I’ve been in the publishing world over 40 years and discovered that many, many people in the public, and in my profession, are in the dark about a publishing reality. It took me almost 20 years in publishing for some lights to turn on.
In this article I hope to shine the lights on a few publishing road maps to keep in mind for the future when ordering books. How they work to best serve the authors and illustrators you love, and their books that you cherish.
A) Resellers: aka Book Jobbers or Third Party Vendors
Third Party Vendor sales DO NOT PAY the authors and illustrators.
That’s right!
Third Party Vendors earn a profit from my intellectual property, my skills, my time, the supplies I pay for to create a picture book, plus my sweat, and now my tears.
What are Third Party Vendor sales?
You know, those ads that you see in places such as the Amazon Sellers Lists with rows and rows of choices, selling books at either huge discounts or jacked up prices.
As an author and/or illustrator of over dozen of books which went out of print, not one penny is paid to me when anyone buys my picture books from Third Party Vendors.
B) Remainders I took back the power by purchasing Remainder copies of my books so I could resell them.
What are Remainders?
Remainder copies are out-of-print books which never sold that the publisher still has in storage. The publisher then sells these physical books, or Remainders, to Third Party Vendors. They in turn resell them on places such as the Amazon Sellers Lists.
When my books went out-of-print I would get a letter from the publisher asking if I wanted to purchase remainder copies at a discounted price.
I've purchased many hundreds of my books’ Remainder copies. I’ve had a lot of success selling them to friends, to bookstores, at festivals, at events, at school and library visits. Remainder book sales kept my career afloat.
When MERMAIDS ON PARADE went out of print I purchased all the 3400 Remainder copies my publisher GP Putnam’s Sons/ Penguin had left over.
Living in a small NYC apartment I needed to rent a local storage facility for
100+ boxes of books, and learned how to take the best care of them.
Hand selling books is quite an education; a good 360 degrees understanding of how the publishing industry works.
As my book inventory decreased as the popularity of the book widened, I no longer needed the storage facility. Boxes of books became furniture in my studio, until I SOLD THEM ALL OUT!
Here’s an interview I gave about my journey.
Check out the island of books I used as a desk in the middle of my studio.
Books go out of print more often than not, or they are weeded from shelves faster than Round Up and are bought up by Third Party Vendors.
Most picture book creatives do not sell or reprint their own remainder books like I do. Art was never my hobby. Art is my career and sales of my reprinted books, and sales of my art, pay my bills, and saved my career many times over.
Purchasing my Reprinted book from the links I provide helps me as a book creative earn a living from my art. I really would appreciate that folks purchase the books I printed myself by Ordering from my Book Weblog
Order from Amazon
If you are into supporting indie bookstores order my books through Bookshop.org who donate to Independent Bookstores
In the end, I really cannot tell anyone how to purchase my books. I've learned reading parent web spaces that some parents can only afford discounted prices, some love thrift store finds.
AND….many of my out of print picture books NEED a Third Party Vendor because I have no copies to sell. If you do decide to purchase from a Third Party Vendor just make sure the books are in good condition. Do not over pay because I do not get any payments from this sale.
ps I have paperbacks of my Reprints for personal inscriptions which I ship Media Mail with a tracking # (within the US). Email me for info melhopegreenberg@aol.com
(c) Melanie Hope Greenberg
BIO I’ve published illustrations with UNICEF, the Children’s Defense Fund, as well as hundreds of images in magazines, on greeting cards, and gift items. I’ve illustrated 17 trade published picture books, six of which I both wrote and illustrated. My books have won awards and are on notable, honor, and library reading lists. “Mermaids on Parade” has been called ”seminal” by School Library Journal and included in Brooklyn Public Library's "125 Essential Brooklyn Booklist". “Down the Subway” was a selected New York Times Great Children’s Read. In 2011, I was an Artist-in-Residence for the Eric Carle Museum’s first NEA Grant and have exhibited illustrations at top galleries. Besides illustration I present author-illustrator workshops for elementary students at schools, libraries, conferences, museums as well as professional development workshops for teachers and librarians. I’ve blogged for Huffington Post and have been contributing monthly art activities to an educational website for over a decade. My own award-winning personal blog is called ‘Mermaids on Parade’.
