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Which Amazon

Writers Bookstall

Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

We are now able to link you either to Amazon.co.uk or to Amazon.com to order your books. The flag next to the book cover will tell you that the book is available from that site and link you directly to its Amazon page. Other national Amazons to follow….

But which site should I use?

If you’re in the UK or in the United States, it should be obvious which site will be the best one to supply the book. If you’re elsewhere, it’s worth checking out each site’s shipping information to discover the best deal for you.

For instance:

  • If you are ordering from anywhere in Europe, you could correctly assume that the geography makes it better to order from Amazon.co.uk.
  • If you live in Australia, you might not think it would make much difference. In fact, ordering from Amazon.co.uk would be cheaper and considerably quicker.

 

Here’s how it stacks up:

Ordering from Europe
  • Amazon co.uk: Airmail (i.e. standard) costs £3.94 for one book and takes 3-5 days
  • Amazon.com: Standard costs $7.98 for one book and takes 12-21 business days
Ordering from Australia
  • Amazon.co.uk: Airmail costs £5.94 for one book and takes 7-10 days
  • Amazon.com: Standard costs $11.98 for one book and takes 13-22 business days
Ordering from the rest of world
  • Amazon.co.uk (anywhere in the world except for the UK, Western Europe and North America): Airmail costs £5.94 for one book and takes 7-10 working days
  • Amazon.com rates for the rest of the world vary, but all seem to be more expensive than Amazon.co.uk and to take longer.

 

What if I can’t wait that long?

Both sites have priority services, which get the books to you more quickly and charge for the express service.

Why is Amazon.co.uk cheaper and faster for delivery to many international destinations?

  • We don’t know what the official answer would be, but we think that Amazon.com has concentrated on serving its huge domestic market quickly and cheaply, leaving its international offshoots to supply books to the rest of the world.
  • This would mirror the pattern of international book sales, as British publishers have always been forced by their small UK market to look to the rest of the world – ‘export or die’, as the saying goes.
  • Most books published in English come out initially either in the UK or in the US, so another factor affecting what is available on each site is whether the book is exported to the opposite side of the Atlantic.
  • We’ve been amazed by the wide range of books for writers carried on both sites. Amazon provides a huge choice, which encompasses many books for writers covering quite specific subjects.

 

Online ordering is the perfect way to get exactly what you want, even if your local bookshop doesn’t run to much of a writers’ books department.

But what about other Amazon sites?
We are not yet linked to the Amazon sites in Canada, Germany, France and Japan, but we’re working on it…