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Posts Tagged ‘Shipping Books & USPS’

Other things that bloom in May… Newsletter – May 2007

Saturday, May 5th, 2007

USPS will raise the postal rates on May 14, 2007, so if you have books you have been hoarding, read them, post them and send them out now! The new Media Mail rate for a package under 1 lb (typical paperback) will be $2.13. The rate for a package between 1 and 2 lbs (typical hardcover) will be $2.57. That’s a hike in price, true, but it’s still a bargain. They’ve been losing money on Media Mail rate for a long time, so although it is painful, we understand. USPS is really amazing—their rate of package loss is really tiny, and they handle a mind-boggling amount of items every day. Remember that it will still be less expensive to send a package weighing under 6 ounces by First-Class rate. So if you have a postal scale, dust it off and check your package weights! The USPS fee for electronic DC will rise from 14 to 18 cents. So if you use PBS-DC, you will need to add 18 cents in postage to each package you send after May 14th. To read more about the rate increase you can find the Rate Case on the USPS website. The good news is that the PBS portion of the DC fee will NOT change: that will still be 27 cents.

The thorn in the rose… With the new postal rates, PBS will reluctantly have to change the cost of credits. Each credit will cost $3.45 beginning May 14, 2007. We hate to do it, but with the rise in postage it’s unavoidable. The accountants crunched the numbers, and this is the least we can charge. It will be a less expensive option (as always) to send out books to earn credits, but if you need credits quick for a Wish List book, they are always purchasable in the Kiosk. And check out Box-O-Books if you want to swap books without using credits. The yearly Box-O-Books subscription fee of $8.00 pays itself back with your first few Box swaps—the postage savings for sending multiple books is even more apparent now! And don’t forget the Book Bazaar Discussion Forum, where you will find “deals” galore.

TIPS & TRICKS: Newsletter – March 2007

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Words into Music, Music into Words. You can turn your CDs into books, and vice versa, all with a few clicks! If you have an account at both PBS and SwapaCD, you can easily transfer credits between the sites. Get your Wish List book using a credit from your SwapaCD account. Get that CD you want by sending out a book. It’s very easy to do from your SwapaCD account page. Just log into SwapaCD and click on Transfer Credits in the right menu. You can transfer credits in either direction (from SwapaCD to PBS, or from PBS to SwapaCD), whenever you like.

Reviews work! How many times have you read a Member Review of a book in the database on PBS, and were convinced by what you read to request the book? Member Reviews pique browsers’ interest. After all, the publisher’s description will always be glowing. Hearing what real readers think about the book can be much more powerful. So provide Book Reviews for the books on your bookshelf! If the PBS database happens to lack a book description for an ISBN, a review is even more crucial: your review may be the ONLY information PBS has about your book. You can read about how to post and edit reviews in the Help Center item “How do I post/edit my review of a book?” (This can be found under the “Posting Books” heading.) Remember, a Member Review must NOT contain descriptions of a particular copy’s condition. Member Reviews are your chance to give your impressions about a book’s content, and Reviews stay attached to the book listing in the database—they do not follow any particular copy of a book.

Automated Postal Centers. If your PO has one of these, they can be a real time-saver. Even if your package weighs over a pound, there is no need to wait in line. You can use the automated postal center to weigh your package (there is usually a table of Media Mail rates on the machine, but you might want to print out the one from the Help Center item “How much does it cost to mail a book?” under the heading Sending a Book” just in case and take it with you). Then you can choose “print stamps” and enter whatever denomination you want (say, $2.21 for your book weighing more than a pound that you plan to send with PBS Delivery Confirmation). You can pay with your debit or credit card, and you can print out any number of postage “stamps”. If your package fits in the bin next to the Automated Postal Center, you can drop it in. Because your postage has been paid for by credit/debit card, it can be tracked to you, and this satisifies the National Security precautions for packages over a pound. If your local PO has one of the automated centers, check it out! Some of them are located in PO lobbies, and are available 24 hours a day. We are not postal authorities, so we don’t know all the ins and outs about these machines—but we have used them and we love them! You can find out more about them at your local PO, at usps.com, or ask our resident USPS expert Steve (Coffee) in the Questions About USPS Discussion Forum on PBS.

