A little kerfuffle ... and changes to postage rates.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook might know that I have been ill for a few days and had a Covid-19 test on Monday. Which thankfully has come back negative. I wasn’t too surprised when I started to feel extremely tired as I had been pushing myself too hard to finish the book. But then I started dry coughing and was a bit short of breath. Me, husband and son had a long discussion along the lines of ‘you can’t have it’, ‘but I went to the supermarket last Thursday’, ‘but your were masked up and your hands were gelled’, ‘but I had to queue at the checkout for longer than normal’ ‘but you were masked ……. ‘ .The more we talked the more I coughed. So ‘nurse’ Joe took charge and a Covid test was booked. Husband moved stuff into the spare room and I was escorted to our bedroom along with a supply of books, jigsaw, devices, chargers etc. I’m not very good at being ill and I am definitely not very good at being isolated. But it was the right thing to do and I’m grateful for Joe looking after me and for making sure that I couldn’t infect my husband. And I’m grateful for all the kind words from friends and social media buddies!

I have been lucky. My test was negative so I can get back into the studio. Albeit in small doses as I’m still tired.

Which means I can get back to what I was doing before all this. Which was looking at postage rates. I had a little surprise a couple of weeks ago when I shipped a copy of my Breakdown book to Australia and the postage was £3 more than I was used to. I thought it must be a mistake. But no. Royal mail has increased to cost of shipping to locations outside of the UK and Europe by 20 - 30% depending on the location and service. They have also introduced a US only rate which is about the same as the rate to Australia - yes, it now costs more to ship to the US than to Canada. Their UK and EU rates have also increased albeit not as much. A quick check confirmed that international couriers such as UPS, FedEx etc also seem to have put their prices up. I guess because fewer planes are flying there is less capacity.

I also realised that my new book is bigger, and heavier, than my first book so can’t be shipped as a ‘large letter’. I have spent some time looking at different options and used past orders to test different scenerio’s. So I will be taking my website offline for a few hours tomorrow to switch from a postage system based on the cost of the order to one based on the weight of the order. Unfortunately my website doesn’t have the ability to set postage by product type which would have allowed me to separate heavy books from light pots of dye powder.

In the UK there will be three rates - £3.70 up to and including 1kg (which covers the new book), £5.57 up to and including 2kg and £7.79 for anything over 2kg (which is actually cheaper than I was charging as I’ve switched to a different provider). Outside the UK the weight increments are much finer so I won’t list them all! I have been using International Standard but am now going to include the option of International Economy which is very significantly cheaper if you are outside the EU. The downside being that it takes longer for post to arrive.

I am also making the commitment to you that for any order that weighs over 2kg I will check the cost of shipping via other carriers and, if I get it cheaper I will refund you the difference.

I wish that I could absorb these increases as I know that for some outside of Europe the postage may make my new book unaffordable. But, like many, many self-employed people my income has been significantly reduced thanks to that pesky virus. International Economy does provide a much cheaper option as does getting together with a group of friends to place a bigger option.

Apologies for a rather long post but I prefer to be transparent in my pricing.

Stay well, Leah x