Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner: The gift that keeps on giving

I was trying to look up some details about the Rissa Kerguelen universe when I came across this bit in FM Busby's wikipedia entry:

He ceased writing fiction at some time after 1996 following the US Court decision Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, which decided the IRS had the right to tax unsold inventory. Publishers find it most cost effective to print a novel in huge volumes and the court decision meant it was unprofitable to keep books that sold slowly in print, since they were taxed on books that were sitting in warehouses waiting to be sold.

Busby later stated that this, coupled with the decision by book retail chains to base their gross orders for a novel on the net sales of the author's previous novel, effectively froze all authors with middle ranking sales out of the market place.

1996 follows the Thor Power Tool decision by 17 years. 16 of Busby's 21 novels were published after TPT.

From the publisher's point of view, there's a perfectly good reason to drop slow sellers for fast sellers, which is that the same money invested in a given print run will see faster returns from the second sort of book. Regardless of the effect of the tax regime on backstock, there should have been pressure in the direction of reducing the number of slow-selling books.

I'd love to know how many F&SF titles came out in 1978. The most recent estimate I could find (secondary from Locus, which I can't find at the moment) is about 1500.

The specific quotationfrom Busby is

"No, I haven't been writing fiction for some time. Many if not most of us "midlist" writers have been frozen out like a third party on an Eskimo honeymoon. The IRS started it by getting the Thor Power Tools decision stretched to cover an inventory tax on books in publishers' warehouses (so they don't keep 'em in print no more), and the bookchains wrapped it up by setting one book's GROSS order on that writer's previous book's NET sales. 4-5 books under those rules, and you're road kill; a publisher can't be expected to buy a book the chains won't pay out on."

I should learn how to edit wikipedia because it would be trivial to edit the entry to more closely reflect what Busby actually said. Hrm, except does that quotation meet wikipedia's standards?

Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner: The gift that keeps on giving

I was trying to look up some details about the Rissa Kerguelen universe when I came across this bit in FM Busby's wikipedia entry:

He ceased writing fiction at some time after 1996 following the US Court decision Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, which decided the IRS had the right to tax unsold inventory. Publishers find it most cost effective to print a novel in huge volumes and the court decision meant it was unprofitable to keep books that sold slowly in print, since they were taxed on books that were sitting in warehouses waiting to be sold.

Busby later stated that this, coupled with the decision by book retail chains to base their gross orders for a novel on the net sales of the author's previous novel, effectively froze all authors with middle ranking sales out of the market place.

1996 follows the Thor Power Tool decision by 17 years. 16 of Busby's 21 novels were published after TPT.

From the publisher's point of view, there's a perfectly good reason to drop slow sellers for fast sellers, which is that the same money invested in a given print run will see faster returns from the second sort of book. Regardless of the effect of the tax regime on backstock, there should have been pressure in the direction of reducing the number of slow-selling books.

I'd love to know how many F&SF titles came out in 1978. The most recent estimate I could find (secondary from Locus, which I can't find at the moment) is about 1500.

The specific quotationfrom Busby is

"No, I haven't been writing fiction for some time. Many if not most of us "midlist" writers have been frozen out like a third party on an Eskimo honeymoon. The IRS started it by getting the Thor Power Tools decision stretched to cover an inventory tax on books in publishers' warehouses (so they don't keep 'em in print no more), and the bookchains wrapped it up by setting one book's GROSS order on that writer's previous book's NET sales. 4-5 books under those rules, and you're road kill; a publisher can't be expected to buy a book the chains won't pay out on."

I should learn how to edit wikipedia because it would be trivial to edit the entry to more closely reflect what Busby actually said. Hrm, except does that quotation meet wikipedia's standards?

Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner: The gift that keeps on giving

I was trying to look up some details about the Rissa Kerguelen universe when I came across this bit in FM Busby's wikipedia entry:

He ceased writing fiction at some time after 1996 following the US Court decision Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, which decided the IRS had the right to tax unsold inventory. Publishers find it most cost effective to print a novel in huge volumes and the court decision meant it was unprofitable to keep books that sold slowly in print, since they were taxed on books that were sitting in warehouses waiting to be sold.

Busby later stated that this, coupled with the decision by book retail chains to base their gross orders for a novel on the net sales of the author's previous novel, effectively froze all authors with middle ranking sales out of the market place.

1996 follows the Thor Power Tool decision by 17 years. 16 of Busby's 21 novels were published after TPT.

From the publisher's point of view, there's a perfectly good reason to drop slow sellers for fast sellers, which is that the same money invested in a given print run will see faster returns from the second sort of book. Regardless of the effect of the tax regime on backstock, there should have been pressure in the direction of reducing the number of slow-selling books.

