shipping books
Does It Really Cost Less to Send Things USPS?
January 25, 2010
Add new comment
by Kristen Sears
Not a week goes by when we are not asked why we don’t ship our books via media mail rather than using UPS or Fed Ex ground service. In an economy like this, we should all be looking for ways to reduce the costs of doing business, and the US postal service is so much less expensive than those carriers. But is it really?
In the last week alone, we’ve experienced a few shining examples that show why using a reliable, traceable, faster ground carrier is definitely the right way to ship valuable or important cargo.
We routinely send book samples and sales materials to our team of field reps, including catalogs. Our catalogs are not some low-cost, newsprint numbers either. They are highly designed, four-color beauts printed on high quality glossy paper. They mirror the level of quality of the books that they contain. They’re nice (and expensive) sales materials.
In the spirit of minimizing expenses, we decided to give the USPS a shot by sending out our catalogs through their priority mail service. Big mistake.
So far, we’ve had not one, but two reps report to us that they did indeed receive the box we sent to them. Trouble is, they only received the box itself and it was a rumpled, mangled mess at that. In both cases, not so much as a single spread from the catalog was delivered.
All told, those two shipments alone cost us one hundred thirty catalogs! One hundred thirty shiny, brand new, never before opened catalogs. We won’t offset the cost of those pieces of collateral in sales dollars.
So shipping packages might be risky with the USPS, but what about your standard fare letter? The USPS has that down pat, right?
Our business requires that we deal a fair amount with agreements and amendments and paperwork of all kinds. We receive these documents through various means, but most of the time our clients simply fold the agreement into a standard envelope and mail it the good old-fashioned way. And that’s normally totally fine . . . until it’s not.
We received the piece of mail pictured below inside a second, bigger, official USPS envelope with their apologies for the damage and assurances that they expedited what was left of the document to us as quickly as possible. Gee, thanks. This two-thirds of a signed agreement doesn’t really do us any good, but we’re glad it got here quickly.
Bottom line, if it matters and it needs to get there quickly and safely, spend a little more on the front end with a ground carrier to ensure that it does. Besides the time and money it will save you in the long run, your piece of mind is priceless.
Tags:
Damage Control: Advice from a Professional Book Repairer
March 26, 2009
by Aaron Hierholzer
In the book industry, "pristine" is the word wholesalers and retailers use to describe books that are in saleable condition. If a book isn't pristine (which means “absolutely flawless” in this context), it's sent straight back to the publisher. Its fate—pulping, free giveaway, remaindering, years of gathering dust in a warehouse—is determined from there.
We recently spoke with Debbie Purrington of Ingram Book Company, the industry’s largest wholesaler, who spends her time doing fix-up jobs on the slightly imperfect books Ingram receives from printers. Debbie’s workstation in Ingram’s Tennessee warehouse checks books for twenty types of damage, including dented spines, torn pages, creased dust jackets, oozing glue, unsmoothed Mylar, and printing errors such as missing sections or upside-down pages (which, she says, happens more frequently than you may think). If the damage is too extensive to repair, the pallets of books are returned directly to the publisher. But if there’s something Debbie or her colleagues can fix, she sets to work. The book repair station, which is operated by only one person at a time, mends between 50 and 100 books per shift. The books Debbie fixes have not seen the rough-and-tumble of shipping through the supply chain (in other words, she won’t fix your books that got damaged because the UPS guy dropped them), but her tactics, outlined below, can help any author or small publisher for whom creased, dented, unsellable books can be a huge revenue drain.
Attempt to repair slight damage. Ingram has some tools you may not have at home (like a hydraulic press that shears page-edges an entire book at a time), but if your books are looking a little ragged, Debbie had some repair ideas that you can implement at home:
- Use a regular clothes iron to get rid of folds and creases. Put the iron on the lowest heat setting and lightly wet the page with a water bottle to straighten out the affected area. The same method can be applied to dust jackets, but never use an iron on laminated covers or plastic sheeting. Never use steam, and please use common sense—we absolutely refuse to be responsible for acts of stupidity involving high temperatures and paper.
- Use adhesive remover to eliminate stickiness. Debbie recommended the 3M general purpose variety for that awful residue left over from price stickers and the like.
- Water-based markers can be used to touch up discolorations or hangnails on covers.
- Dirty, smudged, or fingerprinted books can be cleaned with simple alcohol prep pads and dry-erase erasers.
If you want to get into hardcore book repair, check out the Dartmouth College Library online manual on the topic.
Take damage-prevention measures. Once you put books in the hands of the USPS or a shipping company, you can’t control the injury they may sustain at the hands of others. You can, however, make it harder for them to get hurt by packing them properly. Newspaper is a great, cheap standby if you’re not fancy enough for bubble-wrap. And no packing popcorn—it can wedge inside the pages of a book and cause both damage and extreme annoyance for the unpacker. Don’t overload the box, and make sure the box is sturdy enough to withstand a few hard bumps from people who don’t care about what’s inside. Also, ensure that your books, whether in your own garage or at a major distributor, are not subjected to heat or humidity which can warp and bow book covers.
Think about potential damage at the production stage. Another way to reduce losses from damage is to avoid printing books that are especially susceptible to said damage. The striking white dust jacket may be a compelling design choice, but is it worth the inevitable grime and smearing? Likewise, glossy black jackets are great at showing those tiny, shiny scratches, and oversized coffee-table books are usually the first to get bumped, ripped, and crushed on conveyor belts and chutes. If you do go with a jacket that’s likely to sustain damage, ask about printing extra jackets so that the books can be resold.
Inspect books for problems before you ship them. Debbie pithily summed up Ingram’s quality standards this way: “Don’t send a book if you wouldn’t buy it yourself.” If you’re getting ready to ship books anywhere—Ingram, your distributor, Amazon.com, a local gift store—it pays to inspect the stock before you subject it to the hazards of shipping. One of the adorable little quirks of the book trade is that all product is fully returnable; if those books are nicked or dog-eared before you send them, you’ll be seeing them again very soon, and you’re out the cost of shipping them in the first place. No one but FedEx wins in this scenario. So think like a consumer when inspecting product: Would I buy this book in this condition? Standards are not universal, of course: Debbie pointed out that damage on a car repair manual is not as significant as damage on a luxurious Annie Leibovitz retrospective.
Any ideas of your own? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments!
Tags:
