From Tom Nissley, owner of Phinney Books and author of A Reader’s Book of Days:
There’s a moment in the life of a writer, and the life of a book, that they don’t tell you about in school: when you get an email from your editor saying, “Sorry, but your book has been remaindered” (which means, for those of you not in the business, that they aren’t printing any more and are selling off the ones they have left for pennies on the dollar). In the case of my book, The Reader’s Book of Days, it’s a bit of a softer blow: it’s the hardcover that’s getting taken out back behind the barn, while the paperback remains in print. And besides, I’m in this business: I buy remainders myself (that’s mostly what goes on our sale table), and I know it’s a part of the literary life cycle that happens to almost everyone.
And so, with that in mind, when my editor asked next, “Do you want to buy any copies for yourself?”, I thought, let’s celebrate that life rather than mourn it. Let’s have a remainder party, or, rather, a wake! So I bought a hundred copies (at pennies on the dollar), and […] Friday, October 28, at 7 we’ll have a little sendoff for the hardcover edition of The Reader’s Book of Days. […] I’ll read some tales of literary failure from the book, and we’ll invite other folks to read items that have died in some literary way—been rejected, or panned, or published in a magazine that folded. […]
There will be some Irish whiskey (as there should be at a wake), and, best of all, the hardcover RBD will be available, while supplies last, for only $3.66 a copy (one penny for each day in the book). Come by and join us in a toast to literary life and death.