Ever since the Jean Cocteau Cinema began offering autographed books from our author events for sale via mailorder, we have been getting queries from readers in Europe, South America, Asia, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand about placing orders. We haven’t been able to fulfill those requests, alas. Up till now, books were only available within the US.
The problem is shipping. There is, unfortunately, no simple, easy, and inexpensive way to ship books (or anything else, alas) outside the US. Not any more. Once upon a time, a shipper could choose between air mail (fast but expensive) and sea mail (slow but cheap). Then sea mail got abolished. After that, for a time, there was a thing called an M-bag (slow but cheap). That got abolished too. Within the US, there is Media Mail, formerly known as Book Rate, which saves a lot of money… but Media Mail does not work beyond the borders of the US. Internationally, there is only air mail… oh, and the various express services, like DHL and FedEx. So effectively the shipping options for our friends overseas are limited to Expensive and Very Expensive and Very Very Very Expensive (for overnight).
I’ve had my JCC staff working on this problem for many months, trying to find a solution. Sadly, there does not seem to be one. Yet even so, the queries still come in. So we’ve decided to bite the bullet — for a short time, at least, as an experiment — and offer the signed books from the JCC bookstore for sale to everyone around the world. We’ll see how much demand there is, and how much time order fulfillment requires from my already overworked staff.
But please take note. The process is complicated and onerous, and shipping costs will be high. In many cases, depending on what you’re ordering, shipping will be more than the actual cost of the books themselves. ALSO, please note, there could be additional charges on your end. We have no control over taxes, tariffs, customs costs, and import duties. Every nation has its own rules. Once the shipment leaves the Jean Cocteau, it’s out of our hand… so if your customs people stop the package and ask for fees, there’s nothing we can do about it.
((All these problems are among the reasons why we have not been taking international orders up until now. Too many complications, too many complaints)).
So… if I haven’t discouraged all of you sufficiently, here’s the complex and expensive procedure for placing orders from outside the USA:
1. Guest selects item(s) from the JCC website. http://www.jeancocteaubooks.com/
2. Guest has to email: jeancocteausantafe@gmail.com. The email should contain the following: item(s), and destination.
3. JCC will review the order and weigh the item(s)
4. JCC will enter destination, weight, value, dimensions of shipping box on USPS website to get the shipping cost. Unless instructed to use FedEx of DHL or other more expensive method, we will always look for the cheapest method.
5. JCC will email the guest with the total cost of the order (books, shipping, handling).
6. If the guest agrees, JCC will invoice him/ her via PayPal. PayPal is the ONLY payment method we can accept for international orders, sorry.
7. Guest pays invoice.
8. Books are shipped.
All of the books pictured above are available, along with many more. Visit the Jean Cocteau website for the full list. Stocks are limited, however. We do sell out.
ALL the books sold by the JCC are signed by the author and/or editor. Some of the anthologies and Wild Cards books have multiple autographs, though we cannot guarantee that. However, we cannot offer personalizations or inscriptions. Just signatures.
At the moment, we are only offering English-language editions… but if this system does not prove too costly for the readers, or too burdersome for my staff, we may be able to offer limited amounts of foreign language editions and translations in the future. Watch this blog for announcements to that effect from my minions. (And if you are looking for one of my books in a specific language, feel free to write the JCC at the email above and request it. We may have some).
We know this system if far from ideal, and for that we apologize… but we wanted to do something to show that we do value all the readers around the world who have written us, and would like to do our best to serve them.
Happy reading.
