Below I’ll post updates on the publication and shipping status of our various books. I’ll update as information is available. – BJS
Thursday, 12 December 2024—Due to the postal strike in Canada, we’re not currently able to send post to Canadian destinations. We were able to get pre-orders of Atmospheric Disturbances and Uncertainties 7 on their way while the Canadian postal system was still accepting post. However, there may still be delays if packages aren’t being delivered yet on the other end and there will surely be a backlog to boot. Suffice to say, we’ve done all we can on our end. While this is a difficult time for small businesses and residents of Canada, Swan River Press fully and unreservedly supports worker rights and Canadian postal service employees’ right to strike. For our own further postage updates, you can check here.
Friday, 22 November 2024—If you’ve ordered something before this date, it’s in the post now. I’ll be on holiday until Friday, 29 November and will not be filling orders or responding to emails during this time. Thanks again for all the orders, folks!
Thursday, 21 November 2024—The remainder of the pre-orders for Atmospheric Disturbances and Uncertainties 7 went to the post office today where they’ll be processed for customs over the coming days. This includes single-book orders to USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom; as well as multiple book orders for the United Kingdom. There were a few more contributor and trade parcels that also went out today. My thanks again to An Post Rialto for their hard work to make this onerous process go more smoothly. Just a reminder as well that I’ll be on holiday from Friday, 22 November through Friday, 29 November and will not be filling orders or responding to email during this time. Thank you again to everyone for our patience.
Monday, 18 November 2024—Here’s what went to the post office this morning: Shipments to those living in USA, Canada, Japan, Europe, Ireland who ordered multiple titles; and single-book orders to Ireland, Europe, and New Zealand. I also shipped the majority of contributor copies, plus some trade orders. One hurdle, which I’ve described below, but will again: there is a bottleneck at the post office whereby customs paperwork needs to be completed for each item. This bottleneck is even more acute this time of year due to the holiday season. Just because the above has gone to the post office today does not mean they will all ship today—however, the postal workers, generous with their energy, especially this time of year, will do their best to help process shipments quickly. When they’ve cleared that batch, they’ll collect another. In the meantime, I will continue packing. Shout out to John Kealy who stopped by on Saturday to help with the packing!
Thursday, 14 November 2024—Just about midnight. I’ve been working since Monday to prep all the books. Like painting a room, so much of the work is about prep and organising before the actual packing. I manually inspected each of the 850 books that arrived. I always find ones that don’t pass my quality control. This time around there was a copy without head/tailbands, another with two signing sheets bound in, plus a whole clutch with poor binding. These will be used for review and deposit copies. After that I did the embossing and numbering, 100 copies of each new title. During all this I sifted through all the packing slips to make sure certain copies go to the right people. There are a lot of piles around here now. I also managed to pack and ship on Tuesday a handful of orders for those who only ordered Uncertainties VII. So you might see others receive their copies soon enough. If you haven’t received yours, please don’t worry. This is a length process and as described below, I have been left with little time at the worst part of the year in which to do this. But I will continue to work diligently as always. Oh yeah, I also managed to pack a number of boxes of contributor copies of Uncertainties VII. Those were meant to go o the post office today, but they weren’t able to collect today because they were just too busy. Not their fault as this is the busiest time of the year for them. This may result in a bottleneck at some point, but there’s little that can be done about that. The culprit in this mess is identified below. Anyway, goodnight for the moment. After I finish my 9-5 tomorrow, I’ll get back to work packing.
Monday, 11 November 2024—Both Atmospheric Disturbances and Uncertainties VII arrived today here in Dublin. The process to ship them onward will be a long one, but I will keep a meticulous record of the progress, so keep an eye here for all details. Now for the difficult part: Unfortunately TJ Books’s abhorrently late delivery (over a month) means that we’ve now hit the holiday season. Underfunded postal services tend to be under even more strain due to the seasonal bulk—and our own local post office is extremely generous with the help they give us on processing customs paperwork. There’s not much that can be done now but to start getting through as much as I can. I apologise again for the disappointment. Anyone who needs a refund, please get in touch.
Wednesday, 6 November 2024—Another update from TJ Books: “The Green Book: Remaining 50 copies have been despatched this morning via Fedex; Atmospheric Disturbances: Waiting to bind, to be despatched on Friday. Once I have the tracking and despatch tickets, I will send these over to you; Uncertainties Vol 7: Despatched today, for delivery by Monday latest via TPN. Tracking number to follow.” Unfortunately this puts us right in the middle of the holiday shipping season. Postal times will be slower and the generous people at the Rialto Post Office who help me with the onerous customs paperwork, while they are still offering their much needed help to our operations, will understandably not be able to process your orders as quickly. This will possibly cause further delays. Having sent these titles to the printer in August/early September, I was very much trying to avoid shipping books at this time of year. I am enormously dismayed with the TJ Books’ service. This comes on the immediate heels of the unacceptable binding job they did on Friends and Spectres last summer. You can read about it here. Personally, this experience is both infuriating and disheartening. I offer my apology to those who have come to expect better from Swan River Press, and will endeavour to get you the books you ordered as quickly as possible.
