…and its absolutely brilliant observation: “It’s a good life, having idiots hate you.” Latest example? This winner, driving up Andrew Breitbart’s royalties for Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!:
…because, apparently, people seem to think that authors get their cut of a book sale when the book is sold to a consumer. Erm. No. Costco purchases books ahead of time – like they would any other product – then they resell those books at a profit. Throwing those books in the trash merely decreases the number that Costco has available… which means that it hastens the point where they have to order more books in order to keep a proper inventory. Which is I believe the point where Andrew Breitbart racks up a bit more in commissions.
Put more simply: the result of this binge of civil disobedience?
KA-CHING!
Moe Lane
PS: Writers write because we have to. Writers publish because we care about getting paid. To paraphrase Robert Heinlein: the greatest, most poetic phrase in the English language is Pay to the order of…
As far a Costco is concerned, there was a run on Breitbart’s book.
Maybe they’ll put out a sign “Breitbart: Save the World, now in stock!”
Heh. This post is currently generating a private conversation about the arcana of bookselling. And I mean arcana.
I wouldn’t call this “civil disobediance”, more like “willful destruction of private property”.
I used to put out the magazines and newspapers at one of our local Barnes and Noble. It was amazing to me how the political right magazines were always shoved to the back but still outsold the lefty counterparts. We could never keep enough of the “right” magazines in stock from selling out, but the “lefts” were always returned. I hope the manager from Costco found out about the destruction of their property and released the responsible individual.