Our Store Remodel is Finished!

It seems like only yesterday, but it has actually been more than seven years since Title Wave Books expanded and moved to our present home in the Northern Lights Center. With overwhelming support from our customers—as well as from Alaskan authors and poets, local media, and book-industry professionals—Title Wave Books became a major literary presence in the Pacific Northwest.

Changes in the economy have hit the book industry as hard, or harder, than every other. Publishers have cut back on author tours, freight companies are charging more for deliveries, and consumers are becoming increasingly value-minded as many seek out the lowest possible prices in order to stretch their own budgets.

Title Wave Books started life in 1991 with the goal of becoming Alaska’s best used bookstore, and used books remain our core business. We’re rolling back prices on tens of thousands of used titles, with prices on newly-received inventory at LEAST 50% off the publisher’s price, and often 66% to 80% off the new price! At the same time, we’re buying more and more used books from our customers, allowing us to bring everyone the best possible selection at absolutely rock-bottom prices.

In order to organize and display a growing selection of used books, and to permit our staff to efficiently buy, price, sort and shelve even MORE books than ever before, Title Wave has made some changes to the way our store is organized.

We have installed new, lower shelves for all our Literature and Genre Fiction sections, and we now shelve mass-market paperbacks together with the larger hardcovers and trade paperbacks. This means you can now find everything by your favorite authors, all shelved together!

Another big improvement is that we've reorganized all our nonfiction sections, bringing many popular subjects (such as Cooking and Alaska and History) together and creating new sub-categories that make things easier to find.

There's still lots to do for us to truly call the project "completed" but the dust has settled, the sections are coming together, and we're thrilled to say that we have even more great used books than ever before, and we're selling them at lower prices than you've ever seen! If you haven't shopped at Title Wave for awhile, now is the perfect time to stop by and soak in...

The New Look of Used Books!

Online ordering takes a vacation while Title Wave upgrades our database

For more than five years, Title Wave has been pleased to offer our fantastic selection of books not just to our local customers, but also to all the folks out there in Internet Land. Not only that, but to thank our Alaskan friends for making the choice to keep their online book dollars in the state, we have offered completely free shipping—with no minimum order size—on every single order shipped within Alaska.

We really appreciate our wavebooks.com customers, but we recognize there are parts of the wavebooks.com “online experience” that are, well, a little clunky. We’re upgrading the database that keeps track of our inventory here in the store, and that also supplies updates for the titles listed on our web site. To help Title Wave’s programmer meet our January deadline for delivering the new database, we have chosen to postpone improvements to the online ordering portion of our website until the new system is in place.

The last day to place an online order at wavebooks.com will be Tuesday, September 23rd. After that, we will be suspending online ordering until sometime next year. Customers who live outside the Anchorage area are welcome to call us toll-free at 1-888-598-9283 to check for one or two titles, or email or fax us with longer lists. Although we will be pleased to mail your selections, we are no longer able to offer free shipping and customers will be asked to pay postage costs.

Title Wave Books—Downtown will re-open in the Spring

Our Downtown location on Fifth Avenue is taking this winter off. We’re not sure, but we heard something about palm trees and umbrella drinks. This Sunday, September 20th will be our last day open Downtown until next spring. Please take the hike to Spenard and visit our main Midtown location!