Monday, 4 November 2024—I’ve just been in touch with the managing director of TJ Books, who not only apologises for “what seems to be an unsatisfactory level of service from the factory” (my italics), but tells me that “Unless there is some other reason I am unaware of, I would expect these to be finished and despatched by Wednesday [6 November] the latest.” For me this means that the books likely won’t arrive until the following week. It will still take me two weeks to pack all the orders, so this also means that we will be hitting the busy season at the post office, and I’ll be expecting slower delivery speeds now too. I really try to avoid the arrivals of new titles this time of year for this very reason. Despite this, I will work as swiftly as possible, posting updates here as to my progress.
Sunday, 3 November 2024—If you ordered only The Green Book 24, then your copy will go into the post on Monday, 4 November. If you ordered The Green Book 24 and either Atmospheric Disturbances or Uncertainties 7, then your copy will ship when the latter two titles arrive. I have not been able to get a new provisional shipping date from TJ Books, despite having asked (again) earlier last week. All I can do is apologise. I wish their communication and service were better. I know everyone is waiting for their books to arrive. Anyone else who is tired of waiting and wants a refund, please let me know. In the meantime, I’ll make another attempt at getting a delivery date this afternoon.
Tuesday, 29 October 2024—Finally, the new issue of The Green Book arrived today. I’ll get to working packing single copy orders. If you’ve ordered this issue as well as either Atmospheric Disturbances or Uncertainties 7, then your copy will ship when the latter two titles arrive. In the meantime, I’ll get copies out to those who only ordered The Green Book 24.
Wednesday, 23 October 2024—An update today from TJ Books regarding The Green Book 24: “We have found that there has been an admin error and your books were packed in boxes with incorrect labels on them by mistake. So, we have 5 boxes of your books still held here and are being re-labelled with the correct information for your book. However, there are 2 boxes of books that have been sent out to a different address labelled as another title. We are working with the recipient of those to arrange collection of these, and then we can get them sent on to you. I just don’t have an exact timescale for this yet.”
Tuesday, 22 October 2024—We’ve just announced and are taking pre-orders for our final book of the year, Uncertainties 7. This title went to print the first week of September and will be arriving with both Atmospheric Disturbances and The Green Book 24. If you’ve ordered any combination of these titles, I will ship them together when they arrive. At the moment, they are expected to dispatch to Dublin on 25 or 28 October. I’ll believe it when they arrive.
Monday, 21 October 2024—Sorry, folks. TJ Books tells me today that Atmospheric Disturbances is “expected to be ready to despatch by this Friday/next Monday”. The sewn book blocks are apparently ready and are waiting for the cases to be printed.
Friday, 18 October 2024—No sign of The Green Book 24 as promised. I was told perhaps Monday, 21 October. TJ Books said they would also check on Monday on the shipping status of Atmospheric Disturbances. Please understand, dear reader, I cannot send these books to you until they first arrive in Dublin. You now have as much information as I do.
Monday, 7 October 2024—The Green Book 24 is on track to be delivered on Friday, 18 October. Atmospheric Disturbances I hope will be delivered on Monday, 21 October. I have recently spent some time in hospital so am moving at a much slower pace. I will ship books as I can, please bear with me.
Friday, 27 September 2024—We started taking pre-orders for The Green Book 24 on 25 September. The issue went to the printer on Monday, 23 September. Both The Green Book 24 and Atmospheric Disturbances are due to ship to Dublin from Cornwall on Friday, 18 October. If you’ve ordered both titles, they will be sent to you together.
Monday, 23 September 2024—TJ Books have again revised the shipping date for Atmospheric Disturbances. The new proposed shipping date from Cornwall is Friday, 18 October.
Monday, 16 September 2024—TJ Books have revised the shipping date for Atmospheric Disturbances. The new proposed shipping date from Cornwall is Monday, 7 October. Of course this means the books will arrive in Dublin while I’m in Chester at Fantasycon. This also means that no one will be here in Dublin to receive the books. And that this title will not be available at Fantasycon. And that packing and shipping will also be delayed because of both these things. That’s just how it goes, folks. Sit tight.
Wednesday, 11 September 2024—The current projected delivery date for Atmospheric Disturbances is the week of Monday, 30 September. Keep in mind that, once books are delivered here in Dublin, there is a lengthy process before they go into the post. I’ll also be at Fantasycon in Chester from 10-14 October, and this may delay shipping for some orders.
Sunday, 1 September 2024—I’ve processed all the pre-orders to date for Atmospheric Disturbances by Helen Grant. You should have received an acknowledgement email now. If you have not, please check your spam folder. I will continue to process pre-orders as they are placed. The estimated shipping for this title remains unchanged.
Tuesday, 27 August 2024—Atmospheric Disturbances by Helen Grant was sent to the printer. This book is estimated to ship in mid-October 2024.
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