I have been in the book business for over five years now. I have been publishing plays (my own) for 25 years. And I have to say, for the most part, it’s all been good. In all the years I’ve been renting my orchestral family concerts, I have never once been stiffed on an invoice. Once or twice people have had to be reminded at the 30 day mark, but hey, let he who has a perfect credit score cast the first collection notice.
Now I will tell you that I have had difficulties with large book wholesalers and resellers, but that impending abuse was obvious from the start. When it comes to dealing with individuals and small companies, I just never have any problems.
Well, not exactly. I have had 2 bad experiences. The first one, I had put out a display of 12 books in the lobby of a church in Peoria, Illinois. I went into the church to talk to someone for a while, and when I came back, there were only 11 books. It was not an accident, there was a sign saying the books were for sale. Someone had stolen it. It was just one book, and it represented, in real numbers, a loss of only three dollars. Only three dollars. But I never forgot it.
Then, just a few months ago, I was speaking to a group in Boston, and I attended one of their meetings a month before. One of the people in the group, a lawyer, wanted to read my book before I came and spoke on it. I felt kind of silly for not having any books on my person, so I told her, I’d be happy to send her a copy later that day and she could pay me for it when I speak at the meeting next month. She said fine. I sent her a book, gave her free shipping, but she didn’t show up to the meeting. I sent her three e-mails reminding her of the balance due. I never heard from her again. Between book and postage, it was only a loss of seven dollars, but again, I never forgot it.
I have all my books printed at a big printing company up in Lowell. I love them dearly, but they have this policy that drives me nuts: 50% of all invoices have to be paid by electronic check, i.e., cash on the barrelhead. In these trying economic times, I don’t always have that much capital lying around doing nothing. I complain to them bitterly, but they always come back and tell me that once upon a time, some guy used a credit card for all of a big order, wasn’t happy, and credit cards allow you to cancel payment very easily. It’s very hard for a vendor to convince the credit card company to pay them, because of a customer just says they were unhappy, that’s the end of it. One guy screwed them long ago, so now they don’t trust anybody, including me, a regular customer.
I can understand their having this policy, but it illustrates perfectly the choice that we all must face: there are always going to be one or two bad eggs out there, so to keep them from screwing you over, are you going to treat every potential customer like they are a potential bad egg?
As I sit here doing a couple of contracts for upcoming speaking gigs, there is always be paranoid sense that I should account for every possible way that a customer could screw me over… or I can take a risk on people being generally honest. Unless there’s a compelling reason to do otherwise, I prefer “B.”
One can feel clever for eliminating potential risk and losses, but what's not so obvious on the annual report spreadsheet is the good honest customers who were turned off and left because of your need for too much self protection.
© Justin Locke
