Wal-Mart Jumped Pub Date

By Judith Rosen -- Publishers Weekly, 11/10/2009 7:14:00 AM

For years, independent booksellers have complained that a few individual big box retailers have offered Harry Potter and other bestsellers before the publisher’s on-sale date. Now it looks like Wal-Mart may have jumped release dates for its online operation. When the retailing behemoth began offering books on its Web site for $8.98 a few weeks ago, Dean Swift, who opened Swift Books in Orangeburg, S.C., in May, decided to see if Wal-Mart would honor its advertised discount plus free shipping. It did.

But Swift was in for a different surprise. Although Stephen King’s Under the Dome releases today, his two copies arrived on Saturday, ditto for Linda Howard’s Ice. Walmart.com also shipped some of the books which released last Tuesday, November 3, several days early. For example, Swift’s two copies of J.D. Robb’s Kindred in Death arrived on Saturday October 31.

Ironically, another bookseller who ordered his über-discounted books through Amazon is still awaiting his order for titles that went on sale on November 3.