Book Purchases: In Your Face, Barnes and Noble

If you've read my last post, you'd know that I am making a conscious effort to stop shopping at Barnes and Noble. 

So, yesterday, I went to my local bookstore and made a few purchases.

1.  The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

All Souls Trilogy #3!!! I am currently reading A Discovery of Witches, but I'm only a few chapters into the massive book.  I don't think I'll be finishing it before I meet Deborah on Tuesday.  Well, I tried, and I like it so far.

2. The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

The epic conclusion!!! I can't wait for this book to come out.  Normally, I don't like to preorder books unless the author's tour schedule has been released.  That way, I can preorder the book to get signed if the author visits nearby, or I can wait and call one of the bookstores that the author will be visiting and request a signed copy to be shipped to me.  I got it all down to a science.

In this case, I preordered The Retribution because Michelle is signing the entire first printing!!! She allots 5 hours a day for signing! 5 hours!!!!!!!

From a collector point of view (like you care), this would be bad news.  A signed copy wouldn't be rare.  But, I don't care.  I need my collection to be complete, and this is one of my favorite series of all time. 

Michelle Hodkin is the woman!

Unfortunately, when the book comes out, I'll be away at college.  I'm having the book shipped to me, but to my home address, not my college mailbox.  I'm actually not bringing any of my books to college.  I don't want them to get damaged in transit!

Oh, You've Done It Barnes and Noble...and NOT in the Good Way

I hope to never buy from Barnes and Noble again.  They messed up my order, and their customer service was useless.  Now, I will be making a conscious effort to buy books from indie bookstores.  I haven't always bought from them because of the smaller selection, but indie booksellers seem to actually care and are passionate about books.

So let me tell you how Barnes and Noble gave me the poop end of the stick...

Rainbow Rowell sent out this tweet, so I called one of he Omaha stores and asked for a signed copy to be shipped to me.  Of course, after being excited to open up my package, I found a naked title page!  It was not signed (insert angry emoji).

FYI, both Omaha Barnes & Nobles have signed copies of all my books, INCLUDING LANDLINE, right now. And they'll ship! pic.twitter.com/kp7bKnDfOt
— Rainbow Rowell (@rainbowrowell) July 2, 2014

The worker literally did an online order for me.  I could do that by myself and save a lot of time! Also, why would I call from across the country just for that?  Ugh, the incompetence!!

The mistake wouldn't have bothered me as much if I didn't have to pay for it.  Maybe the bookseller was in the middle of something and didn't hear me or was having a bad day.  I don't know what caused her to make the error, but I ended up having spend 10 minutes to reorder a signed copy, pay for shipping twice, and have to go to a store to return the first book.

The first time I ordered the book, I paid the online price, about $10 less.  The second time, I paid the in-store price since that specific store in Omaha was selling me the book.  That's understandable, but it really stunk.

I may have sent an angry tweet to Barnes and Noble customer service.  I deleted it, but they still saw it.  They told me to DM them the details, so I did--140 characters at a time.  What a pain.  As expected, which was why I deleted the tweet, they did absolutely nothing for me. 

So, after returning the first book, I'm out $10.  This isn't a huge amount of money, I know.  But it is the lack of customer service that makes me furious. 

I got the signed book today, so I'm done with that abominable company.

The funny part of this whole story is that the second book was addressed to my brother, Cory.  I guess people from Omaha can't understand my thick accent.  (Haha, in reality I have a Midwestern accent, which is considered the purest American accent.)

He often sends his mail to my house, but I looked at the return address and was like "Omaha? I'm getting something from there too!  Wait...Barnes and Noble?!?," and I ripped that baby up.  I can't imagine my brother opening up Landline. Hahahahahha