June 24th: The dozen copies arrived today packaged nicely in a huge shipping box with two nice white file-type boxes on the inside. The books themselves were shrink wrapped and in foam wrap in traditional Lulu fashion. See picture here. Unfortunately, shrink wrapping six books per box caused them to slide on the inside, which caused slight bending. See pictures here and here. The bending is typical in trade paperbacks and happens when you bend the spine during reading anyway. Since these are new books, laying them flat or shelving them tightly between other books will work out the bend.
However, the sliding of the books in the shrink wrap caused slight damage to the corners and edges on the lower part of the spine. This often happens when books bump into one another while a bookseller is shelving them. It’s typical shelf wear causing the book cover to peel or fold upward alone the edge. Although this is minor and not something I’m going to report to Lulu, it’s still disappointing. Six of my twelve copies have this damage in the exact same spot. See pictures here, here, here, here, and here. The sixth copy also has some goo on the cover. It’s usually run-over from the glue used on the spine, resembling a scuff across the front cover. It’s in the lower left corner. I used the flash in one pic so you could see the scuff marks. The glue is the white spots in the second pic. See picture here and here. This copy is the worst of the six.
I work for a wholesale medical book distributor by day, and I know very well how hard it is to pack and ship books and avoid any damage, even this minor. A picky book retailer would call these six copies into me in a snap and report them as damaged or defective and want to return them. I’d have to issue a call tag and pick them up from them at my company’s expense. The bookstore receiver doesn’t usually invest time in packing them well to go back, so they will get knocked around in a box coming back to me and receive further damage.
Let’s add on the money and payroll my company already spent on receiving the books, shelving them, picking them for the order, packing and shipping them out, money spent on getting them picked up again, brought back to us, payroll and time spent opening and processing the return, and then trying to issue a claim with the publisher to return the books back to them. Profit margins are really tight with book sales anyway, so not only have we made no money on this sale, but we’ve love money in payroll and shipping expenses.
Now, this is just an example, but a very true one. Most booksellers aren’t this picky and will probably just shelve these books to avoid having to call the vendor. Most of the books will receive the minor spine peel during shelving or while being pulled off a shelf by a customer and put back again over time anyway. It is very minor at this point. The one with the goo would 8 out of 10 times be returned to the vendor, or a customer would probably ask for an additional discount since it is very visible damage. Since I am using most of these as review copies, I’m not too upset but it is still disappointing.
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