bol.co.uk

I have recently joined Bol as I used to be a member of "Escape Fiction" and also "Just Good Books". All of these websites seem to be by the same company although packaged differently to appeal to different people. Escape Fiction being more targeted to older female readers, Mango for younger female fiction, etc. Although all of these Book Clubs (including BOL) belong to the same company (BCA I believe) they all seem to have different rules for joining.

For example, I joined Just Good Books and had to make a minimum order in the first year after receiving an opening offer of 5 books for 1p or something similar. There was no Editor's Choice so you didn't have to refuse a book each month. Escape Fiction was slightly different in that they would offer you the editor's choice each month and if you forgot to tick the box or go online and refuse the book, you would be sent it anyway. This would end up costing you a fortune to return unwanted orders and made me look elsewhere.

I had noticed BOL in several places, Kelkoo lists them but does state that additional puchases will be required. I joined through "greasypalm" where I received £2.50 cashback for joining.

Although BOL requires membership they only insist that you make one further purchase from them. They do not send you an Editor's Choice to reject each month and you only get what you order.

One of the other reasons I was looking for an alternative to Escape Fiction was the P&P charges. This was somewhere in the region of £3 per order regardless of the size of the order. Although this was fine when ordering maybe 3 or 4 books I found this annoying if I only wanted one book I was ending up paying as much as I could in, say, Tesco.

With BOL you pay £1 per book ordered however if you order 3 or more books at one time the P&P is free.

I recently made my first order of 3 books through BOL and compared it to the same books from Escape Fiction - I made a saving of at least £10 from that of Escape Fiction and probably £20 + off the RRP. I read a lot and don't mind ordering 3 books at a time but at the same time I wouldn't mind paying £1 if I only wanted one book at the time.

I have only made one order from BOL so far as I am trying to get through my backlog of reading however the one order that I have made with them was delivered within a matter of days and was well packaged. I believe that they will only despatch your order if all of the books are in stock so this could cause delays. So far I have not had a bad experience from them although it is probably too soon to say what their ongoing service will be like. I recommended BOL to a colleague who had sent an order to another of the BCA companies, she cancelled this as she was saving at least £15 by buying the same books at BOL. She has just submitted her second order and seems to be happy with them.

One disadvantage I have noticed from BOL is that they seem to have a limited selection of books. This is possibly to make you join one of the sister book clubs who may stock the items you require. They do however stock most of the Bestsellers and at greatly discounted prices.

I would recommend BOL to anyone who reads a lot and currently buys from Amazon or one of the other book clubs. Not only will you receive up to 60% off new releases you will also save substantially on the postage and packing. The selection however is much more restricted than Amazon.