RARA-AVIS: Tax and back list

DOUGLAS GREENE (dgreene@odu.edu)
Tue, 2 Dec 1997 09:56:56 EST > >I suspect this is partly due to tax laws that make it very costly for
> >publishers to keep old material in print.
>
> I'm not sure what tax laws have to do with it--the sheer cost of printing,
> publishing and distributing books, by authors living or dead, is high
> enough.

Some years ago, publishers could for tax purposes depreciate the books on their back
list that were in storage, and therefore they tended to keep them
around rather than immediately remaindering them. The depreciation
is no longer allowed, so the back list is no longer as extensive.

Doug
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