Hey all!
Okay so I got all outstanding orders shipped this morning (including all the books to Europe - if that's you).
One generous fan ordered two books (to the USA) so I thought, well they won't charge the same to ship two books together as they would to ship both separately...no of course not. They (initially) charged me almost TRIPLE. $96 to ship two books when it was $33 for one. I refused to pay it and after some measure of common sense and/or pity, I got her down to the price of TWO books - which I still thought was ludicrous. Utterly crazy shipping costs.
Anyway, that's 15 books shipped out. 4 people are still deciding if they want one (I'll give them a month before I will let potential others snap them up). 1 book still available.
Lessons Learned
Obviously this was just me testing the waters into Printing Quality for potential future Kickstarters, but it seems clear that unless you get the postage fulfilled by the Printing Company, its in NO WAY financially viable to ship the books myself - the costs are simply astronomical. Doubly so given 80% go to North America.
Mixam only fulfill on orders of 500+. I suspect the chances of me selling 500+ Print copies are slim to none. Print Ninja fulfill on 250+ but they are slightly more expensive (than Mixam) on numbers less than 750.
Of course it might be worthwhile partnering with another 3rd Party Publisher who has done this thing before. But I will wait until I have one of the 5E books completed before approaching anyone.