I bought several over the holidays, during their 50% off sale. Some were in fact to address family matter legal issues.
The ONLY problem on my end was I probably overdid it.
The problems on NOLO's end was they sent 2, disproportionately weighted shipping boxes for my order's shipment.
Common sense would dictate that they'd balance out the 2 S&H weights involved, but NO!
- 2 normal sized books inside of one box. A box the size of USPS Medium flat rate box.
- the remainder of the order's other books
were all stuffed inside of the other box. A box, which I might add that was MASSIVELY HEAVY [nearly a 2 person lift] box.
(size wise, it was like a home depot moving box, that's like 16" x 16" x 12" in size. Then imagine that someone proceeds to dump a whole collection of the old-school, printed, hard bound encyclopedia's from like 1980-something. That sort of weight adds up, even if you HAVE a hand truck)
Nolo's box had CLEARLY NO WARNING labels regarding it's weight and safely lifting it [not even for the carriers involved in the boxe's transit across country, to reach my doorstep]
such as:
- -a "Heavy" label
- -2-person lift label
- - use proper lifting techniques label[/b]
Despite their lack of knowledgeable packing and shipping insight and/or techniques, I was very happy with the overall deal, during BF through Christmas time [50% off, if I remember correctly].
Almost the same with No Starch Press, except they had been running a July 4th sale and so their sales were more spread out. Not just a sales period that had been shoe-horned into a timeframe of days between BF and cyber monday.
I didn't buy the same amount of books from No Starch, but at least the book pkg/box was a 1 person lift
Nice thing about either book vendor is
you normally have access to a eBook version, as a so called "Early Release Edition".Plus, a PDF or ebook or mobi is probably easier to run SEARCH functions against, vs. the paperback book.
Making them easier to study and locate specific topics within.
I did point out to NOLO, that while I appreciated their great holiday 50% discount they extended to all buyers,. they really need to consider how they pkg orders. Like, why not utilize 2 medium weight boxes vs. 1 lightweight and one super-heavy.
(I literally had to ROLL the HEAVY box up the front doorsteps, over the threshold and across the floor, as I was the only one home at the time).
Other than that,
both places , Nolo & No Starch press, are both stand up companies, when it comes to IT related knowledge and/or training books,videos and ebooks.
