How to Sell Books on Consignment

Read on for advice on how to sell books on consignment.Selling books on consignment is a murky part of the publishing game. For plenty of small press publishers and writers of all kinds, it’s the only way to get books on the shelves. Authors regularly leave copies at venues where they’ve read, sometimes with nothing but a handshake agreement about collecting the fee.In Montreal’s Argo Bookshop, one of my favourite book stores in the world, I’ve watched the shelf of Canadian poetry chapbooks sit collecting dust for a decade now. Every now and then new copies are added. Less often, someone takes a copy off the shelf. Each title counts toward a CanCon quota the bookstore needs to be eligible to sell to Quebec libraries. That collection has changed ownership three times in the last decade and only recently have they moved to a spinning book rack in the middle of the floor. Imagine trying to collect on a book you left three owners ago.It’s expensive to stock a bookstore. Booksellers can’t afford to sink their resources into titles that won’t move. Even if they host book launches, many won’t actually buy copies. Publishers may provide an author with copies to sell at the launch or authors may bring copies themselves. But bookstores are taking a risk every time they commit to buying copies. They need books to sell if they’re going to buy new ones, and they need new ones to keep customers coming back.Publishers sometimes offer the author a steep cut on the price of their own book and authors take them up on the offer to hawk books on tour. They sell these copies at readings, force them on their families, or leave them in bookstores on consignment. It might earn the author more money to sell these books than the royalties, but the main objective is getting the book out into the world when bookstores aren’t willing to buy it from the catalogue.That means authors can wind up leaving a significant investment in their own careers lying around bookstores across the continent without much in the way of contracts. Publishers trying to create a distribution network have even more on the line.

Imagine trying to collect on a book you left three owners ago.

People in Canadian publishing don’t often like to talk about money. But two Toronto-based writers and publishers brought up the subject on Twitter, and I wanted to know more about the pitfalls of consignment. I wondered whether or not there was information that could save future small publishers and touring authors from losing money because of bad consignment deals.A. Light Zachary told me that their publisher, Montreal-based Metatron, had sent a Toronto bookstore 15 copies of their novel The End, By Anna on consignment. The publisher never saw any money and despite assurances from the bookstore that payment was forthcoming, nothing ever did. Zachary also said that a smaller bookstore had taken on a stack of chapbooks and never remitted any payment, despite selling out. Zachary and their publisher have been waiting well over a year to hear from these bookstores, which Zachary did not want to name.I also spoke with Nicole Brewer, co-founder of words(on)pages, a chapbook press that printed the magazine (parenthetical) and published a series of poetry chapbooks. Brewer wrote via email that as of January 2018, words(on)pages hadn’t made any money from selling books on commission.“We haven't received payment for any books we were selling on commission—although I'd like to be clear and say that in some cases this is partially our fault as well. The amounts are minimal, so we weren't too dedicated to collecting. In some cases, our commission didn't reach the minimum amount for payout we agreed to; in others, our own recordkeeping meant that we weren't sure how much had sold.”

But every dollar counts to small and micro presses when one season’s sales fund the next season’s releases.

But words(on)pages has also had issues with bookstores dodging payment. “We only contacted one store for payment, where we were fairly certain we had sold a decent number of books: maybe made $60 or $80 on commission,” wrote Brewer, “The request was sidestepped a few times, and then paid out but not in full, and with no accompanying paperwork.”I reached out to both Toronto’s knife | fork | book and Montreal’s Drawn & Quarterly, which both host book launches regularly, to ask about their process for handling books on consignment. Neither got back to me, but Brewer did share that the owner of kfb “didn’t keep records, and was difficult to correspond with about sales, which made record keeping on our end all the more difficult.” She also admits that words(on)pages didn’t keep the best records either. “Getting them on the shelves felt like enough of an accomplishment,” Brewer wrote.(Contributor's Note: None of the claims made in this piece against unnamed bookstores pertained to either kfb or Drawn & Quarterly. In a comment to this piece made after publication, kfb also made clear that they catalogue their complete inventory and track most payments through PayPal or e-Transfer. The owner of kfb also wanted to make clear that the bookseller is in good standing with all authors and publishers they deal with.) In the low-stakes, low-expectations world of small press publishing, it’s easy to forget about a few books here and a few books there. It’s often better than the enmity that comes with chasing after debts. But every dollar counts to small and micro presses when one season’s sales fund the next season’s releases.Brewer has one piece of advice for publishers. “If the store doesn’t have its own version of a commission agreement, make one and make sure you keep a copy on file for yourself.”Even with a contract, there’s always a chance you might get stiffed. The sums are too low for any real legal action to make sense. But if you’re selling your books on consignment, either as an author or a publisher, provide booksellers documentation of your agreement (and their signature). More often than not, it seems, they’re just bad at record keeping.