The Powers-That-Be would like TrineDay to go away …

February 17, 2020

When I started TrineDay in 2001, I knew I had to “play” with the big boys. At that time I knew very little about the publishing industry, and If I had, I may not have done it. You see, publishing is a harrowing business. Distributers do not buy books, publishers give them to them. Bookstores do not buy books they are given on consignment, and then they have 90 to 120 days to either pay for or return. And even if paid for after the term, books can be returned for full credit up to six months after they have been declared out-of-print. And as new books get shipped/moved around about 30% get damaged and are then classified as used, some being completely unsalable. And Trineday gets the privilege of paying 10% on all returned items. I once asked if my distributer I could refuse to sell my books to firms that were returning them, I was told, “No, that is Restraint of Trade.”

For the majority of my time as a publisher, it was a sub-distributer Baker & Taylor that was playing mercantile games (ordering product and returning). Just recently Amazon has stepped up as the “enforcer.” Amazon in the last week in November placed a huge order with my distributer. After getting notification of the shipment, I contacted the distributer, they said yes, it was huge company-wide order. I mentioned that many of the titles that Amazon ordered from TrineDay were of books that hadn’t sold much, and they ordered several cases of these books. They said, “Amazon just opened up over a 100 new warehouses, hopefully they were stocking these.” I demurred and said, I think many will be coming back.

Well, they have, and at end of January Amazon returned almost $20,000 worth of product. What does that do? Well it cost TrineDay a 10% returns fee. Also the returns take money off of what TrineDay was to receive in February. Needless to say it meant that TrineDay had almost no money to pay bills, employees, authors,

etc. It is not like I am getting rich publishing suppressed works. I started this with $5,000 of borrowed money and am now more in debt than I ever thought I could be. I am simply stubborn, and want a better world and future for our children. I have been an entrepreneur all my life and understand how to work with cash flow, but these predatory tactics are designed to put us out of business.

What to do? I have talked to several folks with pockets, but have found none to stand up with TrineDay. I am open to selling parts of TrineDay to raise capital or a some solution that works to keep the press open. There is reason why folks burn books and there are reasons why TrineDay publishes. Books are very important for dialogue in our search for solutions.

Please if you can go to www.trineday.com and order a book for yourself or a friend.

More later ….