February 2007

Books Express: A specialist bookseller

This article was kindly written by Duncan Evans of Books Express

While retail and online giants were selling Jamie Oliver tomes by the ton, the Books Express contribution to Christmas stockings included many specialist books suited to defence and engineering profession. Such titles are seldom found on the shelves of Waterstones and Borders, or even university bookshops.

Like Jamie Oliver, Books Express has its origins in Saffron Walden, between Cambridge and London. While Jamie (who still can be occasionally spotted in my local pub) sells to the mass market, Books Express concentrates on its areas of expertise in academic, scientific and technical publishing, with a strong emphasis on all aspects of defence and engineering. We also have particular staff expertise of politics, history and international relations.

We also offer the following online services:

• Books-Express.co.uk - currently offers reliable data on 200,000 titles from most major academic, university and STM publishing houses from the UK, USA and increasingly India.
• StormingMedia.co.uk - 100,000 technical reports in hard or electronic copy. All titles have a detailed abstract to assist your research.
• Praeger Security International Online – Books Express are authorised resellers of this exceptional online resource for defence and security specialists. Please contact us for your free 30 day trial.

Like other independents, we harness the awesome marketing power of Amazon by selling through Amazon Marketplace. Our book prices are often lower than those of Amazon. You can also search and browse our holdings at AbeBooks.com.

The majority of our book supply is through offline transactions with engineering and defence sector clients. We host staffed book sales and author signings at the Joint Services Command and Staff College and the Defence College of Management and Technology. We also enjoy a good working relationship with these college libraries. Our Web site will soon include sophisticated online tools and resources for defence and engineering librarians. We welcome suggestions from librarians on what bibliographic tools would assist their workflow.

Our customers often receive larger discounts for offline orders. We deliberately do not publicise this on our public Web site, and by extension, to our competitors. We have developed long-standing, excellent relationships with publishers, allowing us to compete on the same or better terms than not only Amazon, but other library suppliers.

We have also worked closely on supply chain initiatives to make rapid deliveries a trusted norm, rather than an expensive extra. We have recently delighted customers with free 1-2 day delivery of (recent examples) Wiley, AIAA, SPIE, Artech House and Taylor and Francis group publishers.

All AERADE customers are welcome to contact me personally at duncan@books-express.co.uk or telephone +44 (0) 1799 513726 to discuss your requirements.

© Cranfield University