I know. It sounds like a ridiculous thing, doesn’t it?

I mean, everyone knows how to buy a book. Or do we? As a publisher, it’s an ongoing battle to get books in front of customers. Or to customers. For instance, we shout about a new book – let’s say, Liz Greene’s unspeakably brilliant forthcoming book Chiron in Love: The Astrology of Envy, Rage, Compassion and Wisdom– and orders come in from lovely people all over the world who want to buy from us and pay huge amounts for shipping, and possibly import taxes too. We encourage everyone to buy local if you can – to support your local bookshop if you have such a a rare thing – or buy online from your favourite bookseller if that’s easier, because in most cases it will be much cheaper on the shipping and there’s no danger of import duty being charged.

Here’s a good case in point. Up until very recently it was very difficult to buy our books in South Africa. Distribution isn’t always plain sailing, so we were delighted to hear from our astrologer with her ear to the ground – Nicky Allsop – that her book Fertility Astrology: A Modern Medieval Textbook is showing up on takealot.com (as are the rest of our titles). So that’s fabulous news for astrologers in South Africa! Don’t get me wrong, we love to hear from our customers and will always help out with an order from a far-flung place, but it’s always worth checking with your usual bookseller first