Information on the availability of books

Hello everyone

I’m writing to warn you of a possible source of confusion that has recently arisen. At the moment many Broadview titles are listed on the amazon.com and amazon.ca sites only as “available from these sellers,” or “temporarily out of stock,” often with only used copies listed as being available. I should emphasize that Amazon does not state that these books are out of print or no longer available directly from the publisher. But I also know that when some people see “available from these sellers” on Amazon they conclude that the book is probably out of print. I’ll fill in a bit of the background below, but the important thing to know is that there has been no change at Broadview so far as the availability of books is concerned; Broadview titles remain in print and very much available, at the usual prices.

As a rule, we simply do not put books out of print. In our Broadview Editions series, for example, we have now published close to 400 titles. Not one has been put out of print—and we don’t ever plan to put any of them out of print, either—not even titles in the series that sell only very, very slowly.

So if Amazon is not always the place for the most reliable information and you’re looking to check price and availability of books, where can you go? I’d recommend either visiting the Broadview site directly or simply googling for the book title, adding “Broadview” as a search term, and then clicking on the entry at the Broadview site rather than clicking on Amazon. That will give you lots of detail about the book itself—as well as reliable information on the price and ISBN. (You may also want to think of mentioning the Broadview site to your students; you can tell them they can get a 20% discount on any purchase at the Broadview site by using this code: broadview20%.)

So what’s the story with Amazon and Broadview? Essentially, we have been unable to come to terms with Amazon this year, after experiencing a number of difficulties with recent changes to their systems of ordering books, returning books, and paying for books purchased. When we were unable to resolve these difficulties—which had been occurring on what was, for a smaller company such as Broadview, a truly vast scale—we said that we simply could not afford to do business with them on the basis of those systems, and suggested they order instead through wholesalers (with several of whom we have an excellent working relationship). In fairness, I should make it clear that until this year we had a good business relationship with Amazon—it’s only since January that things have started to go awry. We have every hope that at some point in the future we will be able to resume normal arrangements with them. In the meantime, I very much hope that you’ll check on the Broadview site—or contact us directly—if you have any questions as to the availability of Broadview titles. Many thanks indeed! And all the best,

Don LePan
President
Broadview Press
Independent Publishers since 1985