Frequently Asked Questions
How will my merchandise be shipped to me?
We generally ship our books by USPS Media Mail and non-media items (toys, collectibles, etc) by USPS Parcel Post. However, very small and light items (thin paperbacks, small toys, etc.) will often be shipped by USPS First Class Mail.
Because Amazon.com does not provide any mechanism for combining shipping charges on multiple orders, if you order several books at once, we frequently the additional shipping money to upgrade your order to USPS Priority Mail, which will get your books to you even more quickly.
When we ship your book, the Amazon.com communications system will send you a confirmation e-mail that will include a tracking code for your item. You can go to the USPS Website to track your item on the Delivery Confirmation system as it comes to you.
USPS Delivery Confirmation says that my merchandise was delivered to me, but I didn't get it. Where is it?
Sometimes other family members, roommates/housemates, or neighbors will oh-so-helpfully pick up your mail for you -- and then forget to let you know that it came and where they put it. So ask around.
If asking the other people who may have access to your mailbox doesn't turn up the missing package, go to your local post office and ask about it. Make sure to print up a copy of the confirmation e-mail Amazon.com sent you with your Delivery Confirmation tracking code. Be firm but polite in asking that they look for your missing package. If they stonewall, explain that you'd like to get this done in a quick and pleasant manner and really would prefer not to have to get Postal Inspectors involved.
If all else fails, file a stolen or rifled mail complaint with the Postmaster. Theft of the US Mails is a very serious offense, and you should not have to put up with it.
I found a book I want on your Amazon.com listings, but my credit card is expired and won't renew. Can I just order it directly from you and pay through PayPal? with a check? etc?
Sorry, but Amazon is very strict on this matter. It is a violation of the Marketplace merchant agreement to complete a transaction off Amazon -- and it would deprive you the customer of your protection under the A to Z Guarantee program. So don't even ask. Thank you.
This book is marked fifteen cents on the cover. Why are you charging over a dollar for it?
There are two reasons -- inflation and scarcity. Most of us are familiar with the problem of inflation. Things get more expensive over time. When that fifteen cent book was published, it cost six cents to send a letter and a gallon of gas cost less than a quarter. You only need to go to the post office or the gas station to see just how much those commodities have jumped.
Secondly, many older books have become scarce with time and thus difficult to find. Print runs in the 1940's and 1950's were typically quite small, meaning that there weren't that many copies in the first place. Since they were made with cheap materials to keep costs low, many of them have deteriorated or disintegrated altogether if they were not simply lost or tossed after the original purchaser was finished reading it. As a result, if a book has not been reprinted in a modern edition, scarcity drives the price up and more purchasers chase fewer copies.
I have an old book. Is it valuable?
It depends -- without seeing the book, it is impossible to estimate its likely value, and we are not professional appraisers of rare and antiquarian books.
In general, the scarcity of a given edition of a book and the condition of the copy in question will govern the value of a book. Many of the early science fiction paperbacks were printed in very small print runs, and a large number of those have since been lost or destroyed in various ways. By contrast, current publishers generally do not consider it worth their trouble to publish a book with a print run of less than about 20,000 copies (this is for traditional offset press printing -- publish on demand systems, which use digital xerographic technologies such as Lightning Press or DocuTech, are able to produce single copies as they are called for.
If a book (or a given edition of it) is in limited supply as a result of having been printed in a relatively small print run, and if it is much sought after, it is apt to command a relatively high price. However, the price that one can expect to ask for any particular copy is governed by the condition of that particular book. Particularly in the case of paperbacks, they were effectively created to be disposable, and thus the materials that went into them were generally of low quality (acidic wood-pulp paper, cheap binding glue, etc.) and relatively fragile. Unless a book was handled and stored very carefully, it is apt to become worn and thus less desirable.
Last updated February 7, 2010