The non-Amazon book buying experience

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I freely admit I've bought more than my fair share of books from Amazon in the past years, but now I've taken the vow of abstinence and avoidance as far as they're concerned, I have to look elsewhere.

Get your act together, guys. I tried to buy a recently republished book - The Sweet Running Filly by Barbara van Tuyl. It will cost you £7.00 plus p&p on Amazon; delivery time 2-3 weeks. I'll go direct to the States, I thought, as it's an American book. So, I tried Barnes & Noble. Good, smooth ordering experience, shipping pricey (a bit over £8.00) but that's not surprising from the USA. Ordered yesterday - today get email cancelling, as they're out of stock. No option to re-order, no idea of when it might be back in again.

Yesterday I tried to find a British seller, so tried The Book Depository - a dead cert, I thought, as they list the book on Amazon at less than Amazon are selling it for. Is it on their own site, which would presumably make selling the book cheaper for them? It is not.

I emailed them about this, and got a very prompt email (good) saying "I’m afraid we have not yet added this to our independent website catalogue yet, we hope to get this added in the near future."

:headdesk: :headdesk: :headdesk:

Comments

Christina Wilsdon said…
I frequently buy books from the independent and wonderful bookseller Powell's Books, in Portland, Oregon. They have your book in stock; shipping is pretty spendy to the UK, looks like International Standard will run you about $13 ($7 shipping plus a per-item fee, so presumably you could make it more worthwhile by ordering more books). Anyway, here is the link to the book--nope, I don't work for them :) http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9780984318605-0
2 April 2010 at 19:26
Jane Badger said…
Thanks - I'll give them a try!
3 April 2010 at 10:03
Juxtabook said…
I have just done a blog post on alternative to the big As too. I also have ordered from the Book Depository this week but with more success! Hope you find what you are looking for eventually.
5 April 2010 at 19:36
Susan Benson said…
This is quite disappointing to hear as I am the publisher of "The Sweet Running Filly." I will have tocheck why Barnes and Noble would have said the book was out of stock. You can order through our website www.poppetpress.com. I will make sure Powells Books is carrying it as well.
Best Regards,

Susan
6 April 2010 at 02:13
Jane Badger said…
Thanks Susan - I will try Powells and see how they do, but will order the next one from you. I did wonder at first they'd cancelled the order because I was in the UK, but they just said they couldn't fulfil the item.
6 April 2010 at 15:23
Val said…
Do you want new?
if not Jane try ebay
don't forget to search in descriptions ..it's coming up starting at 50 cents
But you may want New?
8 April 2010 at 15:40
Robin said…
Jane,

Have you tried AbeBooks.com?

Book sellers from around the world list their books so once you find the book you're looking for, you can do a sort to show sellers from your country alone. I notice there were several from the UK for the title Sweet Running Filly.

Good luck, and thanks for the information on Jane McIlvaine McClary. I grew on with the Cammie series.

Robin Wilson
Haymarket, Virginia
11 April 2010 at 12:39
Jane Badger said…
Val yes - I did want new. Really, the whole exercise was to try and find an alternative to Amazon that a. worked and b. wasn't sky-rocketingly expensive, so I went for a book I knew had just been re-published and which was available on Amazon.

Thank you Robin. I keep forgetting that Abe does have some new books (though it doesn't seem to list the epic amounts it once used to. I wonder why?) I'll try them and see if I can track one down.
13 April 2010 at 17:44
念阿彌陀佛往生西方極樂世界 said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
18 April 2010 at 09:15
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