UK Not Even on List of Countries

Another month, another list where the UK does not even feature on the list of countries to select. Remember us? We are the small outcrop of land on the Western edge of Europe, usually used as a cute aircraft carrier by the US.

Well. we are still here and no I am NOT English; there are in fact four nationalities in the UK and I am Welsh. The current crop of books is almost wholly North American centric and frankly of questionable quality in terms of decent fiction / non fiction.

Come on chaps, give us Brits a look-in!

Ta muchly!

>1 firedrake1942: usually used as a cute aircraft carrier by the US.

Ah, there's your problem. APO and FPO addresses are so hard to send to. (FPO, I think in the case of aircraft carriers.)

(You know, if you'd just let us burn Buckingham Palace during the War of 1812, we'd get along a lot better.)

The current crop of books is almost wholly North American centric and frankly of questionable quality in terms of decent fiction / non fiction.

The crop of books is determined by the publishers willing to sign up for the program. Get some good British publishers to sign up for the program, and you'll get more UK books in the system.

Not sure what you mean. In the December list there are a number of ER books available. It is just that they are all ebooks and audiobooks.

As for the quality - well I probably agree there is nothing that takes my fancy.

The only way that there will be stuff that you might want is if the publishers choose to use LT. There isn't much point complaining here - I don't think there are any UK publishers reading. ISTR a number of UK publishers being contacted a few years ago and nothing coming from it.

Pomegranate Press and Canongate used to participate, because I got some great books from them. I did ask on the main thread about this if there was anything we could do to help, but not sure there was an answer.

>1 firedrake1942: You're talking as if the people in North America/the US have any say in what's put up there for giveaway, as if we're taking away your books somehow.

If I recall, not even the LT people in charge have any say over which publishers in the world participate and which don't.

As an aside, please don't act as if the rest of the world doesn't know the difference between Great Britain, the UK, and England. Thanks.

>5 DanieXJ: Most do not know the difference. Even in these islands the terms are used interchangeably. English being the catch all for anyone from here. Great Britain does not contain Northern Ireland only the UK does. As for having a say, presumably the LT people 'sold' this ER scheme to publishers and canvassed them to take part. Being a staunchly physical book person and one mostly resident in the UK, there are few books to choose from on the ER scheme and then the lottery begins as to whether one actually receives those books 'won'.

As an aside, please do not tell me what to do / how to act, or what to think. Most kind!

>1 firedrake1942: Our current batch of ER giveaways has a few titles that are UK only (including two print ones from Hawkwood Books: https://www.librarything.com/ner/publisher/2753/Hawkwood-Books), and a number of others that include the UK. That being said, we'd certainly like to improve those numbers.

We are still reaching out to publishers, to invite them to participate in the program, whether for the first time, or by returning. Are there publishers you'd particularly like to see?

I sense a flounce coming. Please pay attention to standard practice and do stick the landing.

Aren't there major paper shortages, work interference, and distribution problems involving the UK, currently? The covid pandemic, Brexit, and other newsworthy issues continue, after all.

I'd be surprised if Wales has been spared from the publishing industry's drama.

>9 aspirit:

In fairness, the original complaint and the post to which the OP responded today were from 2014.

>11 lilithcat: oh, my goodness. Thank you for pointing that out. I saw "Dec" but not the year.

ETA: This is a test edit. Posts are acting glitchy today.