Another Year Done

We weren't planning on doing a year in review, but we couldn't think of anything else.   The highlight of the year was the Adrianna Trigiani book signing back in July.  We had a few hitches, but it turned out well enough.  We expanded our content on Facebook, with capsule reviews and more pictures.  We still haven't completely fixed our problems with Google + though.  We have yet to expand into online sales, on any platform.  We had to cut back somewhat on our products.  We have experimented on our website, changing its look at times.  We haven't added any new reviews to the site, yet.  All in all, it wasn't that great of a year, but we are still trying.  Hopefully, 2018 will bring better changes to Booknotes.   By doing this, we hope to improve the Pikeville area as well.  Thanks to all of our friends, customers, and followers.  See you next week, and next year.

It Still Looks Like Christmas

In case you missed it on social media, Booknotes is not online due to circumstance beyond our control, from Thursday, December 21 through Tuesday, December 26.  This means we cannot answer email or check on our social media messages. You can still call us during regular business hours.   Fortunately, we were able to write this week's blog early and schedule it to post at its regular time.  However, this also means we cannot change the website's motif back from Christmas.  That is alright though, because we don't change the store's decorations out that soon, either.  Traditionally, we start the year-end inventory the day after Christmas.  Although we still do it by hand, we have developed a system that gets it done fairly fast.  We forego taking all the decorations down until we finish.  This can leave the store looking a little messy and chaotic, but it still works for us.  Expect a few messages to pop up on Facebook, too, during this time we are offline.  Things will get back to normal next week, probably.  See you then.

It's the Thought That Counts

So, someone suddenly asks you for a book for Christmas, but our order deadline has passed.  What do you do?  First, you could try to order it anyway.  We can't guarantee that the book would be available at our distributor's warehouse, but we could try.  Even then, you would have to pay a $50 fee to make sure it would be delivered in time.  That would probably be more than what the book would cost.  Second, you could get something already in stock.  While we only have a small selection of books, they do cover a wide variety of subjects and genres.  While you might not find exactly what you are looking for, we can help you find something somewhat close.  Remember, many of our books are on discount.  Third, you could purchase a gift certificate.  Although somewhat generic, it would be an actual gift.  You could get one for the amount of the book, or something a little more or less, and we would order it with our next regular shipment just after the holidays (Christmas and New Year's) to make sure we get it in.  This way, you won't have to change the certificate in case the person changes their mind or gets the book some other way.  So, you do have options.  Come back next week for a special Christmas post.

Christmas Deadlines Are Coming

It is time to explain Booknotes policy on Christmas orders.  We use two main distributors to get our books.  Our regular distributor takes about two days for an order to arrive, once placed.  However, it sometimes doesn't have all the books we need.  For those books, we use a second distributor. It has a slightly different selection, especially with harder to find titles.  Usually, books from them arrive within two days, as well, but only if we use our primary warehouse.  If we have to use a secondary location, the delivery times can go up to four days.  Because of this, we set the last day for regular orders about five days before Christmas.  Since Christmas falls on a Monday this year, this means two less days for deliveries.  Hence, the December 18 deadline.  Orders placed before 11:00 am on Wednesday, December 20, can still be delivered on time from our regular distributor, but only if they are stock.  You would have to pay a small shipping and handling fee, though, if we didn't get a minimum order. In fact, we technically could place orders at late as 11:00 am on Thursday, December 21, but we would have to add a large fee to make sure it would be delivered on time.  This is why we strongly urge our customers to come in early to place their orders.  See you next week with more views of Christmas.

It Might Be Starting to Look Like Christmas

Last week's post was written before Thanksgiving and scheduled to update at our regular time because we thought we wouldn't have the time to post it.  Well, it turns out we did have the time and we used it to update the site color scheme for Christmas, as well as a few other things.  Unfortunately, when we changed the site's color scheme, some parts changed that we weren't expecting.  For instance, the background color for the blog went to all black, while the text color stayed the same.  This meant that the posts were rendered unreadable, until we did some fine tuning.  The posts are now readable again.  We hope you liked the new images and pictures we have posted both here and on social media.  For some reason, the upcoming release board picture is still blurry, but the Christmas cut-off announcement pic taken at the same time isn't.  We aren't sure why this is happening, but we are looking in on it.  As expected, there aren't many books listed.  That's why we always put the order message below it, so the board doesn't look so empty.  Next week, we will talk about the order cut-off some more.  See you then.