I got word last week that
Eerdmans
is going to remainder my book. I didn't know what that meant, though I was
pretty sure it wasn't a good thing. One of the people from Eerdmans had to
explain it to me.
If a publisher has a quantity of books in its
warehouse, and the books are either not selling or selling so slowly that they
don't justify storage and all the costs (including taxes) that go along with
that, they "remainder" the book. Yes, remainder is a verb as well as a noun.
That means they get rid of it. It's better to unload it than to keep it in the
warehouse. Obviously this also means any question of a second printing has been
settled.
Perhaps you're feeling a little sorry for me
right now. "Oh, Real Live Preacher's book didn't sell very well, and it's
getting dumped by the publisher. Poor guy."
Don't feel bad. I sure don't. Yeah, it would
have been fun if the book had sold a lot of copies and went into a second
printing. But the hard reality is this: I am an unknown author of a book of
funky, religious essays. Books of essays are the worst selling books in the
world right now. And mine is full of f-bombs, meaning you don't want to give it
to Aunt Petunia for Christmas. And, while Eerdmans treated me as well as they
treat any of their authors, my only publicity was their catalog and this blog.
And of course, if you're here, you can read read every essay I've ever written
including about 42 of the 50 essays in the book.
This book is not exactly a marketer's dream, is
it? It's really kind of a miracle that they took a chance and published this
thing at all.
Now here is where the story gets kind of funny
and surprisingly fortunate for me. Eerdmans sent me a letter some months ago,
notifying me of their intention to remainder the book. They offered me a chance
to buy the remaining stock (1300 of the original 5000) at an 80% discount. That
would have been about $3600. Fortunately, I never got the letter. I admit that
after the first year or so, I quit reading things Eerdmans sent to me. Not out
of disrespect, but most of the time it was new catalogs and stuff that had
nothing to do with me. I'm sure the letter came. I just never opened it. If I
had, I would have tried to scrape together whatever money I could find to buy a
few hundred copies.
Eerdmans took my lack of a response as a no and
moved on to their next step. They offered the book to a series of closeout
buyers at an EXTREMELY discounted price. A pennies-on-the-dollar kind of price.
There were no takers. None. I can imagine what
the conversations were like.
"Real Live What? Preacher? Never heard of it
or him or whatever. What's it about?"
"Eh, it's this guy in Texas. Allegedly an
actual minister. Pretty good writer. Writes about tamales and stars and stuff
you might find in your pockets. There's some religious stuff in there too. Kind
of liberal. A lot of cussing. Sort of a weird mix. The editor who found him and
brought him to our attention is no longer with the company. It does have a kind
of interesting cover, though."
So after my book was refused by every closeout
buyer who deals with Eerdmans, I got a last email from them. Since no one wanted
it, they were just going to donate it to someone...anyone. Unless I wanted to
buy the stock for $0.25 a copy. This was the first I heard of any of this. "Hell
yes I want it!" I said. I did the math. It comes out to $325. The deal is done,
and they are shipping me the the last 1300 copies of RealLivePreacher.com.
I'll tell you why this is so cool. First,
I am now in complete control of this book. It's my book. All the rights to the
essays have reverted back to me. The first thing I'm going to do is post the 8
or 9 essays from the book that have never been published online. Hey, it will
give me some material to post here, and I can work harder on a little project I
have in mind for our friend Foy Davis.
(Don't ask. It's a secret)
Second, I don't have to give this book
to anyone. I'm hoping Amazon.com will sell a copy and write me asking for one.
I'm currently crafting my response to them. I want to find a really funny way to
say, "Hell no, you incentive-crushing destroyer from the nether regions!"
Third, I get to have a lot of fun with
this book. People still find this blog and want to buy the book sometimes. I'll
have them all at my house. I might make a chair out of the cartons of books in
my living room and watch Cowboys games from there. When someone buys one, it
will be a big deal. I won't have pre-printed labels. Handwritten all the way.
I'll have to find an envelope and dig though my wife's purse for stamps.
I'll probably write little notes on the inside
cover to the people who buy them. Maybe like a little letter to them or
something. Just to say hello and ask how they are doing. Maybe mention
whatever's happening in my life at the time. I'll probably put a surprise
between the pages. Maybe a pressed flower from my backyard or a ticket stub from
a Spurs game.
Ooh, how cool would this be: Maybe there
will be one copy that I give away for free, with the understanding that you have
to mail it to the next person who writes me and asks for it. You sign it, date
it, then mail it to the next person. They do the same. Maybe some day it would
come back to me.
Who knows what I'll do? That's the point. I can
do whatever I want. Do you get this? Do you get how fun this is? I can't wait
for them to arrive.
My babies are coming home to me. I love every
essay I wrote for that book. Each creation was like a birth. There was
inspiration and pleasure then hard labor and delivery. This is where they should
live anyway, don't you think? They belong with me. And if people want a copy of
the book, I should be the one to hand it to them.
Doesn't that seem...absolutely right? The way
it should be?
rlp
