Best of FSM Book Update

Today’s update is going to be super annoying—it is for me!

We used Amazon print-on-demand for the Best of Film Score Monthly book. It was cheaper and more convenient than a conventional printer. I do not have the funds to do a 1,000-copy print run (and then have to deal with ongoing warehousing, shipping, etc.).

The book has come out really well...except for one problem. Out of the “author’s copies” I ordered to ship to the Kickstarter donors, 114 of them were dinged, perforated or worse—not even from the printing, really, but from just being thrown unprotected in heavy, oversized boxes. Thanks, Bezos!

I know you guys, and I cannot ship you any of the dinged books!

I have complained to Amazon and they are sending replacement copies—but no matter how much I made a stink, these will not arrive until February 23rd.

So there are going to be around 80–100 of our donors who, just from bad luck, were at the end of the line and I need to ask you to wait three more weeks for your packages. It mostly affects the international Silver tier donors. There is no reason for that except that we had to organize the shipping in batches and this batch ended up being at the end.

Will you please forgive me? I would have held everything until all the books were in stock, but we didn’t even find all of the defective copies until we had already started shipping.

Because this is my living room right now:

As you can see, there is little room to do anything—but I don’t have enough business to pay for an office rental in the overpriced L.A. market. (Do you want me to sell any of your CDs? Write me! LukasKendallMV@gmail.com.)

As soon as I know exactly who is going to have to wait (give me a few days), I will send an email to these bad-luck folks, PLUS a pdf of the book. (But please do not circulate the pdf!)

And then, the week of the 23rd, we’ll get the rest of the packages out.

For everybody else—the book is now available worldwide on Amazon. For now, it’s hardcover only.

I worked so hard to prevent the unfairness of some people having to wait for their pre-paid orders while latecomers get theirs quickly...it’s very frustrating.

One of the truly irritating things about Amazon is that if you order off their site now, you’ll get your book in a few days. But if I order my author’s copies (priced “at cost”), it takes two and a half weeks.

I do not have the funds or the resources to try to split up orders or do anything except hold the packages that are still missing books. Please accept my humble apologies.

So that’s the bad news. The good news is that people seem to really like the book.

And the other good news is that this is all happening. Yesterday we installed the complimentary months of FSM Online subscriptions. We’ll get the “badges” on your member profiles installed shortly. You are going to get everything promised, and I think you’ll be very happy with the quality...soon!

I see so many names on the donor lists that I recognize going back to the 1990s. It’s a very special thing to have so many loyal supporters—thank you.

I’m sorry to have to ask some folks to wait here, and I hope you understand.