I can't remember what they do with hardcovers. Probably just remove the dustjackets, but I don't know. I could, however, find out.
'Dirty Girls'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
The covers are removed to save postage, actually--rather than a store sending back the whole book, they just send the covers. I bet the dust jacket *is* what gets sent for hardcovers, Barb.
Mass market paperbacks and magazines are the only remainders where only the front cover gets sent back. The rest they send back the whole book. At least that is how it was done at the bookstore I worked at.
Paperbacks have the covers stripped off; covers are sent back to the publisher for credit and the books are pulped (for recycling). Hardcovers are marked - either a magic marker stripe across the pages (at the edge) or a mark on the cover - and the entire thing sent back.
No, hardcovers and trade paperbacks are sent back as is, since they may still be sold to another store. The marker stripe you've sometimes seen is done by the publishers only after the book has been remaindered.
Anybody else wondering if Kerfuffle Bunny is going to be talking about OSC?
I say, send the covers/dust jackets to Card, and include a note saying you made confetti for a gay wedding out of the rest.
the books are pulped (for recycling)
Not always. When I worked at Waldenbooks, we'd just box them up and toss them in the dumpster.
Ideally, of course, strips are sent home to new forever-homes with loving booksellers. Publishers like to crack down and say you can't do that, and then stores say "no, booksellers, you can't have that book we're throwing away!"
And then things start to slide again.
Anybody else wondering if Kerfuffle Bunny is going to be talking about OSC?
Probably Friday.
Is that where the 70% off books come from?