It’s time for another edition of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group, founded by Ninja Captain, Alex J. Cavanaugh.
The question for today: What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?
There are a lot of things to choose from! Plagiarism, vanity publishers, using AI to write the whole book, etc.
I decided to go with one that many people may not be aware of – book returns.
Bookstores and the wholesalers & distributors who deal with them are the only ones who return books. (They have a three month minimum window to do this.) They will order ten books, sell five, and when it gets close to 90 days, they return them – only to turn around and order another 5-10 books because now they don’t have any! Meanwhile, the publisher gets dinged for those returned book, sometimes just for printing cost and profit made, sometimes also for the shipping. This practice started during the Great Depression when stores were afraid to order any books lest they get stuck with them – and unfortunately, it was never reversed. (So, when my authors see a negative balance, that’s why – we get dinged and so do they.)
I’d also like to add that Amazon’s practice of allowing returns of eBook up to 7 days later is also unethical. People can download a book, read it, and then return it. No other seller or distributor allows eBook returns!
Have you experienced book returns? What do you consider an unethical publishing practice?
And some recent charcuterie boards:
