# Returns (returnable books)

> Source: https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/returns

Last updated: 2026-09-06
Category: Publishing & selling
Also called: Returnable · Sale or return

Returns are unsold copies a bookshop sends back to the publisher for full credit; most physical bookshops only stock books that are returnable.

## Definition

**Returns** are the book trade's peculiar safety valve: a shop that buys copies from a publisher may send back the ones that don't sell — months later, often damaged — and receive full credit. The practice dates from the Depression, when publishers used it to persuade nervous shops to keep ordering, and it never went away. A quarter or more of the hardcovers shipped in a year come back.

For a self-published author the setting appears as a checkbox in the distributor's dashboard: **returnable** (with the returned copies either destroyed or shipped back at your cost) or **non-returnable**. Bookshops rarely stock non-returnable titles from unknown authors, so returnable status opens the door — and creates the risk of a negative statement when a shop orders forty copies for an event and returns thirty-five.

Ebooks and print-on-demand orders shipped to the buyer have no returns in this sense; the mechanism belongs to physical stock on physical shelves.

## Related

- [Wholesale discount](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/wholesale-discount)
- [Royalty](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/royalty)
- [Print on demand](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/print-on-demand)
- [ISBN](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/isbn)
- [Business Book Maker](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/formats/business-book-maker)
- [Book Publishing Glossary — 59 Terms Defined](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary)
- [Bindery — the Claude-powered book studio](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/bindery)

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