Dumpster full of books outside Strand in New York.
Practice of tossing unsold books is an industry-wide phenomena
There’s been a huge stir recently about Borders’ plan to trash unsold books left over after 200 of its Waldenbooks locations close at the end of January. After getting in contact with a few folks in the book industry, it sounds like this is a much larger issue than a single case of store closings would have indicated. Destroying inventory is just part of operations at many large book stores.
Let’s take a look at why this is, who’s involved, and what we can do to work toward changing this practice.
The why and the who of this practice are closely intertwined. Mary Davis from Borders Corporate Affairs gave some insight into how ubiquitous this practice really is and passed blame off to the publishing companies.
What seems to be generally misunderstood by people is that in order to get credit for books that we are not able to sell and that we cannot return in tact to publishers for credit, we must, like all book retailers, per agreements with publishers, strip the covers off those books (these are what are referred to as mass market books) and send the covers to publishers. Currently, there is no other process in place within the publishing industry where a book retailer can get credit for mass market books other than by stripping the covers and sending them back to publishers.
(Random House and The Association of American Publishers have not returned E&I emails asking for the publisher side of this story. -Ed.)
In the same email, Davis said that the books were destroyed partly because these mass market paperbacks were “generally not durable enough to be donated to libraries or schools.” I’m not sure I buy this. Would a school or local library really turn away donated books simply because they were mass market paper backs? How fragile are these books that they’re selling?
While I do understand that this is a policy that the publishers set forth, a company as large as Borders has the clout to protest those policies. In fact, since the Waldenbooks situation came to light, they’ve begun working on a change. Davis said in her email:
Moving forward, we are committed to looking at our overall product disposition practices with the goal of finding a way to donate non returnable product to organizations in need when we can; and dispose of product we cannot donate in an environmentally friendly way. We are already making plans to establish store level donation and recycling programs. However, we have more than 600 stores nationwide—it will take time to establish these programs. In addition, we are beginning the process of working with others within our industry to examine and begin dialoging about our collective product disposition practices. (emphasis mine)
I’m definitely interested to see where that dialogue goes! The thing is, it’s not just books they’re destroying. A Borders employee commented on my post at greenUPGRADER:
Whether it be magazines, books, cd’s/dvd’s, gifts and stationary, nothing is allowed to be donated. We aren’t even allowed to keep dumpster items for use in the stores, like pens, tape, ext. Last week I had to dumpster close to $15,000 of gift and stationary items in one store. The majority of items I boxed up included pens, pencils, blank journals and art supplies, any of which I’m sure public schools are in need of.
It’s appalling that a company would trash these perfectly usable office supplies and stationery items. I can think of a few teachers who spend money out of their own pockets to buy supplies like this for their classrooms. Meanwhile, Borders tosses these things into the trash! There’s no publisher to blame here.
While the dialogue they’re starting is a step in the right direction, the book industry has a long way to go in improving its wasteful practices. That’s not going to change without consumer pressure.
Getting Heard
Since information started coming out about the Borders/Waldenbooks closings, a Facebook group has sprung up to urge Borders to reconsider the policy, and it seems that this grassroots effort is paying off! Borders announced last week that they plan to partner with Gifts in Kind International to donate unsold books left over from Waldenbooks store closings.
It’s a small victory when you stack it up against the crazy amounts of waste in the book industry, but it shows that we as consumers do have a voice. If we pull together, companies will hear us, because they need our dollars to stay in business.
If you want to get involved, joining the Facebook group is a great way to start. Starting this month, the group set its sights on the book industry as a whole, and the more people chiming in the better! You can also contact people in the industry: your favorite author, a publisher you respect, or a bookseller that you frequent. Let them know how you feel about this practice and ask them what they’re doing to change things.
The Facebook group has great contacts in its sidebar to get you going. If they don’t list the company you’re looking for, the best way to find the contact information you need is to visit that company’s website. Most sites will have a Contact page that lists mailing or email addresses where you can send inquiries and suggestions, including a “care of” address for contacting authors.
Image Credit: Dumpster Full of Books. Creative Commons photo by specialkrb
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Hi Becky -
Thanks for reporting on this scandal in the book industry. Consumer pressure is clearly required to get publisher and booksellers to change their bizarre, almost criminal practices.