I'd love to know how many F&SF titles came out in 1978. The most recent estimate I could find (secondary from Locus, which I can't find at the moment) is about 1500.

The specific quotationfrom Busby is

"No, I haven't been writing fiction for some time. Many if not most of us "midlist" writers have been frozen out like a third party on an Eskimo honeymoon. The IRS started it by getting the Thor Power Tools decision stretched to cover an inventory tax on books in publishers' warehouses (so they don't keep 'em in print no more), and the bookchains wrapped it up by setting one book's GROSS order on that writer's previous book's NET sales. 4-5 books under those rules, and you're road kill; a publisher can't be expected to buy a book the chains won't pay out on."

I should learn how to edit wikipedia because it would be trivial to edit the entry to more closely reflect what Busby actually said. Hrm, except does that quotation meet wikipedia's standards?

Transition

Funky Winkerbean leaps ten years into its future.

It's not clear to me if this means that it is now set in 2017 or if Lisa's death now occured in 1997. The first risks a vision of the future that could go stale within months (Consider 1991's Russian Spring or Fellow Traveler) The second option causes all kinds of continuity problems.

Transition

Funky Winkerbean leaps ten years into its future.

It's not clear to me if this means that it is now set in 2017 or if Lisa's death now occured in 1997. The first risks a vision of the future that could go stale within months (Consider 1991's Russian Spring or Fellow Traveler) The second option causes all kinds of continuity problems.

Transition

Funky Winkerbean leaps ten years into its future.

It's not clear to me if this means that it is now set in 2017 or if Lisa's death now occured in 1997. The first risks a vision of the future that could go stale within months (Consider 1991's Russian Spring or Fellow Traveler) The second option causes all kinds of continuity problems.

This is not in reference to any one book that I read in the recent past

Because it's not unique to any one book that I read in the recent past:

Suppose that we have a space habitat that looks like this.


To get the largest area at the optimum gravity, h is the zero-gee axis. Unfortunately, left to itself, the cylinder will eventually end up with r as the zero-gee axis. A space habitat in the form of a long, thin cylinder therefore requires more maintainance than would some other more stable configuration.


Aside from Ing's Spinquake (? Is that the title?), the sabotage in The Revolution from Rosinante and some parts of The Two Faces of Tomorrow detailing why million tonne spin decouplers can be dicey, has anyone ever used the potential failure modes of a spinning habitat for dramatic effect?

This is not in reference to any one book that I read in the recent past

Because it's not unique to any one book that I read in the recent past:

Suppose that we have a space habitat that looks like this.


To get the largest area at the optimum gravity, h is the zero-gee axis. Unfortunately, left to itself, the cylinder will eventually end up with r as the zero-gee axis. A space habitat in the form of a long, thin cylinder therefore requires more maintainance than would some other more stable configuration.


Aside from Ing's Spinquake (? Is that the title?), the sabotage in The Revolution from Rosinante and some parts of The Two Faces of Tomorrow detailing why million tonne spin decouplers can be dicey, has anyone ever used the potential failure modes of a spinning habitat for dramatic effect?

This is not in reference to any one book that I read in the recent past

Because it's not unique to any one book that I read in the recent past:

Suppose that we have a space habitat that looks like this.


To get the largest area at the optimum gravity, h is the zero-gee axis. Unfortunately, left to itself, the cylinder will eventually end up with r as the zero-gee axis. A space habitat in the form of a long, thin cylinder therefore requires more maintainance than would some other more stable configuration.


Aside from Ing's Spinquake (? Is that the title?), the sabotage in The Revolution from Rosinante and some parts of The Two Faces of Tomorrow detailing why million tonne spin decouplers can be dicey, has anyone ever used the potential failure modes of a spinning habitat for dramatic effect?

RFI: Napkin Books

Someone pointed out Napkin Books to me in email. There's not a lot of information on their website about the company. Does anyone know anything about them?

(Yes, I've sent them email asking about the company but there's no reason to expect them to answer my questions out of the blue)

RFI: Napkin Books

Someone pointed out Napkin Books to me in email. There's not a lot of information on their website about the company. Does anyone know anything about them?

(Yes, I've sent them email asking about the company but there's no reason to expect them to answer my questions out of the blue)

RFI: Napkin Books

Someone pointed out Napkin Books to me in email. There's not a lot of information on their website about the company. Does anyone know anything about them?

(Yes, I've sent them email asking about the company but there's no reason to expect them to answer my questions out of the blue)