Hello,

I just got word back from Backerkit, so here is what we know, and here is what I'm going to do moving forward.

This is not an attempt to justify myself or excuse anything. Simply letting you all know where some of these numbers came from, and the mistakes that were made.

Domestic
To figure out the shipping fee schedule for domestic (US) orders, I used a YouTube video Backerkit posted a few years ago as a baseline. In the video, they said that I should take the base cost to ship the item(s) at one pound, add the cost of the cost of materials (boxes, padding, labels, etc), and then 'add a little more for your time and effort.' I added 6.61 (less than one hour at minimum wage) just to round it to an even number. Then the video said $5 for each additional pound. That seemed like a lot to me, so I reduced it to $3. Still, that made the 1 pound cost $12, 2 pounds $15, etc. (As a side note, Media Mail charges you by rounding up to the next pound, so the Special Editions, which weigh 2lb 2oz not including the box/padding/etc, are in the 3 pound category.)

Obviously, even at $3 per pound, that scaled much faster than the actual increase in Media Mail cost, which goes up around 70 cents or so per pound (it's not consistent).

My mistake for just blindly following a guide instead of engaging brain and thinking.


International
(Welcome to international shipping in the World that Trump Made)
There are a huge number of variables in international shipping, but I'll pick on one person who replied with his own numbers as an example. A ship to the UK, which cost $52 (plus VAT, but we'll get to that later).

USPS's Priority Mail International (US Post Office) would have cost $76.90 and had an estimated shipping time of 6-10 days.
USPS's Priority Mail Express International would have cost $97.20, and estimated 3-5 days.
UPS (United Parcel Service, the guys in brown) Worldwide Expedited would have cost $218.58 and arrived in 3-5 days.

I got the price down to 67% of the lowest possible price, with the UPS shipping time. Personally, I thought it was quite a deal.

And UK is one of the cheapest places to ship to other than Canada. Y'all in Australia or New Zealand? I'm so sorry.

VAT/GST/Sales Tax
I asked my Backerkit contact about this, since a lot of you seem to think it shouldn't be charged. He replied, "Collecting taxes on crowdfunding campaigns is not new, but backers who are new to crowdfunding may not be aware of this."

From my own research, it seems like a lot of countries (UK, EU, Canada) implemented a mandatory VAT/GST charge starting January 1, 2026. If you can find somewhere official that contradicts this, let me know! But this was my going to various country's VAT/GST sites and looking around. There are exceptions to the highest rate, but these books don't fall into any 'necessity'-level brackets.

There is a button in Backerkit to 'refund shipping fees.' Before I pressed that button, I asked BK if it was possible to do partial refunds to bring some of these prices back down to reality. Turns out, that button allows that functionality; it's not an all-or-nothing situation. (I was dreading having to refund everything and then charge you all AGAIN at a lower rate; I imagine your patience would have been ENTIRELY exhausted at that point, if it isn't already.)

I will be going through each individual order, computing the correct price, and refunding you the difference. As I have to do this manually, it might take a day or two, but most of you will be getting some money back.

Just so there are no more surprises, however, allow me to state the costs that will stay:
Base Price based on weight and location.
Cost of materials (boxes, padding, labels, applicable taxes)
I'll reduce the 'handling' fee to $5 for domestic and $7 for international (since the customs stuff is more time consuming).

A Note On Involvement
I'd like everyone to be aware that this debacle has been entirely on me (and a little on Backerkit for such really bad documentation). Jenn hasn't had anything to do with the fulfilment process; she just wrote and formatted the book. The rest has been me figuring out how to do this whole 'publishing' thing and, apparently, sucking at it.

Mea culpa.

-Mike