I found yet another of my galleys - advance copies, in paperback, with errors - for sale on eBay (I keep watch, because, heck, my publisher is running short of galleys, and every one I have can mean sales for me - I can hand it to an independent bookstore owner, who may read it and fall in love with it and carry it and hand-sell it to all their customers ... or offer to throw me a launch party. Don't laugh - it happened. Or I can send it off to a blogger to review and maybe fall in love with and recommend to all their readers).
So I try to get galleys wherever and however I can. I recycle them, picking them up from store owners who have finished and handing them off to other owners or to a traveling writer friend who can wave it under the noses of the stores she visits. This one, oddly, was very near my home town in Tennessee, so I asked the seller where he/she got it: a Barnes & Noble store in Knoxville gives them to their customers, he/she replied..
So my publisher pays to print this advance copy, which is perhaps handed off to the store by a sales rep (I don't think my publisher sent out copies to chain bookstores) and this store then gives it away (which, if it were to a huge fan who reads voraciously and then would recommend it to tons of people, might not be a bad thing) to a customer who then sells it on eBay. Marked "unread."
I don't get it.
Yes, galleys say NOT FOR SALE on the cover, but that seems to be a generic phrase interpreted quite loosely. Like the publisher who claimed that the contractual 40,000-copy limit for reproducing photographs was not intended to actually mean 40,000 copies and the photographers should know they're going to print, say, a million, without compensating them more.
But all this puzzles me. The store, which passes out an advance reader's copy. The recipient, who thinks nothing is wrong with selling something marked NOT FOR SALE that they were given as a gift, to read, presumably.
And, well, maybe me, who is just dopey enough to try to make sense of all this.
8 comments:
Ah, see, I think that's your mistake. You're trying to make sense of people's behavior, which is inexplicable. Don't you know that rules only apply to "other" people, and not to "you?" (grin)
This is very scary. It also explains why I keep finding "unread" ARCs of my own books available from Amazon's "used or new" independent sellers.
I would be frustrated by that too, Sara! Writers work *so* hard to get to where they are, and then, like you said, you're out there trying to promote your book and share it and help people get to know your writing (and love it, of course) and it shows up on ebay? Wow. I would sure like to know what you plan to do next. ;)
I'm a review, and i admit I like to get rid of ARCs if I need the room. BUT, that's when you donate them to a library or something. YOU DO NOT sell an ARC that clearly states "Not for Resale" on it. That's just really stupid and you offend the author by doing so. Let's have some class people. Support the author.
I don't know that the fault lies with B&N, Sara, more the person who took advantage of what B&N did.
Before I started my blog and receiving ARCs of my own, I considered going to bookstores and asking if they would just give me ARCS they no longer had any use for. I had no intention of selling them; I was on a limited budget and couldn't afford to buy all the books I wanted to read. (I borrow loads from the library, too, but sometimes they don't have titles from smaller presses.)
While I never got around to doing this because it seemed a little like begging for handouts, I would've greatly appreciated it if B&N or any other bookstore had given me ARCs to read. It's the people who do this strictly for the purpose of making a buck on eBay who should be excoriated.
I think you're right, Elyse - although I was wondering a bit about the wisdom of giving books away willy-nilly while bookstores are struggling ... but I talked to a manager at the store in question, who was upset as I was at the idea that someone was selling galleys on eBay: They date the galleys and put them in the break room so employees can borrow them - but certainly don't give them away so someone can sell them. So one person's actions may lead to them having to lock up galleys or sign them in and out so someone isn't illegally profiting. (Yeah, I'm suspecting that selling a galley infringes on copyright law, because neither the publisher nor I are getting a dime from that sale.)
Hello Sara! Sarah the Younger from the Northshire here ( I had the pleasure of speaking with you the other evening last week ~ when you were first gobsmacked by us). I have your galley ~ given to me by Sarah the Elder ~ ( too many Sarah's..lol ) I am honored to have your galley. In fact, it may need to torn out of my cold dead hands...and come the publishing date, I will hand- sell "Learning to Swim" until my fingers bleed. I LOVE your book. I was forced to put it down to decorate the Christmas tree today. And again to make supper. Ack! I am going back to it now. They can fend for themselves the rest of the evening.
Oh,is that your profile on the cover?
Sarah the Younger - never too many Sara(h)s! (My publicist is also named Sarah.) I am SO glad you like my book - hope you love it all the way to the end.
Yes, that does look oddly like my profile on the front cover - I mentioned that to my agent - but I swear the design team never met me! Just a little quirk of fate ... (although I think the book mentions that Troy has a "patrician" nose, which was my fancy way of saying "prominent."
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