Kobold Press CEO and Kobold-in-Chief, Wolfgang Baur, is here to give you some insight on the state of the industry!

I told you lost month that I hate shipping. I still do, but I’m going to talk about it anyway, at length, because it is under a credible threat of privatization and increased costs.

US Mail is a powerful, effective system, better than most systems of ancient days! The usual practice in ancient days amounted to, “hand your letter to someone going that direction, and hope it winds up in the right hands.”

After that system came king’s or emperor’s messengers such as the Chapar Khaneh of Persia, the quipu runners in Inca Peru, and the Yam message riders of the Mongolian empire (maintained by Russia into Tsarist times!).

Then came private mail services and public mail services like the Thurn & Taxis postal system of the Holy Roman Empire. The private couriers have always been fast, reliable, and expensive (think Pony Express), while the state-run ones are public, reliable, and cheap (think Canada Post).

The US Postal Service

Kobold Press relies heavily on the US Postal Service, a branch of the government outlined by the US Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 7, better known as the Postal Clause. That article empowers Congress “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.” This service has been a bedrock of doing business in the US for 250 years, since July 26, 1775.

Yes, the US Mail actually predates the US Constitution—it was formed during the Revolution. The first US Postmaster was Benjamin Franklin, so this stuff is deep in our national bones, because it’s so important to national life.

I love the US Postal Service. Kobold Press would not exist without it and the miracle of Book Rate shipping.

The Book Rate (and My Mother)

One reason that the postal service is so vital to gamers is that since 1938, the US Mail has offered something that was once called Book Rate and (more recently) Media Mail.

Book Rate was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a public service to spread books and knowledge throughout the country. It worked. Selling scientific books by mail order was a business my mother ran during the 1980s, and I remember clearly that she worked very hard putting together catalogs, keeping stock, and mailing books all across the country.

As an aside, my mother once mailed a scientific reference volume to a Nobel Prize winner in California. The address she had was just “Prof. So-and-So, Big Sur, California”. It arrived on time and in perfect condition.

That reliable service somewhat explains what happened when book rate was combined with the power of the Internet. It is the foundational infrastructure of companies like Amazon, ABE Books, Powell’s, and Kobold Press. We all rely on it to send books across the country at a low price, including gigantic Tomes of Beasts or Dungeons & Ruins or even sleek little pocket editions.

Book rates makes it possible for booksellers to send you the goods at a price everyone likes, even if you live in Alaska, an APO, Puerto Rico, or the Samoa. But that may be about to change.

Threat to the US Mail?

In recent decades, the US Postal Service has been discussed somewhat negatively by politicians, primarily Republicans, who want to pretend it is a private, for-profit business rather than a government service like clean water, border patrols, or well-maintained roads. This is weird, because so many US businesses rely on the mail service, including everyone from Amazon to the tiniest indie RPG publishers. It’s not a corporation—it supports corporations and citizens, just like schools or bridges do.

I’ll be frank: If the US Mail did not offer book rate, shipping books would cost a LOT more. But the current Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, owns a private package company called New Breed Logistics, which provides him both with directly relevant job experience and with a clear conflict of interest. And more to the point, this week there are reports that the administration wants to illegally close the Postal Service as an independent agency, and fold it into the Commerce Department. The US Postal Service board will be dismissed, and its leadership will become matter of a political appointment.

So what does it look like if the US Postal Service stops being a government service, and is privatized or dissolved? Yes, it’s unconstitutional and illegal, because an executive order is not a law, and only Congress has the right to regulate the US Mail. However, without some pushback from Congress and the public, that might not matter. I’m here to say that as citizens and gamers, we need the GOP Congress to step up and protect rural mail delivery, universal service, and that all-important media mail rate for books.

Practically speaking, making the US Mail a patronage job subject to the whims of the Commerce department is an open invitation to sabotage the service and raise rates. People like Postmaster DeJoy have every reason to want to degrade service so that private carriers (like his New Breed Logistics company!) make more money.

How Bad Is It?

On a granular level, every package Kobold Press ships in the USA goes out by Media Mail or Priority Mail. If the Post Office loses its independence, and pricing is set by private carrier owners like Louis DeJoy, hardcover shipments could see rate increases at the whim of the Commerce Department. We could see the abolition of Media Mail entirely—it’s a great service to the public, but it’s a money-loser for any privatized service. Either way, it means that Kobold Press packages would ship via UPS, FedEx, DHL, or New Breed Logistics.

Taking mail out of the realm of a public service and into a political football makes it wildly unpredictable. Maybe the service will not be tampered with, but that seems overly optimistic. It’s hard to know just how quickly and how badly service might decline. However, we can compare the current costs to the known private carrier costs—they all offer convenient quotes online! So let’s talk money for a moment.

As an example, a copy of The Old Margreve hardcover ships from the Kobold warehouse to New York with this postage:

$7.38 by US Media Mail—the current rate

$13.80 by US Priority Mail—the express rate

$16.37 by UPS Ground—private rate

$25.50 by FedEx—private rate

Rough as that pricing looks, it’s much worse using a private carrier for someone living in Kona, Hawaii ($45 via Fedex, $95.94 via UPS) or a rural town like Orla, Texas ($32.35 via UPS, $75.15 via Fedex).

I don’t trust the whims of any administration not to jack up rates or retaliate against particular ecommerce companies—or to simply stop offering delivery to rural routes. Most US consumers know that independence means reliable mail delivery for everyone. Private carriers are much, much more expensive than a public service.

Take Action

Raising postal rates or forcing companies to use private carriers is horrible for anyone except the private carriers. It’s certainly not the mail service doing its bit to unify the nation and spread books and knowledge. In particular, rural towns and distant territories would get wrecked by private carrier pricing. The universal service guarantee of the current system is vital for everyone, especially for anyone outside the big cities.

If you dislike the idea of higher postal rates for Kobold Press hardcovers and pocket editions, call your Congressional reps and senators today. Tell them to keep the US Postal Service independent and far away from the Commerce department.

The Kobolds appreciate any help you can provide; media mail should be the affordable reality. an independent US Mail Service is a government service the company counts on to ship game books to anyone and everyone in the US.

Thank you!