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remaindered books; whose tree should we bark up?

updated sun 24 aug 08

 

Joseph Herbert on sat 23 aug 08


The problem was a change from carrying the books as cost of material to
selling price. That change in value of stored books was what exploded the
remainder market. I did see a stack of Harry Davis do-it-yourself book a
long time ago (before the reprinting) in Delaware. I think I bought 4 or 5.

The best remainder story I know is that of Oliver North. He wrote a book
for a big advance and there was a big press run as well. The general
reading public saw the book, and its author, for what it was and did not
buy. Oliver bought much of the remainder for pennies on the dollar. He was
on the lecture circuit by that time and sold those copies, signed, for full
price. Financed his senate campaign.

Henry David Thoreau once purchased the remainder of an edition of his poetry
at the request (begging) of his publisher. He then observed that he was
proud to have a library of over 1000 volumes, seven hundred of which he had
written himself. (His family was rich from making pencils)

There is clay in modern pencil lead. In HDT's time, there was not.

Writing on a pot in pencil before glaze firing may result in a red trace of
the writing, depends on the clay in the pencil lead.

Joe


-----Original Message-----
From: Clayart [mailto:CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG] On Behalf Of Lili Krakowski
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 6:59 AM
To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
Subject: Remaidered books; whose tree should we bark up?

There was a long discussion of this on ClayArt quite a few years
ago, because as here, people were blaming the publishers for
remaindering books....

I forget the details, as I have had nothing to do with publishing
in decades--but a kindly accountant or lawyer explained then what
I remembered vaguely.

The tax people changed some code. As a result of which
publishers no longer could keep books warehoused "forever" but
needed to (economic reasons, tax reasons) to get rid of them
after a certain time.
As publishers are in business and we need them to stay in
business, there is no point blaming them!

Of course--hint, hint--the big ceramic supply houses could buy up
such books. They too might have to unload them after a while,
but it would extend the books being on the market.

Maybe someone out there knows and will tell us--so we can write
our Congress people.




Lili Krakowski

Be of good courage

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