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Powell’s Bookstores sells many books that are remainders. This post will cover some common questions about remainders. If you have others, please ask them in the comments.

What is a remainder? Generally speaking, it is a book offered at a discount off its original retail price. However, the process by which a book becomes a remainder can take several forms.

Books are generally sold to a bookstore from a publisher on a returnable basis. If sales never hit targets, if there are extra copies left after a print run, or if returns of a book are heavy, a publisher will end up with extra inventory in their warehouse.

Publishers sell remainders in a few different fashions: through a white sale directly to the bookstores, or via a bid list (whose market often includes remainder wholesale companies and bookstore chains.) Also, publishers sometimes find it economically prudent to sell off books returned to them as well. These, whether defective or not, are referred to as hurts.

A remainder mark is a mark put on the book (such as a line on the text block) when it is sold as a remainder. Books with this mark are no longer returnable to the publisher for credit against a bookstore’s account.