doesn't sell. At B&N, we would give them 90 days, before sending them back. If a book continues to have strong, reliable sale, our buyers might set a "model" for the title; usually the equivalent of a month's sales. If the on-hand quantity of a modeled title falls below the model level, we would automatically order more. We had more modeled DC titles than marvel; but, that was largely a factor of availability. DC and Warner kept their books in print longer; so, we could resupply. Marvel was notorious for only releasing initial printings and not going back to press on titles, regardless of sales. They were more focused on the Direct Market model, while DC had far longer experience with the general book market, via Warner bros and its subsidiaries. The book market did change, by the 20-Teens, as the loss of Borders, the economy, and digital led to a reduction in overall real estate devoted to books, reducing the amount of backlist titles we carried (with said space being turned over to toys and games). Even reliable genres, like Mystery and Romance had their shelves thinned, with lower selling authors reduced to mostly their latest and even the big names reduced to the latest and their earliest and biggest long term selling books, but much of their catalog not represented. Even guys like Stephen King were cut down by a half to 2/3. Digital gave publishers a more cost effective manner to provide backlist titles and more of that is found in digital format than print. I've been gone from B&N for 8 years now; so, I don't know how much still holds true (especially with their newer owners); but, I suspect that not much has changed, except maybe even less print product on-hand. Leaving that aside, there are other factors that influence the book printings, beyond sales, like trademark maintenance. Watchmen will never go out of print or DC will lose control over the book, based on their contract with Alan Moore. They will keep that sucker going, even after his death, just to throw a middle finger at his heirs, if nothing else. I was actually just in Barnes and Noble again this afternoon, and none of the comics I saw for DC had a publication date older than 2018, so it's safe to say that yes DC still does keep their books in print pretty well. And at least in the one I go to in Walpole they've actually started bumping up the space given to genre fiction after years of shrinking them down. There is still a huge gaming and toy section but if that helps them keep the lights on I'm all for it. Prior to the sale and despite what the financial press would have had you believe, B&N was a very profitable company, even with the money that was sunk into the development and manufacture of Nook, before they teamed up with Samsung (saw they have a newer one with Lenovo, now). The retail stores were making money and offset the costs of the Nook . The company was not using debt financing and had tons of credit lines available to them. The main thrust of the sale was antsy Wall Street types who want single quarter gains and couldn't be bothered with longer term stuff; and, Len Riggio's desire to retire. brother Steve had pulled out earlier, with the failing health and death of his daughter. His withdrawal changed the culture at the company, then the tech races caused a lot of changes that put Nook first and everything else second. Toys & Games did quite well for them. The most profitable area is the Bargain section, as they get those for pennies, even with the low prices. However, from my trips in recent years, the selection and breadth of the bargain section is remarkably smaller. We used to get some great art & design books, especially Taschen product, plus some really nice history books. Now, it's more small lots and a lot of the same old thing. Things got nasty there, towards the end of my time, as it seemed anyone with tenure was targeted to drive them out, because they cost too much in wages and benefits. We used to have benefits with a year's tenure at an average of 20 hours per week. They later mandated no more than 15 hours per week to prevent eligibility for that, for part time, then eliminated all full time positions, except managers and head cashier. For a long time, it was a good company to work for; but, in the end, loyalty was rewarded with the shaft. No idea about the new owners, though I had read their UK employees weren't exactly singing their praises. Still, any alternative to Amazon is a blessing, while it exists and B&N does more to help publishers put our quality works than Amazon, by giving them advocates in the community, instead of just listing a title. |
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Post by earl on Aug 6, 2022 13:14:13 GMT -5
It all seems like a big race to the bottom.
That said, I really would love to find a copy of the second volume of Tomb of Dracula omnibus. I got the first two like ten years ago and never have been able to find the second one except at stupid prices. I do have it in Essential collection (and it looks good in black and white anyway), but they never finished doing the entire series in trade and now have started putting it out in Masterworks. Eh...never to be.
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Post by badwolf on Aug 10, 2022 15:12:42 GMT -5
It all seems like a big race to the bottom. That said, I really would love to find a copy of the second volume of Tomb of Dracula omnibus. I got the first two like ten years ago and never have been able to find the second one except at stupid prices. I do have it in Essential collection (and it looks good in black and white anyway), but they never finished doing the entire series in trade and now have started putting it out in Masterworks. Eh...never to be. I've only gotten the first one. By the time I realized they existed and that I was interested in them, the others were no longer available. |
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Post by berkley on Aug 11, 2022 23:22:56 GMT -5
I have all the ToD issues except the one with Blade's first appearance, which is priced way out of my range. I wish now I had broken down and bought the back-issue back in the 1990s or early 2000s, when I think it was probably around $25 or so. Whatever it was, it seemed ridiculously over-priced to me at the time and, as we all know, the prices being asked for these "first appearance" issues have since then sky-rocketed beyond anything I ever imagined.
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