There have been a few articles about this in the past few months, but I think it bears repeating one last time before it’s too late.
There is a large possibility that there will be a massive delay in books being shipped out for the holiday season.
This may be unsurprising for you, but this is yet another pandemic-related problem. A quote from Book Riot states that “Supply chain issues hit us out of the blue in August of 2021. We had expected shortages at the beginning of the pandemic, in the Spring of 2020 when everyone was stock-piling toilet paper. Those never materialized, until our printer was hit with a perfect storm of paper shortages, truck and container shortages, a downed printing press, and hurricane Ida.”
On the bright side, book sales have leaped since the pandemic! People are reading more!
So, what can we do? I know that I personally have several books on my wishlist for Christmas, and I’m sure you do too.
- Order books now! Preordering books that come out closer to Christmas can help too.
- Shop in person. Go to your local indie bookstores and used bookstores and just browse!
- In that same vein, when you’re at these in-person bookstores, pick up a book you may not have had your eye on. I’m betting that you can find some amazing treasures to add to your TBR with no problem!
- Buy an ebook. Now, I know that ebooks are hard to give as gifts, and I personally prefer physical books, but this is a solution for you giving yourself a Christmas present 😉
- Buy a gift card. (This is a perfect solution really! Especially if you forget about this blog post for the next two months.)
- Be kind to everyone working in the book industry. Especially if you wait until the last minute to order books. They’re trying their best to get your new favorite book into your hands!
I hope you get all the books you want this Christmas, and please share this information with anyone you know who plans on buying books this holiday season. Happy holidays and have fun book shopping!
Storm Shultz 