Prices and delivery
What a copy costs, and when it turns up
One order is one parcel, so the more of it there is, the less each book costs.
| Books in one order | Price each |
|---|---|
| 1 or 2 copies | $13.99 a copy |
| 3 to 5 copies | $12.99 a copy |
| 6 to 14 copies | $11.99 a copy |
| 15 or more | $10.99 a copy |
| All thirty, one boxevery ebook and audiobook included | $299.00 the set |
The set is the whole shelf in one box, and it carries the ebook and the audiobook of every title with it at no extra charge. Bought separately the same thirty come to $1558.20, so the set saves $1259.20 and leaves you with the books on paper, on a phone and read aloud.
Getting it to you
Door to door, from the day the order is placed. You choose a country at the basket and the zone follows from it; there is no second control, because two controls for one fact is two ways to quote the wrong postage.
| Where | First copy | Each after | Free over | Door to door |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $4.99 | $1.25 | $59.00 | 8 to 11 days |
| United Kingdom | $5.99 | $1.50 | $59.00 | 6 to 9 days |
| Europe | $7.99 | $1.75 | $75.00 | 9 to 13 days |
| Canada | $9.99 | $2.25 | $89.00 | 12 to 16 days |
| Australia and New Zealand | $11.99 | $2.50 | $99.00 | 13 to 18 days |
| Rest of world | $14.99 | $3.50 | - | 15 to 24 days |
What arrives
| Size | 5.5 × 8.5 in — 140 × 216 mm. A paperback that fits a coat pocket and opens flat enough to read at a table. |
|---|---|
| Binding | Perfect-bound paperback, matte laminate, with a square spine you can read on a shelf. |
| Paper | 60# uncoated cream, black ink. Cream rather than bright white, which is easier on the eye under a lamp. |
| Inside | Black and white, including the illustrations. |
| Extent | Between 108 and 136 pages, depending on the title. |
| Type size | Set for reading, not for saving paper. |
Why the inside is black and white
Every guide carries thirteen to fifteen full-page illustrations, drawn in colour — deep teal, warm ochre, soft coral. A colour interior costs four to six times as much a page, which on a 120-page guide would put it on sale near forty dollars.
The illustrations are instructional rather than decorative: a thirty-day grid, a two-column sort, a decision fork. They were drawn with heavy charcoal outlines and strong tonal separation so they survive greyscale. That was a decision made at the drawing stage and it is worth twenty-odd dollars a copy to you. The cover keeps its colour, and the ebook and the audiobook keep everything.
What it costs to make, and what we keep
Printers charge for a paperback by the page. The press used here lists $1.99 a copy plus 2.5c a page, so a book's length is also its price to manufacture. Here is a title of average extent, at the single-copy price.
| Paperback price | $13.99 |
|---|---|
| Printing, 124 pages | −$5.09 |
| Card processing | −$0.71 (2.9% + 30c) |
| Left over | $8.19 a copy, before postage |
We publish this table because a shop that will not say what its product costs to make is asking you to take its pricing on faith, and this series is built on not doing that.
Returns
A book that arrives damaged, misprinted, mis-bound or simply wrong is replaced or refunded in full, and we do not ask for it back. Photograph the fault and write to us. Statutory rights in your own country apply on top of that and are never reduced by it.
What we do not know yet
The page counts on this site are estimates, calculated from the length of each manuscript and the number of full-page illustrations in it — about 280 words to a page, plus a page per illustration, plus sixteen for the front and back matter. Not one title has been through a typeset proof, and a typeset proof is the only thing that settles an extent.
Since the printer charges by the page, every one of those estimates is also a price. They are labelled "about" everywhere they appear.
Unconfirmed: page counts are estimated from the manuscripts, not measured from a proof, and the registry holds no paperback ISBN for any of the thirty. Neither is a rounding error: the first is also a price, and the second means a printed copy cannot be listed anywhere yet.
Questions about the printing
- How long will it take to arrive?
- 3 to 5 working days at the press, then the post. Door to door that is 8 to 11 days to the United States and 9 to 13 days to Europe.
- Why does the price fall when I buy more?
- Because the work does. One order is one file transfer, one press run and one parcel whether it holds one book or thirty, so a single copy is $13.99 and fifteen or more are $10.99 each.
- Can I order a printed copy today?
- No, and the shop says so rather than taking the money. There is no interior PDF or print cover for any of the thirty and no paperback ISBN in the registry, so a printed copy cannot be manufactured yet. The ebook and the audiobook are finished and registered.
- Is the price on this site final?
- It is a proposal. Nothing in the publishing registry carries a price for these books, so the ladder, the set price and the postage table were set here and have not been checked against a real print quote.