Hello and thank you for choosing Brain Lair Books

As you know, black-owned businesses are having a moment and I am here for it and, it seems, so are you!

We cannot believe the number of orders we've received! Thank you!  

TL;DR  - we've turned off ordering on this site!

We are still working to get your orders out

If you are trying to find the status of your orders please use our newly created email address -  statusupdaterequest@thebrainlair.com-  and tell us your last name and order #.

Don't forget 

You can still order from us over on Bookshop!

They fulfill orders and offer us a percentage of every sale that comes through our page on their site - win-win!

We offer both audiobooks and ebooks with our partners

MUCH Longer Story:

First and foremost, this has been a one-person shop since inception. I've been lucky enough to have some volunteers cover store sometimes but every aspect of running the business is down to me.  This is not an excuse, just the reality of this situation.

Books have been going in and out of stock since early June mostly due to the whole country (we wish) ordering anti-racist titles. But other books have been out of stock too because book lovers enjoy recommending books to people!

Unlike corporate bookstores, I don't have a warehouse to stock books. So when I get your order, I create a list of publishers and I order the books, buy the packaging, create and buy the postage, and wait for my books to come in, repackage the books for you, take the books to the post office. Repeat.  Under normal circumstances (which 2020 has ensured we will not go back to) this system is sustainable by me alone.  But every single avenue in bookselling has been disrupted and compounded by the pandemic, the recession, and the rise against systemic racism.

I'd been working on beefing up my online presence for the last few months but in Late March, Early April - online book sales increased 10-fold.  I went from processing 2 or 3 orders per day to processing 20 or 30. Still doable but now I'm stretched,  At the end of May, all bets were off. I turned off most ordering from June 7 - June 30th. I found some independent contractors to help me process orders and to get packages out the door. Hiring during a crisis isn't ideal due to rushed training, but it has greatly sped up the process. But we are still running behind.

Due to the manual processes involved in our system, I am still frantically working on those orders. Each and every order has to be looked at to determine how to fulfill it. So the process is agonizingly slow for me. I can only imagine how it is for you.  I do apologize. 

Our system sends you an invoice as soon as you place your order. This tells you we received it.  Usually we send another email when your order is shipping. But...I've received many emails asking about the status of your order and rightly so - Due to this (not normally so) long process, you are worried that your order has just been lost. I may have missed your email but I have not missed your order. 

Here's a temporary solution:

If there is a problem with your order - received the wrong book, have been charged more than once for a book - I encourage you to text us with your last name, order #, and the problem you are experiencing.  Please include all three in order for us to look up your order. The number is 574-400-5572. Please don't call this number - you will not receive a reply. 

If you are trying to find the status of your orders - Our current statuses - pending, processing, payment received, completed - doesn't tell you as much as you'd like during this (not normally so) long process. If you need to know, please use our newly created email address -  statusupdaterequest@thebrainlair.com-  and tell us your last name and order #. I will check this email in the afternoon and in the evening and answer as many requests as I can. Your answer will not come back through this email but from your order page instead. 

I am working hard to fulfill orders as quickly as possible based on what books you have ordered. And we are still running behind.  We offer both audiobooks and ebooks with our partners.  And, of course, you may shop our page over on Bookshop. 

 But, if your order was urgent, please reach out to the statusupdaterequest@thebrainlair.com email address if you have decided you need to get your books elsewhere.

I am grateful for your support and patience! 

The Brain Lair Bookstore

If you want to support us but don't need books right now - please donate to our campaign!

We are providing book packages to families from Title I schools

Thank you! We love being your bookstore!