A: Don
Collins, TAA Council Member and author or co-author of seven school
mathematics textbooks, and former Managing Editor of Mathematics at
Merrill Publishing:
"I can answer
for what I know happens with El-hi Educational textbook publishers.
When a text is accepted and put on an adoption states approved list,
the publisher must agree to keep a supply on hand for up to 8 years.
At the end of all of the adoption states contracts, if there are not
sufficient other sales then the publisher may decide to 'remainder'
the remaining stock. That is, they will sell the texts at a vastly
reduced price to a firm that deals exclusively with back issue texts.
These firms deal with small markets and have large markups. Most publishers
do offer the outdated texts to the author at the reduced price and
do not usually pay royalties on the lower priced texts. One can assume
that when royalty payments become small then the publisher is considering
putting the book on the remainder list, particularly if they have
quite a stock of the texts."
A: Paul
Rosenzweig, TAA Council Member, Consultant to Royalty Review LLC:
"The reality
of all of these deals is that tracking what actually occurred can
only be done on audit, and then it is not unusual to discover missing
records. "Stolen books" are just that, whether or not there is a deal
between publishers, and I leave it to the attorneys to opine on whether
the author can claim compensation for stolen books, in any circumstance.
Books "put into the the hands of resellers" overlooks a previous transaction,
ie a sale, for which the royalty provisions of the author's contract
would apply."
A: Stephen
E. Gillen, Authoring Attorney, Greenebaum Doll & McDonald PLLC:
"It depends
upon the deal between the two publishers. Typically, the acquiring
publisher buys the inventory along with the contracts. Then they sell
it out or destroy it so they can produce a new printing under their
imprint. It's also possible that the acquiring publisher would have
no interest in the existing inventory under the old imprint and would
require, as a condition of sale, that the selling publisher destroy
the inventory. Regardless of who sells the books, the author should
get a royalty in accord with the terms of the publishing contract
(of course, if the books are remaindered that royalty may be small
or nonexistent depending upon the terms in the publishing contract).
In any event, any sales should be reflected in the next royalty statement.
If there is a question, ask the new and old publishers to provide
an inventory reconciliation."
