A book report — binding, packing and shipping

This is part of a series about my experiences in publishing a book. The series starts here.

Yesterday, I received word that all 1000 books are bound, shrink-wrapped, and are ready to ship. Jerry has found a fulfillment house in Phoenix, which is where the bindery, Roswell, is located. We will use that company to package and ship 400 books to most of the membership of the Center for Photographic Art (CPA to its friends). Brian Taylor, the CPA’s executive director, wrote a way-too-effusive cover letter that I read, blushed beet-red, and convinced him to tone it down. The CPA has now printed off 400 cover letters for the first 400 recipients of the book, and is in the process of overnighting them to the fulfillment house in Phoenix.

The CPA had data base problems over the summer, and just sent out 240 renewal notices, so their census is down. We’ll hold the eligibility window open a bit longer, so if you missed the offer described below, jump on it now. I will hold the deal open until midnight PST a week from today.

A book report — early “sales” opportunity

If it has occurred to you to sign up for a CPA membership, get a book, then sell it on eBay for less than I’m going to have to charge if I don’t want to lose money, I can’t stop you. I think that my readers are collectively above that kind of thing, so I not going to worry about it.

The logistics and the decision surrounding shipping the books were interesting. The packaging choices were either a custom box or a standard box with bubble wrap. We went with the custom box. After investigating various shipping methods, we settled on USPS third class.