New website, new blog

Towards the end of 2022, we launched our new website and along with it came our new blog. This means that after 15 years of Talking Shop, we will be archiving this blog and any new posts will be found on our website www.christianbookshopossett.co.uk.

Feel free to continue browsing through all the book reviews here on Talking Shop - we would hate 15 years of blogging to go to waste!

Facebook

To be on or not to be on, that is the question that still exercises many people. And rightly so. How much of your private life do you want to open up, and is anybody interested anyway? However, I have set up a personal profile, which is not one that I utilise except for the purpose of being permitted thereby to operate a page for the Bookshop. This has been going for some time now, and both Lorna and I contribute almost daily. This blog feeds to it, but it is the day to day activities we mention there - news, humour, opinions, photos, book alerts etc. With our 'likes' increasing, more interaction is happening. Please consider liking us yourself if on facebook. You are not visible to anyone else but us! However, if you are not on, you can still view the page. We now have a clear cut web address to save to your favourites: www.facebook.com/christianbookshopossett
Jeremy

Our New Ventures

One end of the technological spectrum to the other - old books and eBooks.  These are the new areas that we are moving into, as you will see on the latest version of our website.  We have taken on most of the secondhand / antiquarian books formerly held by Zoar Books, which ceased trading in September 2011.  Extensive sifting and cataloguing is underway, and the current booklist is now available to search on a secured spreadsheet, which opens from our homepage.  So add the website to your favourites to include in your book searches.  At present you cannot order secondhand books directly from the website, but just drop us an email or phone us about them. There are about 2800 to go at - and counting!

A fast developing sector, although still in its infancy, is eBooks.  We have decided to enter with caution.  Christian Focus Publications have been particularly supportive, and we can offer the eBooks they have available.  Also our own distributed titles will increasingly feature, all being well.  They are in PDF format at the moment, and you will notice that A.B. Hoblyn's tracts are FREE!  We aim to add to the eBook range to bring together some really sound and profitable material in one place.  These are exciting times, and we've only just started!

Jeremy 

Customer Feedback

This is Angle Tarn, a place of wild beauty around 2000 feet up in the Lake District. A lovely location for team building in a month where fellowship has been the buzzword of the Christian booktrade. Unity is strength, but only if it is more than superficial.

The Lord blessed us with some fine weather, and then I was greeted by this sunny comment in an email on our return...

I would normally order them (books) direct, but given the current state of Christian bookshops across the country I feel it's right you get my custom even if I live hundreds of miles away!

This was accompanied by another, in an email from Australia...

I really like your website, well done!

Short but sweet, just like our time in the Lake District.

Jeremy

Quietly Does It

It's dropped rather quiet on the sales side in the last week, but though I should be complaining, I'm not. All hands are needed at the pump - producing enhanced book information on the new website. It seems a mammoth task just to do the Gospel Mission titles, which largely come without publisher's cover blurb. However I'm concentrating on these as they are distributed by us here in the UK. Great work is being put in by other supporters on other book ranges, which is HUGELY appreciated (I can't praise higher than capitals on a keyboard!) Lorna is getting book images in asap. It will all take a long time - we know it's a marathon not a sprint, but we also can't rest satisfied with the website until it's really functioning to give browsers the support they (you?) need. It does also give us an opportunity to review our stock and consider how best to shape up. A shocking statistic was sent to me today, that around 100 christian bookshops had closed or gone into administration in 2009 alone! These are truly unprecedented times. I feel I should be more thankful that the Christian Bookshop Ossett is even here. And as long as others do too then it will continue in its present form.

Jeremy

Psst! We're Live

Yes, 8 years after we built our first website for the bookshop, today we have gone live with our new one. It is now database driven, so fully searchable, as well as easier for us to maintain (vitally important). The quality of information content may be lacking for many books at this point in time, but that will continually improve as we bang it in. We decided our switchover point to the new site would be reached once it could provide at least as much for the user as the old one did. So here we are, and now watch us go. As Winston Churchill once said, 'this is not the beginning of the end; this is only the end of the beginning!'
Try it out for yourself. If you have any problems please email us. We believe it is sound, but welcome feedback.
Jeremy

Less is More?

