The overwhelming majority of book reviews done by Off Shelf Books are purchased. I actually like that I buy the books that I talk about. This is because it removes any kind of pressure from authors or publishers to receive a favourable review. I am able to give my honest thoughts, good or bad, and it helps remove as much bias as possible. Of course blogger programs that give you free books do ask for an honest review. So you do have the freedom to speak your mind without any pressure. But I still believe there is an element of authenticity from a review that buys the product rather than receiving it for free.
But as you may have noticed in the past, Off Shelf Books is part of a few blogger programs. This means for some books, I am offered a free early release copy in exchange for an honest review. Every month I am offered several books to choose from to review. These books are either from up and coming authors or well established ones. I am very picky when it comes to accepting a free copy for review. This is because Off Shelf Books already has many books purchased waiting for us to read and review. This means I would rather review the books I have spent money on first. Having said that, with the amount of books I buy, to receive the odd book for free does provide a bit of relief on my wallet.
One of those blogger programs that Off Shelf Books is a part of is the B&H/LifeWay Bloggers program. Their sign up was easy and my application went through quite fast. The funny thing is, I have NEVER reviewed a book under their blogger program. So why is that?
Well that is because I am not able to receive their book for free. For example, The Leadership Formula by Juan Sanchez was available for review. The book interested me, and for the first time being on this program, I requested it. It then takes you to LifeWay’s storefront. They give you a promotional code to enter during the checkout step. The code brings the price to $0 which makes the book free. Okay great. The problem is during the shipping and handling step. This is where the book is no longer free. B&H does not cover the shipping charge for physical books travelling outside of the US. The moment I put in a Canadian address, there was a shipping charge. So even though the price of the book is free, the shipping is not. This kind of surprises me considering Baker Books is also based in America. Under their blogger program they are able to cover the shipping cost. So why is the shipping not free for B&H?
I contacted their marketing coordinator and I was told that it is a cost issue for them. B&H does not have room in their budget to cover the shipping cost for bloggers outside of the US. They do offer an ebook version for free, but I declined since I prefer to only review physical books. Now they do have the ability to ship to Canada through their parent company LifeWay, but the price is insane. I am given two options. I could have this shipped in 1-2 days for $50.63 USD. Or if I wait 3-5 days, I could have the $2.75 cheaper price of $47.88 USD which that alone does not make any sense. Remember, this is all in US currency, so to convert that into Canadian currency, I would pay almost $70 CND ($68.21)! That is crazy! This is a $29 CND book. I would be paying at least double the price of this book just to have LifeWay send it to me to review it. This almost defeats the whole purpose of this blogger program. This is supposed to be a program that covers the entire cost of this book in exchange for an early review. I would understand if this program was only for Americans. Yet when I applied online, it did say it was available for US and Canadian citizens.
The underlying issues here are both the format of the book and the definition of ‘free’. Because in their defense, it is true this program is for Canadian citizens. They can receive free books, but only in the format of an ebook. It is also true that Canadians can receive a physical book for free, but the shipping is not. Everything said is true, but it is misleading.
Since we now know why the shipping is not free for B&H, the next question is why is the shipping so expensive? When I look at other options, the shipping rates are far less. B&H (Lifeway): $68.21 CND Chrisitan Book.com: $10.68 CND Parasource: $12.18 CND
Books For Christ: $7.95 CND Amazon: $4.98 CND
I realize that this topic is now changing to why is shipping so expensive. But now from a customer point of view, this had me confused. So I again emailed B&H to explain why shipping rates were so high. Their marketing coordinator did not know why or how the shipping rates are calculated. I was given a link to Lifeway’s shipping rate map and table. While this was kind of helpful, it did not explain Canada’s rates and how they came to a $47.88 USD price.
So my email was forwarded to Lifeway’s customer service team. They suggested I use their Canadian distributor Parasource. That’s nice, but that did not answer my question. I was not asking for a less expensive option. I replied saying I was well aware of other affordable options, but my question was more to understand LifeWay’s logic in their shipping rates. Why is LifeWay, an American distributor, charging such high shipping prices when other American distributors are providing the same service for so much less? From a business standpoint, that does not make any financial sense. And wait a second. Parasource is their Canadian distributor? Then why doesn’t B&H and LifeWay just use their Canadian Distributor (Parasource) to send their books to the Canadians that are a part of their bloggers program? My profile tells them I reside in Canada. They could easily redirect their Canadian bloggers to Parasource and make it affordable for B&H to cover the shipping for its bloggers.
Despite all those questions I had, the only response I got was this: “Our shipping prices are based off the subtotal of an order, versus the weight or item you are ordering. As far as the rates increasing to ship to a different country, that is a formula I’m not really able to explain. It fluctuates based off the carrier.”
Again the answer did not make sense. When I asked if there was someone else I could talk to, I did not receive a reply.
So since it does not make any sense to buy this book through LifeWay, what other options are there? It is a little bit cheaper to order from Christianbook.com. But again I am dealing with American currency. At 5-9 days shipping, I am paying $39.35 USD which converts to $57.34 CND. While that is cheaper, it is still double the price of the actual book. The price improves much better with Amazon Canada. At 3-5 days shipping, it comes to $35.05 CND which is much closer to the actual price. But it gets even better if I order through BooksforChrist.com. At 5-7 days shipping, their price is $29.03 CND which is now on par with the price of the book. But the best option is to preorder the book from my local bookstore. If I wanted the absolute cheapest price, Christian Book & Record would charge me $28.34.
But let us get back to the original topic. Buying the book defeats the purpose of being on B&H and LifeWay’s blogger review program. If I am unable to receive the physical book for free and review it before it is released to the public, the program is useless to me. Aside from reviewing ebooks, Canadians cannot take full advantage of it.
So this is why I am unable to review free books for B&H. This is not to bash or attack B&H and LifeWay. I understand the challenges they face. They are not the only publishers and distributors that have a difficult time serving their Canadian customers and reviewers. This is more to highlight some of the challenging realities for Canadians who love to read and review faith based books. Finding programs that give free physical books early to Canadians for review is not getting easier.
I’m not sure if there ever will be a solution for this. I will remain on B&H’s blogger program if anything does change. Until then, I will have to buy their books. It is an added stress on the wallet, but there is peace of mind knowing the reviews will be authentic.
