Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) for Glorious Times: Adventures of the Craighead Naturalists have arrived and I’ve sent copies to the important prepress reviewers. Reviews from some of them could assure significant orders from bookstores and libraries. Arriving just ahead of the ARCs was a huge increase in postal rates. Earlier this year, I could mail books in padded Priority envelopes anywhere in the U.S. for $5.75. Now it costs $6.80! That’s an increase of over a dollar for each potential reviewer. These costs assume postage is purchased on-line and that you print the label yourself on a large sticker. It costs more than this if you pay at the post office.
Regional A boxes, which must be ordered on-line and aren’t available at post offices just like padded envelopes, now cost $8.15, which must be paid on-line. Post Offices aren’t allowed to sell postage for them. They are a good size for larger books and can be used to hold a few smaller ones. So, they are handy for shipping books to individual buyers. However, they are not as sturdy as the Priority boxes available in the post office. So, additional packing material is needed to protect books shipped in them.
Writing books isn’t all about research and struggling to find the best words to use. It’s also about a lot of mundane things one wishes he never had to learn.
Tom Benjey's Weblog 
