For several years, direct orders of physical books from IsaacThorne.com have always shipped USPS Priority Mail or USPS Priority Mail Express. Although these services are reliable and provide fast delivery, they can be costly. Often, a Priority Mail package can literally double the price of an order.
As of July 2020, direct orders of books from IsaacThorne.com can be shipped by using USPS Media Mail, a slower but significantly less expensive shipping option that is exclusive to books, music, and other forms of media.
“I only ship books,” Isaac says. “So there was absolutely no reason I shouldn’t offer USPS Media Mail shipping as an option for people who want to buy signed or unsigned copies of my books directly from me.”
Similar to USPS Priority Mail and USPS Priority Mail Express, shipments by USPS Media Mail can be tracked as they progress from shipper to destination. Therefore, every customer who is shipped a package from IsaacThorne.com will be able to see the package’s progress and estimated arrival date. However, USPS Media Mail shipments typically take a week or more to arrive at their destination, while USPS Priority Mail options arrive in about three days. USPS Media Mail costs are also about 40 percent less than USPS Priority Mail.
“In fact,” Isaac says, “we’ve added a shipping estimate calculator to the site’s shopping cart that not only prices shipments so readers can choose the best financial option, but also provides a range of estimated arrival dates for your evil bunny box. That way, you can balance the cost of the shipment against how fast you want it to get to you.”
Also new to IsaacThorne.com shipments are the packaging. Each trade paperback or hardcover book shipped from IsaacThorne.com now arrives inside its own IsaacThorne.com-branded evil bunny box.
“For years, I’ve been putting evil bunny stickers on USPS Priority Mail packaging when I ship a book,” Isaac says. “Since I’m offering USPS Media Mail now, I figured it was about time I started using some better-branded boxes. The new evil bunny boxes are produced by Fantastapak and are specifically designed to ship my books. When readers receive books from me, I want them to know they’re in for something special.”
Isaac points out that he will still occasionally ship in standard, boring boxes because the custom evil bunny boxes are designed to hold only one or two copies of a title.
“If you order more than one copy at a time, I’ll probably have to revert back to the tried and true boxes with bunny stickers on them,” he explains. “Even so, shipping out single copies in an evil bunny box means there are more stickers available for readers to stick on whatever they want to stick them on.”
Either way, Isaac says, he’s always thrilled when he gets to ship a book and some evil bunny stickers to a reader.
“As long as I have the book in stock, I process an order almost immediately,” he says. “It’s really satisfying for me to package up a book and ship it out. It’s not as satisfying as writing them, though.”
