Castle Hill Press

Advance subscriptions

This page contains important information about advance subscriptions to Castle Hill Press publications. Please read it carefully before placing a subscription order.

What do I gain by subscribing?

Advance subscription prices for Castle Hill Press editions are offered for a limited period only, usually well before publication. These prices are lower than any subsequent price, but conditions apply.

• Note also that you can buy volumes in the T. E. Lawrence Letters series at reduced prices if you order more than two titles at once.

In addition, some volumes in the Letters series and some other volumes ordered before publication contain an extra leaf of facsimiles or other illustrations. This subscribers' leaf does not appear in copies ordered after publication. These special 'subscription copies' will always be the most sought-after.

What does Castle Hill Press gain from subscriptions?

Advance subscriptions are firm orders. We do not normally publish a Castle Hill Press edition until advance orders are sufficient to cover the immediate out-of-house production costs (i.e. costs such as proof-reading, obtaining illustrations, graphic design, printing, and binding enough copies to meet advance orders).

Only a proportion of the edition is available at the subscription price.

Current subscription offers

With the exception of capped subscriptions (see below) any current subscription offer is advertised on the News page, the relevant prospectus page, and in the online shop.

Capped subscription offers

There is a risk that small editions might be over-subscribed. To prevent this we email details to customers, giving priority to those who have bought similar editions in the past. If the edition becomes fully subscribed there is no point advertising the subscription on the website.

General subscription information

Who can subscribe?

• Any private individual, library, bookseller or library agent can place a subscription order, provided that the order is placed before the subscription deadline. There is no trade discount on the subscription price.
• We reserve the right to refuse a subscription order, notably if a customer has defaulted on the subscription terms on a previous occasion.

Is there any on-going commitment?

• Subscribers to one volume are not obliged to purchase any other volume.

Can I place a standing subscription?

• We tried this, but it didn't work. We need specific authorisation to make charges for each book to your card. Also, we need to be sure that we have your current shipping address.
• If you subscribe to a volume, we will do our best to let you know when you can subscribe to similar volumes. However, we can only do this if we have your current email address.

How do I place a subscription?

• Subscription orders must be in writing. You can send them by post, fax, or e-mail; but the simplest method is to subscribe through our online shop. All subscription orders will be acknowledged.

When will I have to pay?

• New publications ordered on subscription by private customers must be paid for in accordance with the subscription terms, which are as follows:

Cloth or quarter-cloth copies: depending on the subscription terms announced for the particular book, half the price is usually payable when out-of-house work on the book begins. The remainder plus the shipping cost is payable when the book is shipped (typically around 8-15 weeks later, but it can be longer).

Quarter-goatskin or full-goatskin copies: depending on the subscription terms announced for the particular book, a third or a half of the price is payable when out-of-house work on the book begins. The remainder plus the shipping cost is payable when the book is shipped (typically 8-15 weeks later, but it can be longer).

What happens if I'll be away when the book is ready?

• You may ask us to postpone shipment. The final subscription payment will nevertheless be charged when the book is published and copies are shipped to other subscribers.

Do libraries have to pay in two instalments?

• Recognised libraries will be normally invoiced pro-forma for the full cost of subscription + shipping shortly before finished copies are available. Please note that we do not ship books overseas on credit.

What happens if I move house before the book is issued?

• Please remember to notify us of any change to your shipping or email address before the book is published. If, in good faith, we send the book to your old address and it goes missing, that will be your responsibility.
• If you send an address-change by email, check that we acknowledge it (not all emails arrive). The best way to tell us is to use Update Customer Details in our online shop.

What happens if my card changes?

• Please remember to update information about the expiry date or the number of the card if either or both change before a payment is due.
• If we cannot process a card payment and the problem remains unresolved for any length of time, you could lose your subscription discount and your special subscribers' copy.
• Again, a simple way to send us changes is through the 'Update Customer Details' item on the first catalogue page of our online shop.

Can I pay by cheque?

