Holy Crap

[thebitterguy]

Looking for an anniversary gift for Cynra, I see that Amazon.ca does not carry John Barrowman's CD, Amazon.com wants $40 for it and Amazon.co.uk only wants $10 for it.

I'd have to pay shipping on both, so the only question is how much more will it be from .co.uk and when it would get here.

Comments

[absinthe-dot-ca.livejournal.com]

Amazon.ca continually amazes me by what it doesn't carry. It's gotten to the point where I go to Amazon.com first, then check the Chapters/Indigo website, and then go to Amazon.ca as a last-resort (generally just to see if I can get it cheaper).

[thebitterguy]

Yeah, Chapters came up pretty much completely dry. They have only his book.

[absinthe-dot-ca.livejournal.com]

Hrm - to judge by the relative websites (Amazon.com versus Amazon.ca and Chapters), the Yanks seem to be more well-read than us - or at least they've got access to more books (I know, not the same thing). You'd think that, in this age of "on-demand" publishing, any publisher could theoretically stock any book (or CD for that matter) in electronic format, and just run one off as needed.

[thebitterguy]

Print on Demand is still a young technology. The product tends to still be inferior to a normal print run.

[adamjury.livejournal.com]

Print on Demand / Short run printing is still lower quality and more expensive than a traditional print run, plus a whole bunch of the things taken for granted in modern publishing -- foil/gloss/matte/etc -- can't be done.

POD has some uses, but most publishers are better off devoting their time to a new release that's going to sell in the thousands, rather than getting a backlist title that may only sell 50 copies available.