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.

Thanks for Many Things

Booknotes is thankful for many things.  In particular, we are thankful for being able to schedule this post to come up at its usual time on Saturday morning, even though it is being written days in advance.  We are doing this to save time, thinking we might not have that much of it over the Thanksgiving holiday.  We are also thankful that we can schedule much of our social media content in advance as well, and have it pop up at the right time.  It really is magnificent.  However, one thing we cannot schedule in advance is the update of the website.  It will not reflect the current season or holiday until after the weekend, at least.  We will have pictures up of the store's holiday decorations at about the same time.  Be on the lookout for both.  In the meantime, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Time To Get Cooking

Although we haven't had much publicity about it online, the discounted Books of the Month for November are cookbooks.  This seems appropriate for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.  As always, we try to get at least one new book in the category each time its month comes around.  This month, we are featuring the updated and expanded edition of Adriana Trigiani's Cooking with My Sisters.  We originally planned on having it at her book signing back in July, but it had gone out of print in preparation for this new edition.  In fact, we tried ordering it when it first came out earlier this month, but it hadn't arrived yet at our primary distribution warehouse.  We finally should be getting it in this Monday, just in time for the holiday.  As an Italian-American cookbook, its recipes might not fit in with everyone's plans, but you might fine something interesting.  It is a $19.99 paperback, but, like all recent arrivals, it is not covered in our Books of the Month discount.  Our post next week should be on time, even with hours being disrupted due to the holiday, so check us out then.

Countdown to Black Friday

In two weeks, the "biggest" shopping day of the year, Black Friday, will be upon us.  However, the weekend after Thanksgiving has never been that big of a deal to us.  It has actually been slow most years.  Much of this might have to do with the fact that our window display is almost never done in time for the day.  In fact, it it usually not even halfway finished by then.  This might be due to the fact that the person who usually does the display takes much longer than needed to do the work.  The inside of the store is usually done by Thanksgiving.  One year, when only one person was doing all the decorating, it was actually done in a few hours.  So, when Black Friday comes around, don't be too surprised if the window display isn't fully set up yet.  Just remember, we will be open, normal hours that day, even if it doesn't look like it yet.  See you next week, when we might talk about some special events coming that weekend.

The Perils of Dry-Erase Markers

In case you haven't yet noticed, we have gone back to using multiple colors on the Upcoming Releases board.  Check it out on the NEWS  AND EVENTS page (links don't work too well for this variety of Blogger, so you have to click it yourself).  We did this because of the new black markers we use last time don't mix well with our regular ones.  When we tried to erase the board this past week, everything just blurred together.  It was a mess, and it took an extra day just to get the right type of cleaner to get things fixed.  The new markers work find on their own, though, just don't expect to see much very dark black on the board for a little bit.  We can't figure out why the image is blurry though.  Other pictures are fine.  In case you can't read it, check our the BOOKS page for the upcoming week's releases, as well as the previous three weeks as well.  Note that this just represents the books available to order and not necessarily what we have in stock.  See you next week.