Tonight a friend sent me a link to this article that appeared in the June 3 issue of the Wall Street Journal. The article discusses what the author refers to as the dark side of the book world: returns. Publishers are sending more books to bookstores than ever before. In return bookstores are sending more unsold copies back to the publishers. As one would expect, this is causing some major problems for publishers. For those curious about what goes on behind the scenes in the bookselling world, it is a very interesting read and I highly recommend reading it.

As a business practice, a bookstore's ability to return unsold books has always boggled my mind. It's not like the majority of other retail stores are privileged enough to make use of this practice (as the article notes). Can you imagine if libraries had this option available to them? Whenever I order books I always keep the interests of my patrons in mind. Once a book is in the collection, it's in the collection. However, imagine how nice it would be if I could order a title, have it catalogued, shelve it in the new book section, and then if it turns out to be a dog and no one checks it out, I get to return it with no questions asked. How freeing would that be?

The one thing that I found most disturbing in the article as a reader, however, was the fact that new releases are only promoted for one or two weeks. One or two weeks! How can readers discover new authors in such a short amount of time? They can't. The time is just not adequate. Most readers don't haunt bookstores they way I do. And they shouldn't have to.

I don't know what the solution is, but there has to be one. It may involve booksellers like Borders or Barnes & Noble becoming more responsible for what they stock. As it stands right now they exist in a consequence free world. I don't see how that can continue.

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