Our new website is taking up quite a bit of my time and energy at the moment. I enthusiastically demonstrated our 'beta' version of it to a friend the other day, extolling the virtues of the improved search engine, increased product information, and (most importantly from my point of view) the simplicity involved in keeping it up to date when she said 'Aren't you just giving everyone all the information they need about a book for them to go and buy it cheaper elsewhere?'. Gulp. Uur. Well, I suppose you could look at it like that. Actually, why don't I just shut up shop now and leave the bookselling to Amaz... all those other online retailers?
I don't, purely because I think we can provide a better service. We have a phone number for one thing and many customers will ring for advice about their choice of book, we are happy to source hard-to-find books, we take bookstalls out to special events, we even allow customers to take a box load of books to look through/discuss with Church leaders and then buy some and return some. We have specialist knowledge in our own niche of Christian books and enjoy discussing the finer details of particular titles. I could go on and on... about the mail order customer who buys books obsessively and so for his own well being we tactfully try to limit his purchases... about the 'mad monk' who pops in and likes to discuss the details of Calvinism over Roman Catholicism... about the little old lady who phones for a couple of greetings cards and insists that I describe the picture in detail and read every part of the greeting out to her... about the grumpy local chap who calls in regularly but rarely buys anything. Surely, surely it is worth staying open for that! Okay, so we can't always compete on price, but I'm pretty sure we can compete on service. Try us!
Lorna

Last Week of January Promotion

You may be forgiven for not knowing we even had a January promo. I confess with shame that it is nowhere to be seen on our website! A clue to the reason for this omission is at the top of the home page. Lorna has put out a message that the winds of change are blowing and she is in the midst of the tornado, ie. our new website is less than a month from completion (subject to the Lord's will, as we have always proved on projects past). Anyway too much time is needed on this to allow for full updating of the existing site - hence the missing January promotion. Of course if you have already given permission you will have received the promotion by email in the January bulletin. Something to consider if you haven't already signed up - just drop an email with 'subscribe' in the subject line and Bob's your uncle.
On to the promotion itself. We are trying to encourage reading from the section we describe as Biblical Studies. This covers commentaries and sermons, as well as Bible guides and reference books. In other words, serious stuff from past and present, for which a blanket 15% discount applies.
Then, within this section, books from some accessible commentary series are available at 25% discount. These are Day One's 'Opening Up' and 'Exploring the Bible' series, which are aimed at giving brief overviews and introductions to Bible books. Also Banner of Truth's 'Let's Study' series which are more in depth and focus on the New Testament books. Some excellent material here and now just one week to come and get it. Sorry I forgot to tell you earlier.
Jeremy

My head hurts :-(

css .dap .asp .sql vbs cgi ... mean anything to you? No, it doesn't mean much to me either, but this is what I have been filling my head with this afternoon and am now suffering the consequences! Basically, our website needs dragging into the 21st Century and it is these sorts of abbreviations I am having to wrestle with to try and get it there. When we launched our website back in 2002 it seemed very 'cutting edge' (we liked to think so anyway!), but the internet has moved on by leaps and bounds in the 7 years since, and we... well, we haven't.
So, I am interested in knowing what our customers like to see in a website. Many customers tell us that our website is easy to navigate and gives them the information they need. People also comment on the fact that they like to read the reviews or this blog to gain more subjective information about particular titles. We don't want to change this. And as a small family business, we like having direct and personal contact with each of our customers. So, we do not intend to upgrade to a flashy, impersonal website. However, we are always trying to improve the service that we give. Over to YOU... tell us what you like and don't like, do you want 'one-click' buying (like the infamous Amazon), or do you like the more personal touch, do pictures of book covers help or are you more interested in book descriptions... tell me more
Lorna
By the way, if anyone reading this happens to be an expert in web design, especially database led sites... we would love to hear from you!