COVID-19 update: Buy Troika books direct (with 40% discount) and other ways to support booksellers and book buyers
We sincerely hope that you and your loved ones are staying safe and well in these uncertain times.
This is a challenging and unusual time for us all. For everyone staying inside at home with young families, books and reading will perhaps feel more important than ever. But sadly, ways of getting our hands of them are shrinking. Schools, libraries and bookshops have all closed, one of the UK’s major book distributors in the UK has suspended taking orders, and even Amazon has been prioritizing what it terms essential orders only.
As a small business, Troika is inevitably feeling the pinch. At the same time we’ve been bowled over by literally hundreds of examples of human kindness and ingenuity in these past few weeks. We humans really are stronger and better when we all pull together, so the Troika team is determined to keep supporting booksellers, book buyers and all of our authors and illustrators wherever we can.
Want to lend your support? Here’s how!
Buy Troika books direct from our distributor Orca Book Services - with 40% discount
Our distributors don’t normally sell individual books direct to the public, but these aren’t normal times. To order a Troika book for delivery to your home - and receive a 40% discount on the cover price by way of our thanks for your support:
Call Orca Book Services on 01235 465 577
Applies to delivery to UK addresses only. You’ll need a credit or debit card to pay over the phone. The phone will be staffed by people working remotely during standard office hours (9am-5pm, Monday-Friday).
Support local independent bookshops
Lots of indies are now responding to the challenge of shop closures and social distancing measures by selling online and / or by phone for delivery. Most are small businesses operating under severe financial pressure, so please do give them your support if you can, rather than automatically defaulting to bigger online retailers such as Amazon.
The Booksellers’ Association has some useful resources:
Click here to find your local bookshop
See their guide on which bookshops across the country are offering delivery services during the coronavirus outbreak (scroll down the page)
Follow your favourite authors and poets
Authors and poets are a creative bunch. No sooner did the government say ‘we’re closing schools’, than they were offering a veritable tsunami of online solutions to help keep kids educated and entertained – and all for free!
So check them out, follow them, give them a shout out. We’ve listed a handful in an earlier blog post here but quite frankly it’d be a full-time job to keep up with them all.
To track some of them down yourself, check out our authors and illustrators, follow the links to their websites and see what they’re up to.
Keep in touch
The Troika team has always been a bunch of remote workers, so if you’d like to get in touch we’d love to hear from you. You’ll find us in all the usual places listed in our contacts page.
Look after yourselves and each other.
With warmest wishes,