A Different Kind of Potter Discount

by Jim Milliot, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 7/12/2005

The newest wrinkle in the selling of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes not from Scholastic, but from the online e-retailer Alibris. In a notice on its Web site, the company is offering to acquire used copies of Half-Blood for $5. Alibris will also pick up the shipping charges for customers that use a free-shipping label that can be printed from the company's Web site.

Alibris's offer is limited to U.S. hardcover editions that are "in very good condition." The offer begins Thursday (two days before official pub date) and runs through September 15. Brian Elliott, Alibris COO, says the buyback offer "is a bit of an experiment to gauge the interest in this type of program." He noted that book buybacks are standard procedure in the textbook world, but have not been tried in trade publishing. "With 10 million copies floating around, we figured some customers would be looking for an easy way to get some of their money back. We'll see how this works."

Alibris, which is selling new editions of Half-Blood at $17.49, will offer used editions "at whatever price the market will bear," Elliott says, estimating the price will be in the $9 to $10 range.

Paul Aiken, executive director of the Author's Guild, sees the Alibris gambit as a "unsettling precedent" which could undermine sales of new books in the first 60 to 90 days after the initial release of a book. "While J.K. Rowling doesn't need time to establish Potter, the Alibris offer is aimed at what is a critical and profitable period in a book's life," Aiken says.