From lojbab@lojban.org Thu Oct 30 15:37:04 2008 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-members); Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:37:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eastrmmtao101.cox.net ([68.230.240.7]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Kvg8T-0004d9-Ad for llg-members@lojban.org; Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:37:04 -0700 Received: from eastrmimpo01.cox.net ([68.1.16.119]) by eastrmmtao101.cox.net (InterMail vM.7.08.02.01 201-2186-121-102-20070209) with ESMTP id <20081030223655.VNZZ3771.eastrmmtao101.cox.net@eastrmimpo01.cox.net> for ; Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:36:55 -0400 Received: from [192.168.1.100] ([70.187.235.94]) by eastrmimpo01.cox.net with bizsmtp id ZAcu1a00922sj6m02AcuJa; Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:36:55 -0400 X-Authority-Analysis: v=1.0 c=1 a=g9VMGbM3X-0A:10 a=pLsZmdU2mTEA:10 a=aRVOHhbNeTas93L5W7YA:9 a=nz3vxvekz64fR6J4WjgA:7 a=QGkLwB2urg1EfQvEx59JQZndbT0A:4 a=hkODgbchuuYA:10 a=zUBsD6tbDSsA:10 X-CM-Score: 0.00 Message-ID: <490A3701.3040406@lojban.org> Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:36:49 -0400 From: Bob LeChevalier User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: llg-members@lojban.org Subject: [llg-members] Re: LLG AGM 2008: New Business References: <20081008210111.GX2447@nvg.org> <20081029184442.GA2447@nvg.org> <490A1971.1080200@lojban.org> <490A1F9D.6090800@lojban.org> <20081030211047.GD522@mercury.ccil.org> In-Reply-To: <20081030211047.GD522@mercury.ccil.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 635 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-members-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-members-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: lojbab@lojban.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-members@lojban.org X-list: llg-members John Cowan wrote: >>If that is the case, and if we can work out shipping a few boxes of >>books to you, I would recommend that the board consider turning my job >>over to you (and you can handle amazon.com as well, if it is >>cost-effective). Some one who is doing this regularly will certainly >>outperform me. > I'd love to see that happen, but I thought the shipping of the remaining > boxes of books was prohibitive. Have things changed? No. At that point, though, LLG was much less solvent, owing me more than our net worth. We also had more boxes, and the goal was to get me out of the fulfillment AND storage business. Shipping 40-50 boxes was going to cost $500-1000, and no one else had a solution to the storage problem, which at minimum would have cost another $1000 per year. But 1) LLG is more solvent 2) we have a candidate fulfiller who is doing that sort of thing for a living, and who also is an LLG officer, so the risk factor is reduced. 3) Because he is doing so, he has a dedicated space for at least some inventory storage and 4) He has been more interested in marketing than most of us, and thus may be able and willing to find ways to move the inventory faster (which becomes higher priority as we will eventually need to decide on a 2nd edition after the byfy finishes). >How many boxes are left, and what does each box weigh? Not sure - probably at least 3 dozen at 12-20 books per box. Around 2lb 10 oz per book and most boxes probably have 16. I wouldn't expect to send all the boxes at once, but if I sent a few that will last a while, and we haven't yet ruled out a trip to Michigan next May when we could bring more. I would indeed like to get rid of as many boxes as possible, since I currently have a storage overload, but I can tolerate spacing it out. If I am not doing fulfillment, I want to be out of the storage business within an eventual timeframe, though. Keeping a box or two for the archives or for a possible future east coast LogFest is reasonable. I did a quick check, and one box of 16 would cost around $17 to send to MI. Shipping the same box to the UK would run about $150. For the UK, I (or Matt, who might be better equipped if he takes this over) could prepare what is called an M-Bag of individual books prepackaged in padded envelopes (each piece in an M-Bag must be less than 4 lb) 44 lb maximum which would cover about 16-17 books would cost $132 plus the cost of the envelopes (which would save And some money when he has orders to fulfill - they cost $1-$3 apiece depending on whether I am getting one or a package). This wouldn't really be cheaper for a full box, except that we would have prepaid for the padded envelopes, and it would take more storage space at And's end for an M-bag of 16 than for a box of 16. An M-bag can be smaller - I think as few as 4 books to one address would qualify and cost about the same as airmail even with cost of the padded envelopes added in. I used to do bulk-rate shipping back when I was shipping JLs and LKs, and it takes a bit of time - this is business shipping and the post office is expecting most people doing that sort of thing to be doing multiple shipments on a frequent basis, whereas I had to more or less relearn the procedures every issue. lojbab