"When Fitzgerald died in 1940 in Hollywood, his last royalty check was for $13.13. Remaindered copies of the second printing of The Great Gatsby were moldering away in [publisher] Scribner's warehouse"
That's something that doesn't happen any more. With the changes in the tax code, so that book dealers have to pay taxes on any books they have in inventory, remaindered copies are fairly quickly destroyed. The inventory tax changes caused a big, big change in the book industry. You don't have books sitting on shelves for long periods of time.
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