How do the books ship?

It depends. I'm in NJ and my orders generally take 3-4 weeks to arrive. Others in the US have reported consistently slower or faster timetables. Not really sure what causes the discrepancy. (Personally, I like to blame Homeland Security!)

If you are concerned about vacation, you can set up a mail hold via the USPS website: https://holdmail.usps.com/holdmail/landingView.do Everything, including your Folio package, will be held safely at the post office until you return.

The last book I ordered, The Lantern Bearers, took 84 days from when I placed the order until I received it.

>3 LucasTrask:

In fairness, the The Lantern Bearers took a long time to get to anyone, even member's like myself in the UK. This isn't due to shipping but due to a problem they encountered in the production of the book. They were despatched later than they intended. Unless of course you mean you waited a further 84 days AFTER they said they had despatched it.

I'm 15 weeks into waiting for an order from Easton press in the US, so I have sympathy for you guys waiting for your orders from the Folio Society.

belemnite and boldface posted in the I just ordered ~ received #4 thread that they each received The Lantern Bearers on 30 April. It took another 60 days for me to receive my order and I never received any notice from FS that there had a productions problem or any other reason for the delay. In this instance I feel that FS customer service failed completely.

As for the original question, I had another order that took over two months over the end of year, although other orders place between these took about three weeks each.

The FS does not use airmail (except for limited editions) but rather surface mail because it is a lot cheaper for members. Surface mail has a delivery time of a min of 3 weeks to 4 months and when usually delivery is through sea and rail freight if problems are encountered it takes longer

On average it can take Folio up to 6 weeks to ship books from the UK to my address in the Netherlands (I am in big city). 6 weeks? Yes, 6 weeks! No idea why it can take so long to ship something across the channel. Your average peddler can do that faster. It is also rather expensive. In fact, when I buy books from Ardis I pay a DHL shipment fee that is on par with the Royal Mail rate of Folio, books shipped via DHL economy arrive after 3 days. I suppose Folio's high shipment fees form part of the Folio profit margin.

LE ship indeed faster, but also cost more to ship.

FS must be using a bulk shipping arrangement. My books come with an added sticker from the Spanish Postal Service (Correos) showing Madrid as the origin. On average they take a month to reach me.

I live in Toronto, Canada and it usually takes about 2 weeks.
But we just had a postal strike so that will of course cause big delays as I wait for my summer sale hord.

>8 drasvola: I live in Madrid, no extra sticker, but they leave the box inside a huge mail sack, it usually takes about three weeks.

LEs, on the other hand, arrive in one or two days after the order is processed (provided the book has already been published, of course). For instance, Candide was despatched last Friday and I had it Monday morning.

My fastest order was from the spring sale which took exactly two weeks from the day I placed the order to the day it arrived on my doorstep in Canada. I also had to wait for the Lantern Bearers but in my case the invoice did say it was out of stock.

It's so hard to estimate a time of arrival because the information on the website is rather imprecise. I've had orders show up just a few days after being listed as At Warehouse or even still Pending. At other times Delivered or Completed orders took another two or three weeks to arrive but that's because FS automatically lists things as delivered a certain number of weeks after they are sent.

Svartalf, my summer sale order just went from Pending to At Warehouse so we'll see how long it takes now. I wonder if they delayed shipping Canadian orders until after the strike was over or if it's just that they don't update the website too often.

>11 haniwitch:;
Yes, the status of my order has also changed today to - 'At warehouse'
Postal workers are claiming that the lag will be at least 2-3 weeks as they deliver older mail first...so... :(

FS cannot know how long Royal Mail and USPS will need to deliver a book. Once posted, it is out of their hands.

I have some taking 3 weeks to Arizona. I had at least one taking 6 weeks.

FS has been in the direct order book business for how long? They should know about how long Royal Mail and USPS will need to deliver a book.

Except that both companies combined end up with a range of 3 weeks - 3 months (with a few more weeks thrown in occasionally when there are unexpected circumstances such as Christmas, volcanoes erupting, sun showing up in the sky and big earthquakes). And I am not kidding. That's the problem

It varies. In Virginia I've had shipments arrive in as little as a week and as long as 2 months. I'm still waiting on something I ordered a month ago. I guess I'll just be surprised once more. Wish it were a bit more predictable.

The Folio Website is definitely not very helpful when it comes to providing information about deliveries. I've noticed that when I check my order history that the Status of my last order is showing as "Item Pending". However, when I drill into this the Status now reads "Dispatched"
Either way it still has not reached me.

It would be good if they supplied a tracking number when our orders ship. So that it would be possible to track the parcel progress.

>18 Svartalf:

They do for the UK orders? It's shown on the order in your account in quite small letters and generally has a link through to the website of whatever courier they are using.

I'm not sure if they use a tracked method for international though (I know Easton Press don't :-( )

>17 N11284: I'm in the same boat. I wish they would at least get their website status straight. My last unfortunate incident with Folio was the dreaded "despatched" status when in actuality it hadn't left their warehouse. :-( I'll just call that a fluke and believe lightning doesn't strike twice.

The statuses on the webpage are basically based on number of days. Nothing more. I stopped even looking at them awhile ago.

As for tracking - they will need to change the way they send mail in order to do that which in most cases will mean more expensive shipping -- which I am not sure I really wish to see. The books do show up at one point...

In the UK they use the Home Delivery Network, which is a parcel delivery company used mainly by Catalogue companies. Things don't take too long from the 'at warehouse' to being delivered. About a week generally if not a little less.