• Cheques are not legal tender in the UK. Many petrol stations and some supermarkets no longer accept them. Banks make a large charge if a cheque fails to clear. We will accept payments by sterling cheque drawn on a UK bank, but only in special circumstances where payment by card is impossible.
• If you pay by cheque, there is a charge of £2.00 towards the additional cost of administration and postage except for subscription orders with a total value above £100.

How do you calculate shipping costs?

• The shipping cost shown in our pricing is for a single copy. It includes packing materials, labour, insurance and postage charges. If you order more than one copy and these can be sent in the same parcel, there may be a saving in the cost of postage and packing materials, resulting in a lower charge.
• We do not normally pack more than 4kg of books in one parcel, since the risk of damage increases with weight. It may cost more to ship two differently shaped books together than separately.
• Most of our overseas shipments travel internationally by Spring Global Mail and are delivered by your local postal service. Please ensure that the postman knows what to do with a parcel if you are not at home.

What happens if I wish to cancel a subscription?

• Subscription orders are a binding contract between the subscriber and Castle Hill Press. Subscriptions may, however, be cancelled up to the subscription deadline, or until one month before the book goes to press (whichever is later). If a subscription is cancelled thereafter, a 10% cancellation fee will be charged.

Can I return a book?

• You may return a book up to 14 days after receipt.

See also our FAQ page.

Publicity for subscription offers

We sometimes hear from customers or potential customers who feel aggrieved because they have missed an advance subscription offer.

We are sorry if this happens, but once the deadline for a subscription order has passed, the offer is closed.

I hope the notes below will clarify the issues.

There are no printed publicity leaflets for our books. We could not justify the cost of mailing brochures to customers in many countries when we can make up-to-date information available on our website.

By choice, some homes do not have Internet access. However, most people have access to the Internet elsewhere: at work, in the homes of friends or relatives, or in a local library.

2. The role of our News page

We publicise most of our forthcoming editions and subscription offers on our News page. Whatever additional steps we may take to contact customers about these offers, this is where you will find announcements and progress reports.

3. "Why didn't you send me an email?" 

When we announce a new subscription offer, we try to contact previous customers we think may be interested. We often do this on quite a large scale. We try to notify Letters series customers of new volumes in the series. For small editions in special bindings, we try to notify people who have bought similar editions from us in the past.

I say "try" because emails don't always get through. Some customers forget to tell us they have changed email address. Others use spam traps that block our messages. Some email messages simply go astray.

Because of this, we advise all customers to check our News page from time to time.

4. "Why not send email notifications to every customer?"

There are several reasons. One is that sending out thousands of emails takes time (especially when a significant proportion bounce). A second is that many people wouldn't welcome unsolicited emails about everything we publish. We would run the risk of being blacklisted for spam.

5. "Can't I just subscribe to everything?"

We used to accept 'series subscriptions' for the Letters volumes, but we still found it necessary to contact subscribers before each volume. In many instances card details or the shipping address had changed. In some cases subscribers moved house and we lost touch.

A series subscription could not be a binding commitment to buy everything we published. In particular, it could not include non-Letters volumes such as the parallel French and English texts of Le Gigantesque | The Forest Giant.

In short, while the concept of a series subscription seemed valid, it had little practical value. Instead, we now keep a list of active customers and promote new titles to those we think may be interested.

6. Editions of fewer than 300 copies

It is difficult to predict orders for small editions. These usually contain special-interest texts of importance to scholars and serious collectors. They merit publication in our scholarly edition of Lawrence's writings, but are often costly to edit and produce. They would have little interest to the wider market.

Small editions of important texts can, however, appeal to speculators: people who invest in books they think should increase in value. If we advertised these editions widely, they might be snapped-up by speculative buyers rather than our usual subscribers. We therefore promote subscription offers for small editions directly to existing customers, giving priority to those who (on the basis of previous purchases) seem most likely to be interested in the new title.

If an edition is fully subscribed, it serves no purpose to advertise it further.   

Jeremy Wilson