First books in the mail! And the International Shipping Fiasco...

First books in the mail!

First off - the exciting news - the first batch of books arrived today with the UPS lady literally exclaiming "Thank god" when I answered the doorbell by opening the garage rather than the front door, and her seeing the big space I'd cleared in the garage for them. 

Chatting with her, I learned regardless of what's in her truck she only gets 90 seconds per stop.  Let's just say it took her a bit longer than that to unload the 25 boxes of books into my garage, even with my help and having had the space cleared out beforehand.  I even noticed that she didn't have to ask me where they went... she instinctively knew where I had cleared the space.  I was really appreciative of her kindness and friendly efficiency.  She said that the worst time was August when all the schools order their books... but thankfully no orders this week!

The International Shipping Fiasco

She told me something interesting which was that for UPS ground shipping is a loss-leader, and that for US Post International fixed-price was a loss leader... which amazed me as one of the things that I've been wrestling with here behind the scenes is what to do about an error I made in calculating International Shipping. 

Seems the amount collected and the actual projected cost of shipping differs by about $2,500.  This is due to a combination of many factors, the not least of which being my projections being based on a much smaller project as well as a portion of contributors having overlooked the shipping when making pledges.

I've done a lot of soul searching over the past weeks on how to address the problem and have gotten excellent feedback from a lot of people and think I have a good plan.  Rather than making a public announcement I'll be contacting everyone affected with a personal e-mail to check in and see what feels good.  I should be checking in within the next day or so, so do keep an eye out.

Other than that, things are plugging along with great excitement... I'll be installing the postal software tonight, tomorrow 300 shipping envelopes and labels arrive and hopefully, tomorrow afternoon I'll start sending the first packages.  I've not decided on what order I'll be sending -- but I'm thinking that "The Caboodles" might be the first to go... something feels exciting about getting all those tee shirts out!

As always, with great gratitude...
JC