Black Library and Scholastic

As you guys probably know by now, I'm quite the bookworm (you have seen my book reviews on this blog, right? ...right?). So Black Library is essentially quite an important factor in my reading experience.

Today I'm going to share with you guys a good piece of news regarding Black Library because I also tried to ask Scholastic some questions, but...nope. No such luck. So it's a comparison between the two publishers. And I'm proud to say, as a Warhammer 40K blogger (if I even qualify for that), that Black Library so far seems to be the more superior of the two, particularly when it comes to customer service. And books. Yes, Black Library's books are exorbitant, but a lot of their books are worth the money (World Engine, Ciahpas Cain and Gaunt's Ghosts, for example). The Horus Heresy books, hmm, some are hits and some are misses, but Mechanicum is my favorite, and I did love Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns. Those were great. Vengeful Spirit, not so much, and Cybernetica and Tallern: Ironclad were sort of disappointments. Oh well. But the quality is there.

I'm not sure what books I like from Scholastic except the Goosebumps series which were a nostalgic blast from the past. My favorite, particularly, was Give Yourself Goosebumps, which sort of shaped my sense of humor and threw me down the writer's path in the first place. Speaking of which, Freeblade will be put on indefinite hiatus until I finish my Manga story. Sorry about that. But yeah, the only books I'll probably buy from Scholastic is the outdated and finished Give Yourself Goosebumps series

And now...the comparison. The customer service in Black Library has been brilliant and excellent. A few months ago, or probably even a year ago, I emailed Black Library, asking if I could purhcase a paperback or at least a hard copy version of Ciaphas Cain The Emperor's Finest and a few other books. The response came almost immediately, and the Black Library staff who replied to me was very helpful, explaining that there were no plans for a third Ciaphas Cain Omnibus (yes, I asked if there will be a third Ciaphas Cain omnibus), and that the books I wanted were out of print. He offered the ebooks, and I replied that I don't have a Kindle or any software to read the ebooks, which were in epub format. He replied fairly quickly, explaining that I could either download an epub reader for my computer and read them with it, or I could convert them to Adobe Read documents (hmm...I can't remember if that's something he told me, or something I went to find myself). In any case, I didn't want the strain on my eyes, so I eventually went to Amazon to buy my missing Ciaphas Cain books, Baneblade and other Warhammer 40K books that I was looking for.

Now that I'm in America, and I've gotten my hands on a Kindle Paperwhite, I will definitely purchase all the Ciaphas Cain ebooks all over again, never mind I already have the physical copies (well, I donated my physical copies to Battle Bunker back in Singapore for a mini-library for Warhammer 40K fans to read). I'm also planning on buying the entire Gaunt's Ghosts collection, which is a sweet deal at about a hundred bucks. Part of this decision was influenced by the excellent customer service Black Library provided, the good feeling the staff left me when they responded to my queries.

In contrast, Scholastic falls short.

I emailed Scholastic last week, asking if they might digitalize Give Yourself Goosebumps 23-42 and the Special Editions for Kindle, because they already digitalized Give Yourself Goosebumps 1-22 for Kindle, which are on sale in Amazon. I wanted to buy the whole collection in one go, so I was waiting for that.

Up till today, I have yet to receive a response, even though they promised on the website that they will reply within 1 business day. 5 business days have passed and...no reply. Ironically, I received an email from Scholastic, but it wasn't a reply.

It was a survey, asking how I found the customer service from Scholastic. I was highly amused. How do I fill in a survey about how helpful the response was when I received absolutely no response whatsoever?

So in the comments, I wrote, "a response would have been great." after ticking the not helpful at all box for the "how helpful do you the rate the response?"

Now, this isn't a condemnation of Scholastic. I'm sure they're a great publishing company, and they probably are too busy to respond to my query, which is fine. Scholastic has been responsible for publishing many great books that shaped my childhood, and I'll be forever grateful to them for that at least. The survey probably was sent by mistake (if it wasn't, then something is seriously wrong with their system). But seriously, to those who criticize Black Library, this is what I wish to point out. For all of its faults, Black Library has an excellent customer service, and all of their books are digitalized. It's easy for me to find any book I want and purchase the ebook into my Kindle, even if the paperback or hard copy is no longer in print. Scholastic, on the other hand, has yet to digitalize their entire collection, which makes it hard for me to buy any of their books, and their customer service, in comparison to Black Library, has been relatively subpar so far. Maybe they'll respond to me eventually - I'm holding hopes on that. It's fine if they're not planning on digitalizing Give Yourself Goosebumps 23-42 and the Special Editions, but a response will at least be nice. At the most, I'll be bitterly disappointed and I'll just buy one or two books from 1-22 instead of grabbing the enitre collection at one shot

It's sad, because I wanted to share with my nephews and nieces the marvelous Give Yourself Goosebumps books that I devoured during my childhood. If they don't digitalize it...well, too bad, I guess? At least there's Joe Dever's Lone Wolf series which are available online. That's another awesome series that I enjoyed during my childhood, and when I have the time I might go through them once again. Ah...Lone Wolf is awesome. For Sommerland and the Kai!

Anyway, yeah. So that's my experience with Black Library and Scholastic, and I hope it enlightens you guys and will be of some use to readers who are considering what books to buy.