Just Good Books > Reviews (16)

I love books. I love getting them, reading them, and having them. I will even dust them … well, sometimes. I love a bargain too, so when Mypoints directed me into the Just Good Books site (www.justgoodbooks.co.uk) which advertises “75% off every book” I thought I’d found the equivalent of the everlasting bottle of whisky, and when I was offered 500 Mypoints for buying in I thought it was too good to be true.

If things look too good to be true, they probably are, but there was this screen in front of me offering the latest P. D. James, “Death in Holy Orders” for £4.25. I’d looked at it in Waterstones only a few days before and decided I’d have to wait for the paperback version, and here it was at less than the price I’d probably pay for it in paperback. There was Reginald Hill’s latest Dalziel and Pascoe, “Dialogues of the Dead” for £4, and they were prepared to give me a free book too, John Grisham’s “A Painted House”, just for the pleasure of having me buy from them. Even with P&P at £3.99 I couldn’t believe I was getting three hardback books for £12.24. I could have bought up to six books. There are other books currently in the introductory offer. In the “Real Life” section there’s Randy Taraborelli’s “Madonna” (that’s real life?), and Jamie Oliver’s “The Return of the Naked Chef” in the Non-Fiction, plus quite a few others, and, yes, they’re all 75% off. My books arrived within a few days, and I was a little disappointed to find that they were all Club Editions (I can’t speak for the other titles on offer) - I was back with the ubiquitous Book Club Associates.

The deal is a little different to the normal Book Club deal – you know the one: “Buy six books for only 50p each” and you’re committed to buying another three (or however many) within the next six or twelve months. You can’t cancel your membership until the six or twelve months is up, and who remembers when that is, or come to that whether they’ve bought the number of books they should? Every month you get the Club “magazine”, and if you don’t respond you get the “Editor’s choice”, like it or not. With this deal the initial price of the introductory offer books is a lot higher, but your only undertaking is to buy one book in the next six months. There is no “Editor’s choice”, so you don’t have to fear getting a book you don’t want. P&P is £1 per book or free if you buy three books or more. You can order online, and the site is simple to navigate and quick to load. “Wonderful”, you’re saying, “and 75% off all the books. Lead me to it.”

Well, that’s the snag. The “Who Are We” section on the site (yes, I even read that) is quite specific. “You can save 75% off RRPs on all books today”. The “75% off RRPs on all books” is in bold. “Today” is not, but that’s the important bit. It’s only in the introductory offer that all the books are reduced by 75%.

This month’s magazine arrived this a little while ago. Disregarding the sets and “Buy any 2 for ….” Offers and ones that were advertised as Club Editions, I counted 114 books on offer.

Of these 18, or about 16% of the available books, are reduced by 75%, and one of those is “A Painted House” which a lot of people will have through the introductory offer. Some of these are popular, or topical, such as “Pearl Harbour”, and Wilbur Smith’s “Warlock”, but there’s also Joan Jonker’s “After the Dance is over” and Jenni Murray’s “Is it me, or is it hot in here?” The best offers seem to be the 50% reductions, with people you’ve heard of writing books you’ve heard about. About 23% of the books fall into this category. The average reduction is about 42%, and this is before you add the £1 per book P&P. In fact it’s not a lot different to all the other Book Club Associates clubs.
I didn’t get the 500 Mypoints either. Most people, Mypoints included, know me as Sue, but when I’m filling in forms I tend to put my full name – Susan, which is what I did on the Just Good Books website. Because the names didn’t agree, I didn’t get the points – which is something you might find worth thinking about if you’re into that sort of thing.