This has been fun. The book sale has gone awesomely/brilliantly so far. We'd taken orders for 649 books as of 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday.
As you can probably understand, this presents the Museum Store at the Nelson-Atkins with an unusual challenge! Like any museum store, 99% of the business they do is on-site...that is, in the actual Museum itself. They're not set up for large amounts of online orders or for lots of shipping. So they're asking for your patience—they're going to be working overtime to get all the orders fulfilled and the books out the door, but it might take a little longer than you expect for your book to get to you. Both the Museum Store staff and I are standing by to help with any problems, so you will get your book, don't worry. Certainly if you haven't gotten yours by the Ides of March (Spellcheck changed that to "Ideas of March"—no, Spellcheck), you should contact us.
To give you an idea how unusual this is for them, they have to hire a rental truck to get the books from the storage facility to the shipping area!
There are still lots of copies left. But...well, no one knows exactly how many. It seems the boxes are not all in one place, so they're not easy to count. Plenty, though.
Non-US orders
Now then, as far as international shipping is concerned: if online sales are a tiny fraction of the store's ordinary business, international sales are a tiny fraction of that. Normally how they do it is just handle each order individually and calculate actual shipping depending on your address. But that's going to be tough if there are, say, 200 or 300 orders. They're going to bend over backwards to try to accommodate international orders, but they need a couple of days to work out the details. So I'll have an update for you about that at about this time Thursday afternoon. Don't worry, there will still be books available, they'll make sure of that.
I have to warn you, it might cost a lot. It's a heavy book and shipping is expensive. It's just a reality of the big round world—electrons go zipping around the globe with nary a care, but getting a weighty stack of paper to do the same thing takes more doing.
If you haven't ordered yet and would like to, here's the link, and the "Promotional Code" to enter at checkout to get 50% off is 19333.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
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Speed: "649 books at eight pounds each is more than 5,000 pounds of books. That's like shipping 325 bowling balls."
No problem. I've been waiting over a decade for this book (although I'd kinda forgot about it). I can wait. Thanks again, Mike.
Posted by: Malcolm Leader | Tuesday, 16 February 2016 at 06:00 PM
I do my online work at the local public library so I am late to the buying process. The order went through so I look forward to seeing this book. Great cover photo too.
Posted by: Mathew Hargreaves | Tuesday, 16 February 2016 at 09:00 PM
First thanks of the arrangement.
May other books be disclosed so that for those of us get used to expensive shipping, let us have them in one go. BTW, US Post is not very good service but it is relatively cheap sometimes. Need tracking; last time I got Ctein photo it took 3 months by air (and it is not the air that is the issue).
Waiting is not an issue. We do not expect these books and hence waiting a bit more time is fine.
Posted by: Dennis Ng | Tuesday, 16 February 2016 at 11:11 PM
Dear Dennis,
In almost every case, delays on international shipments are NOT the fault of the US Postal Service, but of your local postal service and customs and duties offices. I am able to track that.
With at least 2,000 packages shipped since TOP started the big print sales, I've got a pretty good statistical sample-- major delay (or outright loss) caused by the USPS is well under 1% of all shipments.
I'm sorry your last order took so long, but it's not typical -- normal international shipment times end up being 2-3 weeks and it almost never takes 30 days -- and it's not the fault of the USPS.
pax / Ctein
Posted by: ctein | Wednesday, 17 February 2016 at 01:51 PM
Hi Mike, hope to be able to get a copy to the UK. I wonder if an organisation in the UK would be able to help with shipping e.g. say that there are orders for 250 books for the UK market, I wonder if it would be cheaper to ship them in bulk (by sea - it's not as if we're in a hurry). They'd need someone to break them up and re-distribute - would the RPS do it for £1 a copy + additional costs (and promote it to their members)? I don't know - to paraphrase you, "just thinkin' "
Chris
Posted by: Chris Grover | Wednesday, 17 February 2016 at 04:25 PM
Buying from Germany, but I sent it to my Dad. :-)
Posted by: John F. Opie | Wednesday, 17 February 2016 at 07:21 PM
Dear Mike, placed order for 2 copies but did not see place for the promotional code so paid full price. I did note on last page of order the promo code and also sent them an email regarding my mistake + order number and mentioning web site so hope they will correct. Maybe I'm the only one who missed the code space but certainly difficult to see on a smart phone.
Kind regards
Keith Trumbo
Posted by: Keith Trumbo | Wednesday, 17 February 2016 at 08:09 PM
Maybe this success will lead to other great sales from other institutions. :)
[Perhaps it will. --Mike]
Posted by: Jerry Walsh | Thursday, 18 February 2016 at 11:05 AM
Thank you very much, Mike.
Posted by: NancyP | Thursday, 18 February 2016 at 02:10 PM
Dear Ctein,
It is not US Post's fault may I confirmed; Paypal is strangely.
BTW, for international shipping, there is a link in the top of the order page for one to ask them about the shipping costs. I apology in the text box provided and give my place (Hong Kong, not China as far as shipping concerned) for them.
Regards.
Dennis
Posted by: Dennis Ng | Friday, 19 February 2016 at 01:58 AM