Where should I buy a book?

I don't think an author really minds where you buy the book from - just as long as you buy their book.

JJ

That's a "it depends" thing that the reader can't really know for certain, honestly, because it all comes down to the author's contract and, somewhat, to the size of the publisher.

Brick & mortar stores, either chain or independent, usually demand the least amount of discount from the publisher, so the royalties for those sales are usually better for the author. However they also strip and return the majority of the books, which causes it's own challenges with the royalty checks (holds against returns).

Online stores (like amazon) can demand very deep discounts from the publisher (the publisher I worked for had to give a 55% discount, plus pay all S&H to Amazon), which might cut into the author's royalty rate. When I published with a small press, my royalty rate was cut in half for on-line sales.

Bookclub books could be a separate sale from the original or it could be part of the original deal. I have a crit bud whose books were picked up by the SF Book Club and it was a separately negotiated nice deal for the reprint rights (good agents make a difference) and another friend who sold her book club rights in her original contract and didn't do as well with the book club.

I've heard varying reports from editors, agents and authors about the importance of where a book is sold in how much is actually paid to the authors and it's all contradictory. Some say that where doesn't matter, some say it matters greatly--but it all depends on how the contract is written as far as I can tell.

So there's no way the average book buyer is going to know what will do the best for the author. JJ is right that the important thing is to buy the book new, wherever you can best afford to.

Just steal it, it's cheaper.

I like to support the local bookstores in my area so I KEEP local bookstores in my area. I also don't buy used books, because the author gets no royalties from those. That includes some of the cheaper third party books you see listed on Amazon.

(I was half way through writing this before I realised I was merely enlarging on DeleyanLee's remarks, but I'm going to post anyway, I'm afraid.)

From a financial point of view this depends on how the author's royalties are paid. They may be paid as a percentage of the purchase price ('PP') or as a percentage of the publisher's receipts ('price received', or PR.) The price received by the publisher from the bookstore will be something like 50% of cover price or less, as the store of course buys from the publisher at a big discount.

It often happens that the bigger the bookstore, the bigger the discount they are able to negotiate; so that the author who is on a PR royalty finds that when her book is sold in Behemoth Books she gets much less per copy than her peers on PP royalties. Volume of books sold might well make up for this, of course.

PR royalties are often contractually triggered by high-discount sales, e.g. sales at a discount of over 50%. Book clubs, for example, might order big quantities of your book, but they'd get them at an 85% discount, which would mean you only make a measly 10% of 15%, i.e. 1.5% of the purchase price. The same might go for your export and coedition royalties. So probably the most profitable sales for the author will be those through the high street, brick and mortar outlets; the smaller and less tyrannical the better.

I'm interested in the argument that you should buy from chain bookstores because they have more influence over the market. They wouldn't necessarily make more money per sale than for a sale through an independent bookseller. I can see how it helps from the point of view of building a good sales record with an important vendor, which could mean they would order more copies of the next book by the same author. However I think we'd all be better off with more independents. Any large chain store I go into has almost the identical range of books - centralised buying has squeezed out much of the opportunity for taking a punt on something risky or exotic; and the whip hand for the stores inevitably means they drive harder bargains, and publishers and authors take less money home. For these reasons and more I can think of a few buyers for big stores who have made themselves extremely unpopular in the industry...

So my instinct is: support your local independent bookseller.

There are no independent booksellers where I live, just a Borders and a Waterstone's. Supermarkets sell books at a discount and there are a few charity/secondhand shops here and there.

I go where the books are cheapest and feel absolutely no guilt about that. I could say, "I've bought books by fellow AWers out of charity shops and they've encouraged me to seek out their other works from a 'real' bookshop," but that would seem like I was justifying myself.

I buy as many books as I can with the money I have, and...well, that's it. When I'm published, people can buy my books how and where they please...if at all.

If you can afford it, spend the money and if you can't, well...you were never gonna buy my books anyway, so...