The Transom Remainders

Abstract

If a book does not sell – or does not sell sufficiently to meet the expectations of a publisher who overestimated the market and consequently printed too many copies – it may be remaindered, which is to say, sold at a price considerably lower that its original price. University presses, at least as Chester Kerr defined them, were not supposed to remainder books but were instead to keep them available for long periods because they possessed enduring intellectual value, even if there was no immediate demand for them. For some university presses, the fact that they never remaindered the books they published was once a point of honour, advertised, if not to authors, then certainly to employees, who were told not even to mention the word. I remember being told not to mention it. I remember also the wink that accompanied the warning. Our house did not remainder books, period. But we did have some absolutely smashing sales. The annual damaged book sale, held a couple of weeks before Christmas, was an ever-popular event at which one might locate a few entirely undamaged, uh, perennial favourites. The titles I remember that popped up with remarkable regularity had to do with (a) Italian chickens and (b) ball-bearings. Those were non-starters at regular retail, but knock off 75 per cent and people would actually buy them. Perhaps they were to become gifts for the unsuspecting. ‘Season’s greetings, Uncle Fudd, and here’s a fine volume on Italian chickens, just the thing for an old rooster like yourself.’ Well, one can only imagine. Our most memorable book-dumping (we called it ‘inventory reduction,’ an entirely transparent euphemism) extravaganza was the ‘All You Can Carry for $5’ sale. We were, as I recall, moving from a large warehouse with a leaky roof to a smaller one that, through bone-dry, would not accommodate our entire inventory. Lots of books had to go: twenty-five of these, fifty of those, 100 of those over there, and, for bait, ten of these. Altogether, we had 100 or so