>What I would love to happen, is for all the avid collectors to get their copies, and then HC announce that they decided to cut production to 250, instead of 500 copies.

The idea of printing 500 copies still seems a bit bizarre for this title. I would have thought 150 would have been plenty given the economic climate and the non-ME nature of the material. I guess they must be able to make a good enough margin selling a proportion of them , even if they have to sell the remainder in bulk a few years down the line. I'd love to know the real cost of production; The page block obviously costs next to nothing, but I haven't a clue about the rest of the cost. The quality is higher (and no there is the traycase to consider), but the Easton Press seem to be able to mass produce quite reasonable leather bindings at a remarkably low retail price, so I suspect the cost is lower than one might suspect.

I received an email from HC on 19-May, as I am sure many of you also did, stating:

"We are just one day away from the release of the world exclusive signed and limited editiom of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, at the special introductory price of £250.

Our customer services team will be contacting you on 20th May to complete your purchase."

However, 20-May has come and passed, and I've still yet to hear from any customer "service" team. What's even more peculiar, is that in the past, my wife and I have used two separate email accounts for entering contests, etc., so we each receive all of the HC spam. I 'pre-ordered' two copies of the Super Deluxe Sigurd through my account, which is where I received the abovementioned message (on the 19th), and since have not been contacted regarding my pre-order. This morning, though, my wife has received an email from HC saying that the new limited edition book is available for purchase. Why would she get an alert in her email advertising the release and inviting her to purchase, when I actually pre-ordered two copies and haven't been given the green llight? I enjoy HC's books, but they sure run the business strangely.

I rang the Glasgow office yesterday to ask why I had not been contacted about my 'preorder'. The lady said I was on a phone list for them to ring people.

With growing doubts about the value of 'preordering', the only benefit really for me was that I could get a low 'number' as I preordered as soon as it was announced, I asked the question.

It will come as no surprise to anyone on this board as to the answer, 'Oh we don't do that, you get a number when you place an order and you pay for it, none are reserved'.

I ordered over the phone, but have no email receipt or any confirmation that I have ordered anything.

I am starting to get really fed up with this terrible service from HC.

To be honest I can't see what the problem is. You register then get an email on the 19th saying you can order on the 20th. On the 20th you order. Job done in 2 minutes.

This is similar to the system used for CoH, except that then they emailed on the day of release. I don't remember any complaints then. If anything, I prefer them to email the day before because then I can order at work. With CoH I didn't see the email until I got home in the evening.

Pre-order may not have been the best term to use, but as you haven't given any payment details (as you would for an Amazon pre-order) its not really an order as you haven't actually commited to buying, just expressed an interest. They probably got hundreds if not 1000s of people registering, so could hardly reserve copies for everybody.

I got a message on my answerphone a week or two ago asking me to ring them about the book, but I forgot about it at the time. Not sure if it was the superdeluxe or normal deluxe edition they were calling about.

I ordered at about 10am yesterday.

Deagol wrote:
To be honest I can't see what the problem is.

Deagol, you are right in stating that it is really not that difficult to just get up and order the book on the 20'th. That is not my complaint. I just wonder why they would send me a message saying, "Our customer services team will be contacting you on 20th May to complete your purchase," and then nobody ever contacted me.

And, considering Trotter's point, I also thought it was totally plausible (though not probable), that they might send me a code that would correspond to my place in line, or at least my reservation of the book. I disagree that they may have taken "1000's" of registrations. If there were that many people lined up to buy, this book would not take the five years, or more, that it is going to take to sell 500 copies.

>They probably got hundreds if not 1000s of people registering

LOL :)

Stu

I think you are underestimating how many people just click links because they are interesting. You are quite correct that there aren't 1000s of people interested in making a purchase that have the necessary funds, but there are plenty of casually interested surfers that just flitter from page to page - you've got to fill those idle moments at work some how!

It is quite possible that HC have underestimated the volume of casual interest too. Unless they have an army of staff on hand they wouldn't be able to phone everybody. Didn't that online quiz they run register interest in the book?

I had a quick peek at the email receipt when it came through hoping for an idea of where I was in the queue, but the order numbers are a bit more sophisticated than they were back in 2007 for CoH. Looking at it realistically, it's not not entirely practical to give your place in a queue for one book amongst the many on their site. Indeed, only a few nuts like us really care about it!

If the book does take 5 years to sell, does it matterthat much to HC? As far as I can recall, none of the 'expensive' deluxe editions have sold particularly quickly.

Sorry if I sound contrary, but I think somebody should stand up for HC. I haven't had problems with them and they have produced some great books which is what really matters at the end of the day!

I don't think there's a great deal at issue here. However HarperCollins overall handling seems pretty bizarre.

The original message (which we all speculated was probably just to gauge interest) stated "Thank you for your pre-order of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún by J. R. R. Tolkien". Yes, as Deagol states, they didn't have any payment details; but is does state "pre-order", in a time when we all order via Amazon using "pre-orders".

The email on the 19th did, as has been pointed out, state that HarperCollins would be in contact. So not to be contacted seems strange. Also, I really expected it all to be done online using WorldPay as with CoH.

However, unlike everyone else apparently, I was contacted on Wednesday morning by phone. On Tuesday night, in response to the email, I gave a works number and my mobile. However (as I found out when I got home) I was contacted pretty early on my home number. I suppose I must have given it when I originally registered my interest.

Either way, like Deagol, I just phoned myself to place my order; fearing that an email had probably been sent in any case while I was at work (and unable to access personal email). As it turns out, there was no online request to pay; and for others, no phonecall.

I ordered mine about 3 o'clock. No receipt number; no email to confirm payment. If anything is odd, no receipt for a £250 purchase is.

One can't help but think that all this should really be much simpler...

BH

Also, there's no limit (or at least not 2) on orders. I know of someone who ordered 4...

BH

I think the problem with this whole process has been one of miselading terminology. The whole idea of there being a "pre-order" process was a bit ludicrous. If HC had simply offered to put people on a mailing list for notification when the book became available (as they did with CoH) and left it at that, there would not be an issue here. They only made it a pretend "pre-order" to try and gather market information, and whilst this was a fairly obvious stunt, it did leave a bit of uncertainly with the buyer as to whether to wait for contact or jump in and order when the release date rolled around.

In the grand scheme of things, it's all fairly minor stuff, but I can understand those who did fill out the pre-order being a bit upset at not getting the lowest number possible, because they were waiting for some contact that didn't happen. Really, the only issue I can see here is the numbers, and I imagine the really keen people (and I'm thinking of the "professional Tolkienisti", such as Beren, et al) might well have called in and ordered on the 19th anyway (and I don't imagine HC would have turned those early sales down!).

Fundamentally, I don't think getting the book a day later (for those of you who did order) is going to be too much of a strain! :)

I'd be really interested to hear what numbers people manage to get, relative to when they ordered, and some pictures would be nice!

Stu