I am trying to get a hold of a copy of this book: Song of the Earth: European Artists and the Landscape.
But it appears to only be available in England. Is this normal? I see Amazon has a UK version, but do they convert dollars to pounds? Can I simply give them a credit card and buy it right from the UK amazon site? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
p.s. Awesome book by the way, some of my favorite natural artists.
Don’t know about the book’s availability here.
But it’s quite possible to buy stuff from Amazon UK. They are well equipped to handle that financial stuff!
Amazon UK is great with international orders, I’m in Australia and I buy from them every now and then and it is very easy and doesn’t take very long to ship over here.
If you buy from Amazon in the U.K., you do have to pay for international shipping. On the other hand, when you get the total bill, you’ll see that the price has dropped. That’s because in the U.K. prices are quoted inclusive of VAT (value added tax – the equivalent of sales tax), but VAT is not charged on items exported out of the European Union.
To echo what everyone else has said, yes, you can buy stuff from Amazon.co.uk for delivery to the US. I’ve done so several times for books, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. Mostly, this was stuff not available in the US, but in a couple of cases, there were Blu-Ray titles that were cheaper than the US Amazon.com. I have a DVD player that’s been hacked via software to make it region-free. I don’t think that’s possible with my Sony PS3 so I’m careful to buy only those Blu-Ray titles that are sold region-free (mostly Warner Bros and HBO titles). They shipped stuff to me by Royal Post and I received every order within a week.
The only problem was on the last order, where my credit card issuer charged me about three bucks for the currency conversion. They had not done so previously, so I think that was a result of the new regulations on credit cards. Some credit card issuers may not charge a currency conversion fee, so check with your bank.
Ok, so if I purchase the book with my American Credit card they will automatically change the currency? Or is credit, credit credit no matter where you are? I think I know the answer to that already…
I’ll register and see what happens…unless I am already registered with my same info for Amazon US.
ETA: thanks Dewey, I will check it out with my bank. This card has been used internationally many times, so I don’t think I’ll have a problem.
There are certain books that Amazon.co.uk is not allowed to sell to international customers. I’ve run into that.
It has to do with the arcane way that publishers carve up the world for rights and royalties. A book that can be freely sold to the U.S. diminishes the value for U.S. publishers to republish it under a new contract. Not every book is treated this way, but the ones that are can be impossible to obtain.
Although sometimes you can go to Amazon.ca and get them from there, since British books can be sold in Canada.
And the answer to your first question is that the publishers probably figure there’s not enough of a market for it there to justify the investment required.
It’s not just publishers. An author and his agent would certainly like the idea of selling the book to both a US and a UK publisher. Two advances. Sell it one publisher in both markets and you lose out.
In case it is useful for you, the book is also available through abebooks from three US sellers, although one is asking a ridiculous price.
I order from Amazon.co.uk all the time. (I live in Texas, USA.) They do the conversion, your credit card statement comes back with the price you paid and the conversion rate. They are very quick, considering they’re overseas, and I’ve never had an issue with them.
Can also be found at The Book Depository.
This website is useful. It is available in Canada, France, Germany, and UK. It looks like UK is still the cheapest, don’t know if it considers VAT like Giles says.
http://www.cheapriver.com/#?q=Song%20of%20the%20Earth:%20European%20Artists%20and%20the%20Landscape
There’s no VAT on books in the UK, so you should only pay the book’s price plus postage.
There’s no VAT on books.
[Ooops, ninja’d!]
I must have been thinking of when I bought DVDs from the U.K.: is there VAT on DVDs?
Yes.