It is hard to comprehend the total environmental impact caused by over-printing over ONE BILLION books that are discarded each year. So what if the books are printed on FSC-certified paper; the whole industry is mad to be over-printing on this scale.
Thanks only to the Facebook group’s pressure Borders has suddenly instructed all its stores to recycle unsold books, rather than sending all that paper to the landfill. Why weren’t they doing this BEFORE being pressured? Every schoolkid knows to recycle paper. Where is Borders’ and Barnes & Noble’s corporate social responsibility? We need to pressure them to stop over-ordering books if they can’t donate the unsold ones. Best if the bookstores stop ordering on consignment, so they assume responsibility for their purchasing decisions, rather than blaming publishers.
It seems this industry isn’t going to do anything that makes financial or environmental sense without being held accountable by consumers. Happily, that consumer pressure is growing. Thanks for publicizing the Facebook campaign at http://www.donatenotdumpster.org.
thanks, cheers, Bruce
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Bruce! That’s an interesting solution – getting the bookstores to purchase books outright and making them responsible for the inventory. Over-ordering on that scale is so irresponsible!
Becky,
The same agreements that Borders follows with publishers are often the same with other suppliers. Indeed, there may be no publisher to blame but that does not mean there isn’t an entity to blame. They could not donate those items because, technically, they didn’t own them and could not do so without the owners permission.
I find this entire campaign – particularly the Facebook campaign – downright deceptive. Many of us have been banned and blocked on that Facebook page for challenging outright deceptions, lies, and misinformation there. Extremely ironic given that we are talking about books.
I’ve noticed some of the organizers of this movement know a thing or two about publishing and bookselling and they routinely leave out information that is not convenient to their arguments. The notion that bookstores over order books is laughable and uninformed. No bookstore knows how many copies of a new title they are going to sell. Now, if I order 10,000 copies of Ulysses by Joyce for a single store then, yes, that is over ordering and I guarantee you there isn’t a single bookstore in the country engaging in this type of behavior.
What is indeed true is that publishers print far more books than they need. But that is hardly scandalous.
I do not support this campaign because it persists in riling up the uninformed with half-truths and deceptions with lazy feel good activism that is completely unrealistic with regards to the economics of book publishing in this country. Yes, every schoolkid knows to recycle paper (and publishers recycle plenty, another deception) but what I and many others who have worked in bookselling and publishing know is that neither they nor there parents buy as many books as people tend to think.
If this movement ever gets honest and decides to be truthful about the economics of publishing then, I’ll certainly support it. Sadly, I’m not expecting that to happen.
Hi Greg – Thanks for commenting. Obviously I disagree with your assessment.
But surely you agree that printing ONE BILLION more books every year than are sold is not a particularly clever action?
If other retailers (selling grocery produce or hardware or anything else) can order on a “firm sales” basis, why can’t booksellers? I don’t think booksellers are dumber than other retailers. Surely booksellers have the competence to be responsible for their buying decisions, and sell off “in place” anything that is surplus, like other merchants do.
The CEO of Barnes & Noble is on record as saying he wants this wasteful practice to change. Yet publishers claim that it is the retailers who are blocking a change. Which is it?
Consumer pressure is having an impact. We’ve already seen Border take steps. How about adding your voice to the thousands who are emailing to the CEOs of the largest publishing companies AND the CEOs of the largest bookstore chains? They need to meet and fix this nonsense.
If you have “truthful” information about the economics of publishing that contradicts what the Facebook group is showing, a good start would be to post it. That would be helpful. If you can demonstrate that the scale of waste is tiny and/or that there are no alternatives, your arguments would be strong.
By the way, a bit of checking around the Internet would provide you with some very sad, first-hand accounts of smaller publishers who have gone broke or been seriously impacted by a large chain ordering thousands more books than required and sending them all back – in some cases still on the original skids, never having put any of them of the shelves. Perhaps you are a bookstore buyer; if so, what was your own worst buy?
Let’s hope some attention shone on this dark secret will help out booksellers and publishers – and the planet.
thanks, cheers,
Bruce