I’ll be the first to admit, I love a good bargain. And your local Dollar Tree is a great place to find them. I visit mine at least weekly. Items like cotton balls, bleach, seasonings, candy, and 3 liters of soda are regulars on my list. But I hadn’t been down the book aisle in years. However, now that my son is learning to read on his own, I figured that would be a good place to find some cheap easy-readers that I wouldn’t mind him drawing on in permanent marker. But what I found there next to the children’s books was the unthinkable.

Floor to ceiling before me were shelves upon shelves of books. And I’m not just talking about a twenty-year-old copy of The Unauthorized Biography of Monica Lewinsky. I mean best-freaking-selling authors! Some that I love: Guillermo Del Toro, Meg Cabot, and Christie Craig, the co-author of my romance writing bible The Everything Guide To Writing A Romance Novel. And some that I’m not so fond of even though they are immensely popular: Stephanie Meyer and Claudia Gray. And even more that I hadn’t got to reading yet but I was pretty stoked to get them all for the cost of one trade paperback.

Walking to the register with an armful, my analytical mind kicked in and two very important thoughts went through my head. On one hand, this is great exposure for books by wonderful authors and a way to get titles into the hands of people who otherwise can’t afford (or refuse to pay) a hefty $12.99 and up cover price. The flipside of that is since authors only get 4%-5% of a print book’s sale price for royalty payment —- That sucks! I mean it really, truly blows!

I find it my duty to let you know that I’ve done research (that is I asked the store manager where the stock comes from) and found that most, if not all of them, were bought from retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, and B&N who are clearing unsold stock to make room for new releases. So if you are looking to expand your library, I suggest you do what I did and make friends with your dollar store staff to find out when the next haul comes in.