Doing Small Press Math

Choose non-returnable and you keep your costs predictable, but you make yourself harder to stock. Most bookstores, chains and independents alike, are reluctant to shelve a book they can’t send back. Taking a chance on an unknown author is easier to justify when the risk belongs to someone else.

Choose returnable and you become easy to order, and you take on that risk yourself. If a store returns unsold copies, you can have them shipped back to you at the wholesale cost plus a few dollars a book in handling, or you can have them pulped and pay only the wholesale cost. Either way, you have already paid to print books that came back. And there is a sting in the tail. In any month where returns run ahead of sales, the platform can simply invoice you the difference. It is entirely possible to have a good month on paper and owe money at the end of it.