Eoin Purcell

I don’t normally complain
But this really got me thinking today:

I opened an account at rBooks just to see what it was like. I have mentioned the service before. I inidcated that I was a huge Terry Pratchett fan and when my home-page opened I was offered a massive discount on Making Money his latest book.

However there was a snag. The release date was listed as Monday 24th September so I was pre-ordering not ordering, the discount was only 20% (£15.19) and judging from the site I would have had to pay a delivery fee anyway. I would have been very disappointed had I not already bought the book in WH Smiths in Stansted airport for only £13.99 on Thursday evening on my way back to Cork!

Why hobble yourself?
Now far be it from me to tell rBooks and Random House how to sell (they do fairly well without my help) but the question does pop almost instantly into the brain, why on earth would you hobble yourself like this? If retailers are selling the book and for considerably less (in truth I nearly bought it landside, full price but in a rush to get through security left it till airside and thus saved a £5!) why wait for the official launch date to sell the book? is it some internal system thing?

Part of me likes to think that there is a reason I simply do not fathom but I suspect that there is not!

Befuddled
Eoin

PS: Had I been smart enough to wait I could have gotten it from The Book Depository @ £12.23 Delivered but it would have cost £14.47 Delivered on Amazon.co.uk.