Pick a Number, Any Number

July 23rd, 2004 · No Comments
by Booksquare

Penguin has a new distribution system, and it, apparently, doesn’t work very well. Bold innovation in automation is like that sometimes. Given that time is money and all that, they’re working hard to get books out the door and into stores. It’s not like it helps to have all those lovely items sitting in a warehouse. Which is why we’re thinking the threatened lawsuit by the Association of Author’s Agents (this is how you know we’re talking about the UK, not the US) isn’t helping matters. First off, how can the so-called lost sales be calculated? What possible metric exists? And were sales truly lost or just delayed? And if simply delayed, does that really impact an author given the timing of sales versus issuance of royalty statements (hopefully with a nice check attached)?

File Under: Agents · Publishers and Editors