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Zen and the Proctology of Publishing

A Saturday Rant 1-8-00

By and large, men and women are pretty evenly split when it comes to the
severity of their particular gender's specific health maintenance routines.
However, there is one particular procedure that women can only guess about.
It starts when the doctor tells a man to "assume the position." There is
nothing like a prostate examination to give one a certain Zen-like
perspective on the world.

This week's discussion about how Ingram accumulates all returns and passes
them back to us for credit, is another example of how all of us, large and
small, in this industry continually "take it in the shorts."

Long known as the "cesspool" of returns, when a distributor or chain goes
under, Ingram always finds a way to make a nice profit from the adversity of
their ex-customer. And who is going to get the shaft in the ass? You, me,
and every other publisher. And I have it on good authority that there is
another good sized distributor that is just about ready to go tits-up. So
stock up on the KY-Jelly (a.k.a as "goosegreese" in the hospital OR."

Is the Tennessee Mafia ever going to collect returned  inventory and store
it for later sale? Not on your life. They are going to ship it back to you
as fast as they can.

What a deal. Say they sold and owe you for 50 copies of one of your books,
to the amount of $500. And lets assume that you have other distributors or
wholesalers who might have supplied some chain with, say 100 copies of your
book. These 100 copies come back to Ingram. It will wipe out what they owe
you and they may even decide to assess you a debit for the other 50 books.
So instead of them owing you $500, you now owe them $500, plus they kept the
$500 they were due to pay you. If you do business with Ingram, my best
advice to you is that you better get ready for that rubber glove.

It is the way of the world for publishers to be reamed. It is one of the
laws of nature. Why is this? Because we have no countervailing force or
power to be used against the overwhelming leverage that Ingram has over us.
In a Zen interpretation of the world, each force always has an opposite
force to keep it in balance. Unions vs. management. Congress vs. President.
Insurance companies and regulators. Auto companies vs. environmentalists.

What is the Zen body of force that surrounds us small publishers and which
we hope will exert equal and opposite pressure on Ingram? Unfortunately for
us, there is none. In the same manner that you know when you are at the
doctor's office that there is no way you are going to get out of  "assuming
the position," our Karma precludes that we will be hosed by Ingram; and
there is no force great enough to prevail against them.

The purports of Zen, as well as the ancient Vedic literature, is an attempt
to explain and justify to us what seems to be an imperfect world. And yet in
all my readings of the old texts, I have yet to understand why the PMA
refuses to stand up and exert the power that it surely has. Where are the
protestations of the Executive Director? Where are the howls of protest from
the president and his puppet board? Zen fails me here. The power is there,
but is goes unused, even unnoticed.

Dare we look to Tom and Marilyn Ross of SPAN for help? What about Jerry
Jenkins and his empire? Maybe Dan Poynter or John Kremer might speak in our
behalf? No, that is not to be. These are all private citizens or profit
seeking organizations who don't see OUR troubles as being THEIR problems.
Indeed, it does not take a Zen master to realize that the more problems we
publishers have, the more it would seem that we need the advice and
assistance of the aforementioned luminaries. Indeed, as my old friend Don
would say, " the father, son, and holy ghost have caught the last train to
the coast."

So as we publishers still being forced to "assume the position," I ask
myself the eternal question. What is the real meaning of life in this
industry? What is our real position in the publishing cosmos? Who will speak
for us? Will you? If not you, than who?

As I told you earlier, as of Jan. 1, 2000 we refuse to sell to anyone on a
blanket returnable basis. Do you have the courage to write to Ingram and
tell them that? If you don't, than stop complaining.

Maybe you need to ask yourself if you are part of the problem... or part of
the solution?

What is YOUR response when Ingram tells you to "assume the position?"

"Ah, grasshopper, you ask so many questions."

Alan N. Canton
Vice President
Adams-Blake Publishing
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If you are in  the publishing business, you must see PUB123, the newest and
most affordable back-office software system available. You can find it on
http://www.adams-blake.com. Email us at: info@adams-blake.com
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