Last month, our wonderful printer called us about the arrival of the slipcases for The Dark Man by Stephen King, which had shipped to them directly from our slipcase maker.
They wanted to let us know that a few cartons appeared to have been damaged in transit. That’s not the end of the world, it happens from time to time, and the damage didn’t look too bad.
Then they called back a few minutes later because they realized that the slipcase maker had shipped three pallets… and FOUR pallets had arrived.
We hadn’t mysteriously gained more slipcases in transit, of course. The extra pallet was all of the cartons that had been ripped off their original pallet somewhere along the way.
There was much more damage than originally realized, but luckily, there were just enough extra slipcases produced so that all of the books in the 5,000 copy run of The Dark Man would have one… but it was close!
You could make a web series: When Shipping Goes Horribly Wrong hosted by Brian James Freeman…have an Unsolved Mysteries vibe to it.
Now we hope that there isn’t damage in transit to us! 🙂
Shipping in this country is deplorable. I refuse to use UPS or FedEx anymore because they destroyed a number of shipments to me (including leaving boxes from the printer in the rain).
I don’t envy you guys.