Wednesday, 22 April 2009

A plea for David (and me)

I've just had a rather ungratifying experience. Checking up on online sales of Little Monsters (a vacuum activity familiar to anyone who's ever published anything, most often carried out when more important things need to be done), I noticed that Book Depository had no sales rank for it. In the light of recent history over at Amazon, and despite the fact that Little Monsters - bar the usual priest - is pretty much LGBT-free, I smelled a rat. I wrote a rather snippy mail to ask what was going on. The following day, I received a mail from Tom, customer service manager, who said:  

"This title does not yet have a sales rank, as we have yet to sell any copies. Sales ranks are calculated on the number of copies of books sold."

I felt this big. No, smaller. And then I wondered why so many people automatically go to Amazon when Book Depository is often cheaper and almost always cheaper if you're outside the UK, has pretty much everything you could want (i.e. all my books) and is the David to Amazon's Goliath. So I'm just reminding you. Shop at Book Depository. And help me get a sales rank for Little Monsters. Someobody out there must need a copy!

And just to show how serious I am, I've deleted my Amazon link for the book. So now it's up to you...

3 comments:

nmj said...

Hey Charles, Have been following your blog for a while (found you through Eliz Baines). I think Amazon is so etched in people's heads, they go there automatically - is good to spread the word about The Book Depository, especially for overseas readers. Thanks also for pointing out that The Book Depo even has a sales ranking, I had not noticed before!

Rod Duncan said...

Good to remind ourselves of other services out there when people like Amazon and Google start behaving badly!

Great blog, by the way.

Charles Lambert said...

Thank you both! And for some good news, see my latest post...