TIPS&TRICKS: Newsletter – November 2006

Friday, November 3rd, 2006

Tape, tape, tape…but not to the book itself! If you reuse bubble envelopes or other packaging to send your PBS books, good for you! PBS is all about giving used things new life. But be sure to tape the worn places on the packaging (always with shipping, not Scotch, tape) so that your books get where they are going safe and sound. And again, don’t tape to the book itself—this often results in damage to the book cover when the package is opened.

Don’t include “extras” with your books. USPS Media Mail rules are quite strict about what can be included in a package in order to qualify it for Media Mail postal rate. The second page of the PBS wrapper counts as an invoice, so that is okay, of course; so is a note saying “Happy Birthday” or “Enjoy your book”. But non-media items, letters or cards, and all promotional material are not permitted. USPS opens Media Mail packages randomly for inspection. Don’t risk having a book returned to you (or destroyed!) because of this. You can read the Help Center item “Can I include anything with my book?” under the heading “Sending a Book” for guidance, and more details.

TIPS & TRICKS: Newsletter – September 2006

Saturday, September 2nd, 2006

Don’t forget the postage! We have gotten some feedback about items arriving postage-due. This not only costs the requestor, but if the requestor refuses the package, it could cost YOU! Media Mail rate does not include the return postage, so you might find yourself paying full Media Mail postal rates to reclaim your book. Better overall to put the proper postage on to begin with. Remember, the capability to print postage on the wrapper is not yet available—you need to apply the correct postage (plus 14 cents if you use PBS Delivery Confirmation) to make sure your book gets where it is going! For a typical paperback sent without PBS-DC, the Media Mail rate is $1.59 (four first-class stamps PLUS one three-cent stamp).

Don’t forget to mark your books mailed! This is always true, of course: a book that is not marked mailed before the deadline to do so will be canceled, and will not earn the sender credit. But it is also important to mark your books mailed to get your Quick Credit. Even if your package sent with PBS-DC is scanned and USPS transmits the information to PBS, the Quick Credit can’t be given until the book has been marked mailed! So mark your books mailed as soon as possible after mailing them with PBS-DC, to be sure to get your Quick Credits before that Wish List book is offered to you.

APO/FPO Membership: Newsletter – August 2006

Sunday, August 6th, 2006

We have hated the need to exclude these addresses from the club. There are a lot of factors involved in shipping to and from APO/FPO addresses, and for a while we just didn’t have the features in place to make this feasible. But we have been working very hard to find a way to open PBS to our military, and are thrilled to announce a “pilot program” for membership for those at APO/FPO addresses! If you have such an address, or know someone who has one and might like to join PBS, have him or her contact us. We are so happy to be able to provide a source of books to these women and men serving our country. There will be more information about APO/FPO addresses in the Help Center soon; we can’t wait to get this off the ground.

Multiple-book requests and PBS-DC: Newsletter – August 2006

Thursday, August 3rd, 2006

The “Order More Books from this Member” button allows requestors to link requests together in a “bulk order” that can be handled as one transaction. Shipping books together saves postage, and also the DC barcode generated by printing a wrapper for a bulk request will earn Quick Credits for ALL books in the shipment when it is scanned and the information is transmitted to PBS! However, if you receive multiple requests from one member who did not use the “Order More Books from this Member” button to link the requests together, each individual DC barcode on each wrapper will carry the code for only THAT book. Requests can’t be linked together after the fact. So if you receive more than one request in a day, and you plan to use PBS DC on the wrapper, take a peek at the address for each request first (download it WITHOUT the PBS DC option), BEFORE you print with PBS-DC. If multiple books are going to the same address, you can simply print ONE of the DC wrappers to send them all together. It still means you will get only one Quick Credit for the wrapper you use, but it will spare you having printed (and paying for) extra DC barcodes that you won’t be using. You will get the other credits for the rest of the books in the shipment when they arrive and are marked received. We are working on a way to “alert” senders to multiple book requests submitted individually, but so far have not found an efficient way to do this.

PBS Delivery Confirmation: Newsletter – June 2006

Wednesday, June 7th, 2006

–Many of you are using PBS-DC, with great results! Typically, senders are getting their credits the day after mailing the book—some within just hours. Even for those few packages unscanned by USPS until delivery, senders are STILL getting their credits faster than they would have. **Remember that using PBS Delivery Confirmation does NOT tell the system that the book has been mailed. You still need to click that button “Book Has Been Mailed” before the deadline on the transaction, to tell the system (and the requestor) that the book is on its way!