Can't find
our books in your local bookshop?
The majority of good bookshops
in the UK stock at least some of our books – most probably the most
recent. But occasionally you may find a store that doesn't have the book
you want on their shelf. There are four possible reasons for this:
- The bookshop might have
sold out – very possible, as our books are very popular
- The bookshop never had any
in the first place – also very possible. Many shops – especially
the big chains and conservatively-run independents – have decided
to stock only what they think they're going to sell lots of. In practice
this means only books from the major publishers.
This course of action saves them time and money, but deprives the reader
(you) of many good books.
Sometimes the people who run these shops will pretend that this isn't
the case and may even tell you that the book you are looking for is
'out of print' or perhaps 'impossible to get hold of'. Not always true.
This is typical of what psychiatrists term 'self-denial' and what truck
drivers call 'lying'.
- The books are there somewhere,
but not on the right shelf or maybe they are still in the boxes they
arrived in – rarely the case, but possible.
- The book you are looking
for may have been published longer than six months ago. The majority
of books you see on bookshop shelves do not belong to the bookseller,
they have been bought in on 'sale or return'. This means that if the
bookseller doesn't sell them within a short period of time, they will
return them to the publisher without payment. Very often booksellers
return books after three or four months. This is what keeps 'bargain
bookshops' in business
What can I
do about it?
To rectify the situation you
can take one of four steps:
- Go to a different shop and
try there – not always an option
- Ask the bookseller to order
the book for you. This is when you may hear phrases like 'out of print'
and impossible to get hold of'. If a book is featured on this site as
'in print', it is available to bookshops. Tell the bookseller that we
are distributed through Turnaround and that the wholesalers Bertrams,
Gardners and THE all stock our books. That should do it. If not...
- Order from the secure servers
at Internet booksellers like Amazon.co.uk or BOL.com. Every book page
on this site has a direct link to Amazon.co.uk if the title is in print.
- Order from us. We hope to
have a secure server in place by the end of January 2003. Until then
you can order by e-mail,
fax (020 8698 7834) or telephone (020 8698 7833) with a credit card
or by post with a UK£ cheque drawn on a UK bank. Check out the
bangbangbookclub.co.uk
Please support
independent publishers – we need your help!
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