I’ve been meaning to mention The Book Depository’s swish new look for a while now, but kept forgetting until it was just that little bit too late to be relevant. I seem to do this with worrying frequency.
Mr Mark has saved the day, however, by putting up a lovely blog (originally in The Bookseller, dontchyaknow) which brings it all back to the fore. Essential reading for anyone who concerns themselves with books, the internet, or both.
I was particularly interested to read Mark’s thoughts on the differences between publishers who happen to sell their own books online, and online book retailers. I agree that the average buyer would be better served by the huge range of titles at The Book Depository than by an individual publisher’s website. I do think, though (and I hope that Mark would agree) that where a publisher has a recognisable brand, for instance a strong homogenous design style across its series and a list in which the titles complement and feed off each other, publisher websites can be very valuable indeed.
Off the top of my head, a publisher which might fit that description could be… oooh… Hesperus Press?!
Any particularly loyal fans of Hesperus Press might find it useful to know that we offer a bulk buy discount on our titles, which will get you:
30% off purchases of 25 or more titles
40% off purchases of 50 or more titles
50% off purchases of the entire backlist
Sorry, Mark, for going a little off-topic there. Here’s another link to The Book Depository to bring this post back to rights.
Ellie
I have to admit that I use The Book Depository because of the free international shipping. I did look for shipping info on the Hesperus site but didn’t find it after a bit of a look around. I do continue to visit for the book blurbs though.
Hi Tanabata,
Unfortunately we’re not able to offer free international shipping from our webpage — it just isn’t financially viable for us. I’m so glad, though, that The Book Depository do offer free shipping, which enables our fans (is that terribly presumptuous?!) in the US to buy our books without breaking the bank.
We’re also distributed in the US by the Independent Publishers Group (www.ipgbook.com), so keep your eyes peeled for our titles in bookshops, and in their catalogue.
Ellie
Sorry to be so tardy in thanking you for this post Ellie. Very kind of you. So glad that you like The Book Depository’s new look and feel. Yay!
And, yup, mostly I agree with you: smaller publishers can build real brands and, therefore, have a good chance of selling some of their books themselves. One can very easily imagine joining, say, a Hesperus Book Club and receiving a new Hesperus title each month — if you like one Hesperus title, you are going to love a whole bunch of the rest of them, for sure.
But most readers don’t care who publishes a book — and for those readers publisher websites are never going to work. For those readers, great choice and keen pricing are needed.