Shipping, it's too late now Baby Blue

Media Mail and Romantic Notions

I spent most of November trying to figure out a post and now December is almost gone and finally today something came to me.

If you haven’t ordered your books for Christmas yet it’s too late. Well, it’s too late unless you want to pay for a higher tier of shipping. 

Amazon is probably still offering before Christmas but they own their own Freight Company. Everyone else, all the other businesses for the most part, it’s too late. 

There’s one big thing at play this year. Christmas is on a Monday. Sunday delivery is pricey. It’s not standard. Sunday is a day of rest. It’s the only day that Full Time employees of the USPS are always off. That’s been on the books since 1912. It was partly from labor and partly from religious leaders. That’s a pretty massive impact on the calendar for this holiday. Believe in God or not, He’s having a massive effect on your calendar this year. Which reminds me of a book I read this year, Dominion by Tom Holland. Not Spiderman, but an English chap who writes about history.

Every year it seems someone asks me if we can cheaply send small things to a customer in a customer friendly manner. Can we just put it in an envelope and send it? Yes, you can! Put it in an envelope and put a Forever stamp on it and cross your fingers. That could totally work but you have no tracking number and though the USPS will give you a window it could be there in a  week or two or maybe never. The other problem is, you probably don’t want to do this yourself so you’d ask your 3PL to do it and your 3PLs is going to charge you at least $3 or so for handling so your dreams of shipping a small thing cheaply is evaporating. 

And let’s be honest. You can’t put something in an envelope and mail it, though I’d find that immensely charming if someone sent me a book like that. 

We all know, if you have customers, it’s no fun to tell them “It’s in the mail” and smile. No, this is 2023. AI Is guessing what you will buy before you buy it. We have long left the world of 6-8 weeks for delivery. 

So we establish that we need a tracking number and we can communicate an expectation of arrival time.

Well for that you have to enter into a higher tier of service. Most of those have a floor of $5 or $6 at least to ship a package. We are talking UPS Ground and FedEx Home. There is DHL and UPS USPS accentuated offerings but for the most part, FEDUPS is your game.

You might see something different if you go out and quote the work. You might get a different offer but it won’t last forever. There’s always someone in the meeting that says “You paid what for air freight?” “I can get it for $500 less!!” Yeah, probably. Everyone always has “Their guy” and “their guy” has great rates but year over year, time after time, they won’t be any better than anyone else. And I know $500 sounds like a lot but sometimes it’s worth it to stick with “Your guy” because they know your business and you'll later learn that, “Oh I didn’t know the delivery needed a truck with a lift” and then it’s $600 for that and “your original guy” is actually ahead. 

I’ve seen less fluctuation with freight and different companies  since Amazon really took off and established their own freight. UPS and FedEx no longer deliver the most packages. Amazon does. Amazon delivers almost a quarter of everything in the US. Amazon is buying almost all the boxes. It’s unbelievable the footprint size so you can imagine that big of a filet o’ fish makes the dynamics for the rest of the fish tank that much smaller. There's less water. 

You might ask, well since this item only weighs .45 lbs. can we send it for less with FedEx or UPS?
It’s like this. You want on this train that has tracking numbers, that has a window of expectation, for that train you have to spend at least $5 or $6. I know it seems weird but it’s the cost of the trucks,  gas and the driver. It’s the cost of that world. You want to run in and grab it to go, that’s McD’s. You want someone to bring you your food, most plates are at least $10. Same idea. 

Freight got really high about 2 years ago. It’s pretty stable now but it’s not dropping to pre pandemic levels soon, if ever.  If the rate table does go under 1lb it’s not like there are charges like .10lb for $.45 cents. That is the envelope at the USPS train. No tracking. We are on this train over here gang. 

Some of you might wonder,  “Why do I sometimes use Ground and get things in 2-3 days? Other companies send me stuff and I don’t get it for 5-8! What’s with these incompetent losers!” They just don’t like you!! No, that’s not it Yelpers.

The answer is really boring. It’s where their 3PL is located. It’s just like you. If you live in Chicago and you are driving to Milwaukee you’ll get there a lot sooner than you’ll  get to Miami, Florida. If you live in Chicago and order deodorant from LA by Ground and a book from Indiana by Ground, Indiana is going to win. 

You also see this one a lot. “Why does my package get picked up and then suddenly end up in Las Vegas?” Because it went to a party. No seriously, whatever routing the vendor is part of your item is going to get sorted at the highest volume option on the route. If it didn’t do this, you’d be paying even more. Seems counterintuitive but that’s the reason. The goal is to spread out the cost over the greatest amount of packages as possible and bring down the unit.

But let’s talk about the Romantic notions of shipping. 

What if money is the object and time is of no consequence and you want to mail a book?
There's Media Mail. What is Media Mail? It's a taxpayer funded subsidy. It does have a tracking number. It does cost less but it takes time. 2-8 days is what the USPS site says. That’s wishful thinking. And 2-8 days!! That’s a spread!!

 Why is there Media mail? This is one of those Romantic things about books in the real world. Media Mail started as a way to share books to promote literacy in 1936. So like there is no mail on Sunday, because of an idea of a day of rest or reflection in God, books can be mailed for less money. Just don’t bank on when it arrives. So, it could go the same distance as a brick, it could weigh the same but it’s going to cost me less via Media Mail? Yes!

What is life without whimsy? 

