Most works that have ever been published are out of print at any given time, while certain highly popular books, such as the
Bible, are always "in print". Less popular out-of-print books are often rare and may be difficult to acquire unless scanned or
electronic copies of the books are available. With the advent of
book scanning, and
print-on-demand technology, fewer and fewer works are now considered truly out of print.
Contracts , written by
Stephen King as pen name
Richard Bachman, was pulled out-of-print due to its subject matter being associated with real
school shootings. The book cover of the first edition. '', the debut novel by
B. S. Johnson, was withdrawn form sale and fell out of print on Johnson's demand, due to him coming to hate the novel as he believed all written work should be truthful, while this book included elements of fiction. A publisher creates a
print run of a fixed number of copies of a new book. Print runs for most modern books number in the thousands. These books can be ordered in
bulk by
booksellers, and when all the bookseller's copies are sold, the bookseller has the option to order additional copies. If the initial print run sells out and demand still exists, the publisher will have more copies printed, if possible. When the book is no longer selling either at a rate fast enough to pay for the inventory or stock costs, or to justify another print run, the publisher will cease to print additional copies, and may
remainder or
pulp the remaining unsold copies. When all of the books in a print run have been sold to booksellers, the book is said to be "out of print", meaning that a bookseller cannot get any further copies from the publisher. If a book sells out unexpectedly quickly, it may be considered out of print briefly when its initial print run is exhausted, but is usually soon reprinted. Publishers will often let a book go out of stock for long periods, then
reprint the book, usually with a new cover and formatting, to catch the presumably built up demand for the book. The author or their
estate may have copyright reverted to them once the publisher has declared it out of print. Most publishing contracts contain reversion clauses allowing authors to regain the
copyright to their books. One of the triggering conditions for this is an out-of-print clause which makes a book eligible for reversion to the author when a
publisher no longer keeps a book in print. Publishers have begun to explicitly state which book formats qualify as in print, and typically include print-on-demand and
electronic copies. At least one
publishing company has adjusted their contracts to account for this change in publishing options by removing the lower limit for book sales, meaning that no matter how few copies of a book sells, if it is available through a print-on-demand vendor or electronically, it is still considered in-print. and remains as one of the most in-demand out-of-print publications of all time according to Barry Walters from
Rolling Stone. ==See also==