I received my Awesomebooks.com order today. Pre-ordered the book on October 10th, was supposed to ship on October 17th. Complained on October 24th, argued with customer service through October 28th when it was marked as shipped. Finally arrived today (November 6th). The book is very nice, as I expected, and survived the shipping without any undue harm. I won't be using Awesomebooks again, however.

It was nice as an experiment to see if another source for UK books was viable, but I am growing much less concerned with price and more with quality of packing and timeliness of shipping. I really miss Daeron's Books, for example, as an excellent source for Tolkien books from the UK that would ship promptly and appropriately packed.

Not received mine from BD as yet --Shipped on the 23rd October, so a fair bit beyond the 5-10 business days from dispatch. I've found 10 days to be much more likely than 5 days, and had the odd one take longer. Will hassle them if it doesn't turn up in another week.

I had preordered from Amazon Australia months back. Eventually it showed out of stock upon release. I waited a week and then canceled and reordered from a third party seller on Amazon AU called A Great Read Ltd.

So much for Amazon’s preorder price guarantee. I ended up paying about AUD 10 more and I’m still waiting for my book ?

Genuine question, but why are people still buying books from Amazon? They're not a very good bookseller & to boot a dreadful employer (by all accounts). Their website is also awful. The point about China came up recently & while I'm not comparing them to the Chinese Government (!) it seems a fair stance to avoid supporting them as a business on both grounds cited above. I certainly think so. I've managed to avoid them (bar two books, I think) for most of the last decade.

Khamûl wrote:
Genuine question, but why are people still buying books from Amazon? They're not a very good bookseller & to boot a dreadful employer (by all accounts). Their website is also awful. The point about China came up recently & while I'm not comparing them to the Chinese Government (!) it seems a fair stance to avoid supporting them as a business on both grounds cited above. I certainly think so. I've managed to avoid them (bar two books, I think) for most of the last decade.

It is a good question. I personally do try to avoid them for all the reasons you suggest. I think I have used them a couple of times in the last 5 years, and the last time (the HoME set that bounced around the world twice) was refunded. I also - for the most - part try and avoid Book Depository as they are now owned by Amazon. Unfortunately, the choices get a little thin for shipping to NZ, so I do use BD once or twice a year.

One thing I have noticed, is despite all their general evil, Amazon is actually rarely the cheapest seller. That's what you tend to see with monopolistic companies. Cheap at first and then they slowly ratchet up the prices.

For those who know *about* Tolkien, y'all should be using Blackwell's for Tolkien titles ;)

insurrbution wrote:
For those who know *about* Tolkien, y'all should be using Blackwell's for Tolkien titles ;)

Super expensive, of course. I might buy in-store if I was in the vicinity, but generally not a place I'd use for online purchasing (although I believe I have bought a couple of things from them).

insurrbution wrote:
For those who know *about* Tolkien, y'all should be using Blackwell's for Tolkien titles ;)

The last Blackwell's I was in was the one in Manchester after they had moved into their new building. They have a big 'history of literature' on the wall with all the important events in publishing. Lots of authors and publications mentioned along with historical events with plenty of coverage for the years that Blackwell's have operated. Tolkien did not feature. Rowling did.

Shopping from Canada (don't know if price change based on where you are) their prices - which includes shipping (again, to Canada. Could vary by region) have been pretty decent: on par with Amazon.

Bringing the thread back on topic (mostly)...

Amazon.co.uk has Letters from Father Christmas Deluxe edition for £42.21 plus £6.90 in shipping to the USA, which converts to about $63 (USD).

Blackwells.co.uk has the same title for $96.16 (USD).

That's 50% more. Not having ordered from them at all, recently, how is their packaging compared to Amazon's? Worth 50% more in price?