Here is a kicker. If you sell a comic book, you can’t send it via Media Mail. Magazines, nope. Guess why? Ads. The old filthy lucre!! Here’s another one. Planners, Calendars, Journals also don’t count. Blank tapes don’t count. Because you can use those things to do work. They have a use. As if books aren’t useful!

That’s wild right? It has to have art on it to qualify. It has to include the printed word for nothing more than enjoyment. Which always makes me want to do a YouTube video series of going to the Post Office and asking the following. 

“Well, what if it’s an invisible drawing? What if it’s a conceptual piece? What if it’s a sound experiment?”

I don’t know the answers but I love that it’s a thing. Would I be aghast at the P&L for how it works? Yes, completely. But some things have to have some grace right? Remember Tom Holland, remember there is a tax funded service out there protecting the sharing of art, and some things are closed on Sundays.

Here’s a few bonuses for you. 

Books I liked the most in 2023

1. Libra-Don Delillo. You always know that your favorite authors don’t just appear as a whole but you always feel James Ellory is a man that broke the mold. He did but Libra is Delio's book that inspired Ellroy’s American Trilogy. It’s a hot read. Sometimes books you want to keep reading for the ride, for the story, and sometimes the use of language, the words, the magic that’s happening with the vibes. This book is both. I recently watched a documentary on the JFK assassination and Wesley Buell Frazier said, “I’m a time traveler.” He’s the guy who gave Oswald a ride to work the day of the shooting. He said he is constantly back there at that day. I eat pickles with cucumbers for lunch sometimes and think about time travel. I spend a lot of time in the future worrying about times to come or regretting the past. That quote emphasizes how our internal lives are time travel and thus externally time travel.  

2. The Enchanters-James Ellroy. Libra aside, the Big Dog James stands on his own. I enjoyed this more than any book I read this year. It’s the murder of Marilyn Monroe, it’s LA in the 60s before the hippies take hold. It’s Ellroy’s new antihero, based on real life shake down artist Freddie Otash. It’s beautiful stuff. Is Ellroy getting better at writing at 75? This book and its predecessor WideSpread Panic are the two most enjoyable, readable, books Ellroy has. I don’t know what James is vibing on but it’s agreeing with him. I read this in Florida this summer. Give me el Cafe Cubano y la Tostada con mantequilla. 

3. Lament from Epirus–Christopher C. King  This book reminded me of a lot of things I enjoy. Bourdain elements of adventure with travel, food, and drinking with people in strange places. It also felt like Nick Tosches digging into the past of some mysterious music like when he wrote about Emmet Miller. My wanderlust has been high lately. I want to go to so many places I’ve never been. I want to go back to LA or Miami and spend more than 48 hours there. I want to check into the Hotel Marmont for a week with a laptop and write the soundtrack to a movie. I want to go-to Oaxaca, drink Mezcal, looks at fabrics, eat mole, listen to Son istmeño and now because of this book and my church I want to go to Greece. I want to sit on the beach at Naxos sipping Ouzu and hear a fiddle. On this topic since Shane MacGowan died, I want to go to Ireland. I want to drink a Guiness and read the Irish Poets in a misty street. I am so bored with the places I see every day and books like this remind me of that and for now I can travel in my mind. This book made me start looking for books that are exemplars of cafe culture, which seems a way to travel so I plan to read Lawrence Durrell soon. I read Patricia Highsmith's Tremor of Forgery set in Tunisia. I want to be in places with a legit cafe, reading, and wearing a straw hat in shade blocking a white hot sun. Espressos and oranges with oysters for lunch please. 

4. Burning Angel -Lawrence Osborne’s collection of short stories is the best writing for me in 2023. He portrays idealistic wealthy people getting absolutely eviscerated by the consequences of their  assumptions of how the world works. He develops plots that illuminate human folly and then picks them apart like bugs. Osborne and Ellroy are two of the last writers operating in a right and wrong world. Maybe Osborne would disagree and say he’s operating in the gray of post post modernism but he’s definitely interested in the consequences of bad decisions. Besides this, he writes like a mofo. Also, I am well aware my same tendencies to romanticize from Lament from Epirus will make me a dead person in a Lawrence Osborne novel. 

These two books were fun and helpful. 

Tools by Phil Stutz–This is far and away  the best self help book I’ve ever read. Super easy to follow and to employ the concepts in it. It doesn’t feel unrelatable or pie in the sky.I wish it came in a card deck or journal form to use every day. Once I finished the book, the tenets didn’t stick with me. I would just re-read the book but it’s a drag to read through the case studies again. I get it. I’ve heard it.  I suppose I could bookmark the salient exercises but, again, I really wish it came in a card or Journal format. Phil! My man, it can be done. My guess is, his publisher wants him to do it but Phil feels it’s best if people read the book. I think both are right and hope eventually they talk Phil into it. 

Storyteller Dave Grohl–This reminded me of Bob Dylan and Keith Richards biographies. A fun hang and you're sad when it’s over. I will say, once the adventure of Dave as a punk rock guy in a van is over the book feels less compelling. Dinner parties with Paul McCartney are cool to hear about but tire a bit. Maybe I’m just jealous. That’s probably it.  These days Dave is out  feeding hungry people free BBQ so I’m looking forward to a part II from Dave and he remains a compelling dude who would be a great hang. 

In 2024 I might continue this, might not. I am sort of out of ideas. Honestly, I thought I’d get questions from readers and this would grow. Ha. Well. That was the idea.

I plan to go here in 2024

PS I try not to mention music, but Shane MacGowan died. He was a poet and a hero. God rest his soul. May his memory be eternal.