New Ray Bradbury From Hard Case Crime

[TacomaDiver]

Yeah, my Amazon order still shows the full $39.99 (and it always shows the lowest price after I ordered, so no discount apparently.)

That appears to be the price for Kindle. The hardcover price is still $39.99 on Amazon when I looked.

[Jargendeli]

I had written about the Amazon price with no discount on the previous page of the thread. For those who have an American Express card, through mid September (I believe the 20th) if you search out your local small business after you register (if they still have registration) you get an instant $5.00 credit from AMEX. Independent bookstores included and local restaurants. Some chain restaurants as well. Minimum purchase has to be at least $10.00. This is only good for ten total purchases. I plan to use it for the Bradbury book.

[Dave1442397]

Got a last-minute discount from Amazon:

You will receive a refund of $4.27 with Amazon.com's Pre-order Price Guarantee! The price of the following item decreased after you ordered, and we gave you the lowest price.

Killer, Come Back To Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury

Price on order date: $39.99 Price charged at shipping: $39.99 Lowest price before release date: $35.99 Amount to be refunded: $4.00 (+ $0.27 tax) Quantity: 1 Total Savings: $4.27

[Splync]

I wonder if Gauntlet will sell this book with a signed bookplate. He seems to have a lot of random signed sheets, so it wouldn't surprise me if he had some signed bookplates laying around.

[slayn666]

I see my nemesis, the ribbon book mark, has made it's way to the HCC line...

[RonClinton]

I actually gave B&N a shot this time around...I checked to see if any of my local stores had it in stock, since I was going out today for a while and thought I'd pick up a copy at full price from a brick-and-mortar for immediate gratification, but none of the four stores in my local region had it in stock, not a single one. Major new release by Ray Bradbury, and not...a...single...one. They say in press releases I've read that they've restructured and refocused under their new ownership, but if so, I'm sure not seeing it, looks like the same ol' sad show. I tried, B&N, I tried, and you let me down once again.

So: will be ordering it tonight from Amazon with free one-day Prime shipping and four bucks off list price.

[mhatchett]

Ron,
I’ve never had a soft spot for B&N or, in the old days, Borders. They rolled into Richmond and killed off what was a pretty feeble independent booksellers market. But at least we had one, now a days, it’s slim pickings. We lost one of my favorite book stores, Novel Futures, they focused on Sci-Fi and Mysteries, as a direct result of B&N opening right down the Street. So, I’m biased for sure. Whenever I go into the stores, B&N, BAM, 2^nd and Charles, they feel very cookie cutter and of course, that’s the point. I grew up with B. Dalton and Waldenbooks during the heyday of the great American Mall, bouncing back and forth between arcades, the food court and bookstores, sipping orange Julius’s’ and riding escalators all day. Oh, the books I found lol!! I hope they hang on for the people they employee, but I won’t be doing much to help out, I admit. I guess I feel less anger at Amazon because the damage was done by the time they arrived on the scene.

[bookworm 1]

My copy is waiting for me at home.

[Splync]

Ron,
I’ve never had a soft spot for B&N or, in the old days, Borders. They rolled into Richmond and killed off what was a pretty feeble independent booksellers market. But at least we had one, now a days, it’s slim pickings. We lost one of my favorite book stores, Novel Futures, they focused on Sci-Fi and Mysteries, as a direct result of B&N opening right down the Street. So, I’m biased for sure. Whenever I go into the stores, B&N, BAM, 2^nd and Charles, they feel very cookie cutter and of course, that’s the point. I grew up with B. Dalton and Waldenbooks during the heyday of the great American Mall, bouncing back and forth between arcades, the food court and bookstores, sipping orange Julius’s’ and riding escalators all day. Oh, the books I found lol!! I hope they hang on for the people they employee, but I won’t be doing much to help out, I admit. I guess I feel less anger at Amazon because the damage was done by the time they arrived on the scene.

I used to work at Barnes and Noble and that was what made me really dislike the chain.

As you said, they are very cookie cutter, but it gets worse than just that. The store manager is a man who dislikes reading books. I get that it's a business and you want someone with business aspirations to be running your store, but I feel like you could at least get someone who had an interest in what the store sold...

What really got me was having to have your book recommendations approved by management. And it was everyone's recommendations, not just mine, by the way.

They wouldn't display my recommendation for Hyperion because Simmons wasn't a more well known sci-fi author. My recommendation for Joe Hill's Horns wasn't approved because someone else was already recommending NOS4A2.

The holiday season I quit was when the whole B&N chain was "encouraged" to sell Tom Hanks' book. We were told that everyone was supposed to be recommending that book every single day. The store had one ARC to share and we were all encouraged to read it or at least parts of it. And management did not take kindly to those who didn't care for that book.

[mhatchett]

WOW That is weird. I read an essay about why Borders went under, there were several reasons, but one of the was need for almost complete uniformity between the stores, the loss of community identity. That and pushing those store memberships, I always felt sorry for the clerks, everything is an add on. No wonder people prefer to shop online.

[Splync]

WOW That is weird. I read an essay about why Borders went under, there were several reasons, but one of the was need for almost complete uniformity between the stores, the loss of community identity. That and pushing those store memberships, I always felt sorry for the clerks, everything is an add on. No wonder people prefer to shop online.

Oh yeah, we had to push the memberships as well.

If one combined their memberships with the 20% off coupons on the B&N site, they could truly get their money's worth in like three transaction (one book per transaction).

I really regret working there. It honestly ruined the experience of going to that mall at all. It also sucked because I lost a good friend over that job. Went back years with her, but some employees acted like it was high school and really started some shit.

[Martin]

Oh yeah, we had to push the memberships as well.

If one combined their memberships with the 20% off coupons on the B&N site, they could truly get their money's worth in like three transaction (one book per transaction).

I really regret working there. It honestly ruined the experience of going to that mall at all. It also sucked because I lost a good friend over that job. Went back years with her, but some employees acted like it was high school and really started some shit.

I did a B&N membership one year. I actually felt sorry for the cashier after I left. I was buying quite a bit. She went into her sales pitch and I did not pay attention and said no. She tried two more times and I kept shutting her down without listening. She finally stated 'without a membership you will pay X, with a membership you will pay Y'. She finally got it through my thick skull, buying the membership was cheaper than not. I thanked her and bought it.

[TacomaDiver]

It seemed like we only used our membership during their Black Friday Signed Book Deals - so yeah, basically I shopped at B&N once a year.

My membership auto-renewed last November and I finally just bought two books from their site last week. I was really upset to learn that the 10% off no longer applies to on-line orders, only in-store, and I don't get any coupons anymore (I swear in years past, they'd email you at least once a week.) I turned off my auto renew. It's definitely not paying for itself anymore.

Back to the topic - like Dave1442397 I got a nice $4.xx refund the other day and the book arrived yesterday.

[Dave1442397]

I used to haunt the mall bookstores back in the '90s. I'd head there every Tuesday when the new paperbacks were released and pick up anything that looked interesting. This may explain why I have many thousands of paperbacks up in the attic

As for the memberships, that used to be a great deal for me back when it was $10 a year. I haven't bothered with it in at least ten years now. Between the library and the specialty presses, I have more than enough to read. Anything else that I can't find results in an e-book order in most cases, although I still order the occasional hardcover if I really like the author.

[RonClinton]

Pics up on my Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/ron_clinton/stat...363891202?s=21