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What are your thoughts on book returns? I’ve been reading a lot of posts about bookstores refusing to stock any book that’s listed as “non-returnable”. Non-returnable essentially means the book cannot be returned by the store to the publisher/distributor for a refund if it doesn’t sell. It’s been at the back of my mind, but I recently overheard a B&N manager absolutely going off about all the indies trying to solicit their books and how B&N “will never stock a self-published author.”

Back on topic: I’ve worked in bookstores, and it used to kill me to tear the covers off books and mail them back to the publisher to get refunds. They call it stripping the books, and to me it seems like a pretty archaic way to handle unsold merchandise. I recently spoke with the owner of a small local press. He said they made the decision to stop accepting returns, even though it means no more shelf space at B&N. It does make me wonder what lies in wait for returnable versus non-returnable books.