Wherein I "endorse" a product and/or service:

[theweaselking]

Dark Trails: A Kickstarter for an old-west horror anthology, cruelly underpromoted, apparently featuring a number of good authors.

This is "Wild West horror" short fiction, along the lines of Deadlands, from a number of people with decent records. And I think more people should know about it - the runner of the Kickstarter has been pretty bad about promoting it widely.

(Specifically, matgb, ursulav, autopope, andrewducker, fengi, james_nicoll, cmpriest, and probably a great many others who didn't immediately jump out as OH HAI YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS: You might like this. And might want to contribute, and might want to reshare the Kickstarter link. Up to you, but this labour of love seems neat and I have a personal soft spot for Wild West Horror.)

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Did you ever seen Mark Sumner's two weird westerns?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I did not. Link?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?4560

They are old and his site has not been updated in years.

[cleodhna.livejournal.com]

Heck yeah, I want to read this.

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

I tweeted it.

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

Been a long time since I had to mail anything to Canada. Is the $15 upcharge versus US backers reasonable for sending a paperback across the border?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

"It depends".

Most kickstarters have been charging $5 or $10 extra for international shipping. Most kickstarters have also been complaining, after the fact, that they're losing money on international shipping.

I would call $15 certainly not an unreasonable request, based on my naive model of shipping things from the US to Canada.

[ashbet]

I mail things internationally on a relatively frequent basis, and international rates have gotten really bad (and just got worse at the end of January.) It usually costs me about $40-60 to send a package from the US to Canada (same as to the UK, which is ridiculous, we're on the same contiguous landmass here!), and downscaling from the size of my average package, I'd guess $15 is the bare minimum.

As theweaselking said, a lot of Kickstarters have lost significant amounts of money (once or twice, it seems to have folded the project) on higher-than-anticipated international shipping charges, so I'm glad they have an idea that it's going to cost some amount of money to send books overseas.

If you have a Kindle/etc. or don't mind reading a non-dead-tree version on your computer, the eBook version is a straight $10 for anywhere in the world :)

-- A <3

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

To clarify, "reasonable" as in "postal companies charge that much to do it", not "reasonable" as in "it is objectively reasonable for it to cost that extra amount". Still, that's interesting. You wouldn't think a paperback would be that bad.

[ashbet]

There's a base "this package is leaving the country" fee, to which they add the weight and (if relevant) dimensions, as well as any insurance.

(I don't know if USPS explains it that way, but that's my observation of how it seems to work in practice.)

-- A <3

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Looking (clumsily at) USPS, but if the book is too thick to be a large envelope[1], then the cheapest possible option I can find to Canada is $12.35, to the UK is $18.60. With Kickstarter's fees and packaging, I suspect that even $20 runs a small risk of losing money.

(Note: In my head, the book is worth $20, and the US posting fee is $5. Hence my looking at it in terms of "$20 to ship" vs. "$15 more to ship". Sorry, didn't realise I was doing that math.)
---
[1] The cut-off for "too thick for a large envelope" is 3/4 inch. I actually used the measurements/weight of Dead Man's Hand, because that is average-ish (trade paperbacks tend to be taller and wider, but less thick) and thematically appropriate. And on my bookshelves.

[drcuriosity]

Yep, that's why I almost never get physical stuff from Kickstarters: the extra cash to ship to NZ isn't worth it for either party. On the other hand, my virtual book/music/game libraries are happily growing :-)

[ashbet]

Shared, and I'm going to go check out the donation tiers -- oh, yes, the eBook version is quite affordable! :)

-- A <3

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm gonna do that, if only out of curiosity.