Long-time readers of this blog will know that the impetus for Author Advantage came from self-reflection about my purchasing habits. I have always been a lover of used books. My bookshelf is filled with yellow pages and creased spines. One day when aligning the spines of my bookshelf, a truly Sisyphean task, I started to reckon with the fact that despite my frequent purchases of books I was not supporting any of the writers whose work lined my shelf. For whatever reason I hav

“Our books are more sustainable because they are used, we are a sustainable company.” I hear some permutation of this when talking to almost every used bookseller. If a book is re-read one time, the environmental costs of production are cut almost in half. This is a great outcome that only gets stronger and stronger if a book can cycle through the shelves more than once. This is the core of the sustainability argument for reading used books, and it rings true. If comparing a

What Is Loss-Leader Pricing? Loss-leader pricing is a strategy developed in traditional retail to drive traffic. Items are sold at a loss to entice customers into the store, leading to more sales. A classic example is the $5 rotisserie chicken at Costco. This price is far below the actual cost, and the strategy reportedly leads to over $40 million in annual losses for Costco. But the pricing has remained stable, and Costco is clearly committed to it—so we can intuit that this