Amazon to close down its subsidiary Book Depository

On Tuesday evening, Book Depository announced the sad news via its social media.

The online retail front was founded in 2004 by Stuart Felton and former Amazon Employee Andrew Crawford. Their aim was to sell all sorts of books instead of only focusing on bestsellers. Eventually the Gloucester-based site was acquired by Amazon in 2011.

Book Depository is a beloved website especially amongst readers outside of the US. Through the site they were able to access  English language books at affordable prices, as shipping can become quite expensive depending on where you live.

Additionally some indie authors were using the website to set up giveaways for their international readers, they too are sad to see Book Depository close. New Zealand-based author and poet Lang Leav tweeted: "Sad to hear the news. A huge loss for all of us."

This closure is part of wider cutbacks at Amazon. In January the CEO Andy Jassy wrote to his employees: "given the uncertain economy (...) we communicated the hard decision to eliminate a number of positions across our Devices and Books businesses."

It will still be possible to place orders until 26 April at 12pm BST and any orders made before that time will be delivered as normal. However any pre-orders that cannot be shipped before that day may have to be refunded. 
There might be an alternative for bookish people however. The UK-based online book-seller Blackwell's is shipping internationally and the prices for shipping are already included in the retail price of the books.