By the way - as a ticket holder for the online event on Thursday, I just got an email from eventbrite (through Waterstones) with instructions to "check that you have access to the page by clicking on the button below". It took me a good five minutes of work to get eventbrite to let me in, so I would suggest others with tickets do the same now rather than waiting for Thursday.

When you bought a ticket, you used an email address when purchasing the ticket, which created an account for you automatically. I don't recall ever setting a password for that account, but of course it asked me for one today. I did the "reset password" steps which worked fine, but the second trick was that clicking on the "button below" in the email did not actually log me in even though it asked me for my email and password. I had to go to the main eventbrite website, log in, then click on the Waterstones "button" again, and then it confirmed that I now have access to the event.

Sheesh. Hope no-one else has these issues, but just in case I hope this helps.

Urulókë wrote:

I haven't tried A Great Read personally. Their website says

Delivery (International)
We currently ship to: the USA, Australia & the E.U.
Orders are sent via Whistl, and delivered by your domestic state postal service. Orders over 2 kilograms are sent with tracking.
Average delivery time is 5-14 working days from dispatch.
Delivery charges are based on the weight of the items in your order. Single item delivery charge is displayed on the item page.

Speedyhen does also offer US delivery, but only if you pay with PayPal. If you want to pay with credit card directly, it must have a billing address in the UK.

From AGreatRead.co.uk: "We have previously shipped to the U.S and a few other countries. Unfortunately because of the pandemic we have been unable to offer this option since June. We are hoping to be able to offer this again soon however, we have been given no indication as to when this is likely to be."

Berelach wrote:

From AGreatRead.co.uk: "We have previously shipped to the U.S and a few other countries. Unfortunately because of the pandemic we have been unable to offer this option since June. We are hoping to be able to offer this again soon however, we have been given no indication as to when this is likely to be."

Huh. I just spent five minutes on the site, including creating an account (in the USA) and adding various books to my cart, and I never see that message. All I get is during the checkout process I cannot chose a shipping method - "Unfortunately one or more items in your cart can't be shipped to your location."

Everything before that shows "this will cost x more to ship to you in the USA" and as I mentioned before, the FAQ page and shipping info page all state that USA shipping is ok.

It could be a regional thing: 'pretend' to buy a Houghton Mifflin edition instead to see if it works.

Remember that Amazon US only receives (not counting other sellers or users) Houghton Mifflin Tolkien books, and Amazon UK only receives HarperCollins Tolkien books. Great alternate sites include Waterstones, Blackwell's and Book Depository - all of which should be shipping to the States.

Urulókë wrote:

Huh. I just spent five minutes on the site, including creating an account (in the USA) and adding various books to my cart, and I never see that message. All I get is during the checkout process I cannot chose a shipping method - "Unfortunately one or more items in your cart can't be shipped to your location."

Everything before that shows "this will cost x more to ship to you in the USA" and as I mentioned before, the FAQ page and shipping info page all state that USA shipping is ok.

Sorry, should have mentioned... I wrote them and asked what the deal with the US shipping was and that was their direct response.

I pointed them to their website's contrary statement so hopefully they'll update it.

insurrbution wrote:

It could be a regional thing: 'pretend' to buy a Houghton Mifflin edition instead to see if it works.

Not a regional rights issue. They are based in the UK and all of their books ship from there. Berelach responded above with the response from their customer service.

insurrbution wrote:

Remember that Amazon US only receives (not counting other sellers or users) Houghton Mifflin Tolkien books, and Amazon UK only receives HarperCollins Tolkien books. Great alternate sites include Waterstones, Blackwell's and Book Depository - all of which should be shipping to the States.

Not fully true. It all depends on who has the rights for each region. Houghton Mifflin can buy the right to publish a Tolkien book, or not. A Secret Vice, for example, is published in the USA by HarperCollins - either HC did not offer it to Houghton Mifflin, or they did and HM declined to buy the rights for that title, I don't know.

Urulókë, it looks like the booksetc offer from the link I posted earlier ships to the US. Not sure if you already placed an order but the price seems quite good and they are a large seller on eBay as well.

Thanks mellon ?. I am, shall we say, well taken care of for my own needs already (though Amazon UK has not shipped the copy I pre-ordered from them yet - I have a large gift certificate balance there that I don't have much use for, so sometimes I get extra copies of books that way though they rarely arrive in perfect shape because of their poor packing).

I was mostly trying out AGreatRead because of the confusion here around whether they are currently shipping to the USA. Turns out, no!

Glad to hear your new release needs have been satisfied . It could be useful to compile a list of UK booksellers who offer competitive prices on new releases/pre-orders and ship to the US and maybe vice-versa, unless that is already somewhere on the site.

The combination of GBP and overseas shipping is really a drag. Hopefully some US retailers will get some significant stock and sell them at decent prices.