LN pre-orders on book depository no longer available
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I usually pre-order my physical books from book depository since I live in Australia and every other online retailer is usually more expensive. However I've noticed that all of the pre-orders from June onwards is no longer available. This is for JNC, YP and SS.
Does anyone know if something is going on over there or a reason as to why this might be the case? -
@Timmaaah from a certain cutoff date, or has every preorder suddenly disappeared?
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If I had to venture a guess (and I might be completely off target), it might have something to do with the massive layoffs Amazon is doing/planning, since Book Depository is owned by Amazon.
Other sites that you wouldn't immediately think of as having anything to do with Amazon (or the layoffs) have also been affected. For example, DPReview.com, a (rather well-respected) photography news and reviews site that's owned by Amazon is getting shut down entirely as part of the layoffs. (And it was news to many that Amazon had anything to do with the site at all.)
That's not to say Book Depository is getting shut down (it probably isn't, as far as I can tell), but they might have been hit with the layoffs as well, which might impact how they run their site. Like, say, part of the team responsible for handling pre-orders is getting cut, leaving them understaffed or something. (Pure speculation on my part.)
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@WaterDweller Yeah, whenever an Amazon-owned company is bollocksing something up, my mind immediately asks what the heck Amazon Corporate is thinking, because they're probably the ones who have their fingers on that particular button.
And I trust Amazon Corporate about as far as I can throw them.
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@GeorgeMTO
If you go to the site and bring up the listings for J Novel Club and sort by newest, you will see the preorders. Everything from June onwards is no longer able to be pre-ordered. They were available about a month ago when I last looked (I pre-order all my books once a month) and I checked this and it's no longer available.
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This is the EU's fault actually.
Basically any book sold in the EU now needs to have information about where it was printed and the paper that was used, pre-registered with some agency or something, and basically all book distributors in the US have been told by Amazon (which owns book depository) that they will no longer be buying any books from them. So although they are still "available" once they go on sale, I think they end up taking longer to ship or shipping from someone else, etc... It's frankly unclear.
I'm sorry but this is basically out of our controls completely.
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I hope this doesn't mean that it'll become a lot more difficult to get hold of printed light novels in Europe going forward. Might mean I'll be forced to drastically cut down on the number of series I'm collecting. The fact that it's been possible to pre-order a whole bunch of books from Book Depository, and then just not have to worry about tracking releases or anything, has been a big part of why I've even bothered keeping up with as many series as I do. (And there's really only one series I want enough to import it directly from the US should it become unavailable from European retailers.)
Edit: A bit of googling for information about how exactly the EU is involved reveals that this is basically down to a new EU regulation banning the importation* of certain classes of products made through deforestation, which includes paper and printed goods. In my mind, this is a perfectly legitimate thing to do by the EU, and I'm pretty sure the various light novel publishers do not depend on paper sourced through deforestation, either. But, that's apparently of little use if the systems for documenting that haven't been properly established (which seems like a major failing on the EU's part). Thus, Amazon just makes a blanket decision not to import books from US distributors.
*specifically, importing goods for the purpose of selling them. I don't think consumers buying books directly from the US on their own would be affected.
Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if an email arrives by the end of May telling me that all my pre-orders have been cancelled.
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Just a small update. I sent an email to Book Depository inquiring about their pre-orders, and this whole Amazon blanket decision, and the reply I got didn't comment on the EU issue at all. Rather, all they said was:
We are currently working to improve the quality of service we provide with pre-order purchases. As we take payment when you place your order we have decided to only allow pre-orders for items two months in advance of the release date.
I don't know if that means Book Depository is unaffected by the issue (seeing as they're located in the UK, which is no longer a member of the EU), or if customer service representatives just don't have the information to respond to such queries.
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@admin Thanks for the reply, appreciate it.
@WaterDweller said in LN pre-orders on book depository no longer available:
Just a small update. I sent an email to Book Depository inquiring about their pre-orders, and this whole Amazon blanket decision, and the reply I got didn't comment on the EU issue at all. Rather, all they said was:
We are currently working to improve the quality of service we provide with pre-order purchases. As we take payment when you place your order we have decided to only allow pre-orders for items two months in advance of the release date.
I don't know if that means Book Depository is unaffected by the issue (seeing as they're located in the UK, which is no longer a member of the EU), or if customer service representatives just don't have the information to respond to such queries.
I think that this might actually be the case.
I went and looked up a much larger publisher (Orbit) and it seems to be the same thing right up until the 23rd of May, which would make it 2 months in advance. Although there were a few exceptions that could be pre-ordered, it looked very similar.Quite annoying if that is the case as I like to keep about 4 months in advance of pre-orders in case of some unexpected bills. But it's better than not getting them at all and having to order from places that are much more expensive because of shipping.
