If your publisher tells you they are taking your book out of print (OP), keep in mind that one of three things will happen:
- They will remainder the books for pennies on the dollar
- They will offer to sell you the remaining copies for a drastically reduced fee, at which point you are free to do anything you want with your books.
- They will keep the stock and see if they can sell it off
They do not have the right to print more copies. That would get them in serious trouble and if audited, they can be sued. Rightly so, in my opinion.
If they remainder the copies, you need to check your contract. Many contracts don’t pay royalties on remainders.
If they sell copies of your book, you are to receive royalties for your book – provided you earned out your advance. A little bit about how that works; the first thing your publisher must do is list the book as OP with Bowker (the ISBN folks). They also alert the warehouse distributors (Ingram, B&T, Partners, Broadart, etc.) This alerts the warehouse distributors and store owners that they won’t be able to order the book through the warehouse channels. That doesn’t mean the store can’t order the book directly from the publisher (if there are copies still in the publisher’s warehouse). In those cases, they owe you royalties.
If you see that your book is being sold when you thought they were remaindering the books, don’t assume the publisher is pulling rabbits out of their little magic hats. Remaindering books is a royal pain. It’s usually done by weight or minimum numbers – many won’t take anything below 1,000 units. Most small trade presses don’t have that many remainders at one time, so they may keep the OP books in their warehouse until they collect enough books to make up a remainder pallet.
While they’re waiting, they may have the good fortune to sell a few copies. This is perfectly legal. The publisher paid for the books, and they have the right to sell off their remaining stock any way they see fit in order to recoup their loss. But as I said, they owe the author royalties.
If you have questions regarding the disposition of your OP title, whether they remaindered or kept them, your publisher will have those records in their accounting files. It’s not a bad idea to find out where they are.
That is all. Now go out and write another fabulous book.
If you get no other book, and you want the inside scoop on what floats our boats, 
September 14, 2009 at 5:41 am
Lynn – I’ve had a handful of books go out of print, and I know your company would be much more responsible, but in my case I’ve only ever found out because I come across companies selling the remaindered stock cheap on Amazon Marketplace. Although in principle the publisher should offer to sell the remaindered stock to the author first, and this is often contractual, they rarely seem to remember to do it.
A friend who is a publisher tells me that at least one large publisher who shall remain nameless (but I think is reminiscent of a flightless bird) once did this to an author, who took them to court for selling off the remaindered stock without offering to him first. Allegedly they were compelled to do a special print run just to supply his needs.
September 14, 2009 at 6:32 am
Yes, Brian, this is a good point you bring up. Thank you! It’s a crappy thing when publishers do this, and I’m glad the courts ruled in favor of that author.
As a writer, I empathize with authors a great deal and know how devastating it would be to suddenly see my book sitting in the dollar bin. What a rude shock. We ALWAYS alert our authors.
My feeling is why not give the author first bite at the apple? It’s more cost effective for us, and the author gets the last remaining copies of his book. Seems like a win-win to me.
September 24, 2009 at 2:56 pm
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