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Being on the other side
One of the problems that publishers are facing is the growing market of used books. This is something that has always existed but has become more visible and more acute with Amazon's growing power in the marketplace. The common complaint is that publishers and authors should be compensated in some way for the resale of their book. I have never bought that argument, but it is interesting to now be on the other side of this.
There are now three used copies of More Space available on Amazon. I have to say this is amazing. At most, there are 300 copies of the book in people's hands. We sold around 125 copies to the authors of the book. I sent out 125 review copies to various media outlets. And in direct sales, there have been exactly 25 units reported in the first three weeks.
It is those media copies I want to talk about for a minute. Normally, publishers send out galley copies of their books ahead of the final book. Those are normally softcover and are marked as "Uncorrected Galleys - Not For Resale". They are sent out early to give magazines and newspapers more leadtime for story development.
We didn't have the time or money to print galleys. We sent finished books as our review copies. If I would have to guess, I bet that is where these books are coming from. For really popular books, you will see galleys appear on Ebay, giving bibliophiles a chance to read their favorites before everyone else. The only place those can come from are from people who are on review lists.
Again, I am going to say I am not so much bothered by the used books market. If someone buys a book and reads it (or not), I as a publisher would be happy to see that book get into someone else's hands who wants to read it. What I do not like are people profiting from their status as a reviewer of books.
It is one thing to tell a publisher or author that you are going to pass on reviewing a book for a publication. It is something else to then take that book and sell it. And I don't want to see any comments about how poorly writers are compensated. That does not justify the behavior.
I can speak personally to this as my day job has me receiving hundreds of books every year. I recycle galleys and donate finished books to my local libraries.
It might be interesting to find out where pawsible or olympia77 got their copies...
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