[scribus] Clarification from FLES Books

[Benjamin Goodger]

To: All Scribus developers and Scribus Manual customers with outstanding
orders
Subject: Delay to shipping and apparently ignored inquiries about said delay

Dear all,

It has been brought to my attention by Dr Pittman et al. that a number of
understandably quite agitated messages have been posted to this mailing
list, regarding the delays received by customers outside North America who
ordered a copy of the Scribus Manual but have still not received it due to
the exceedingly slow speeds involved in shipping items by the ground method
from Canada to the rest of the world, especially Europe.

As a limited number of customers will attest, we have been making every
effort to respond to all incoming email inquiries as soon as possible and in
as helpful a manner as possible. Despite this, we understand that the
majority of affected customers who have sent inquiries directly to FLES
Books have not received responses. Investigation reveals that our outsourced
email system seems to have been dropping these messages silently, perhaps as
part of an obscure anti-spam filter.

The email system in question has been replaced, old messages migrated and a
new list of email addresses drawn up, including a maximum-priority address
specifically for disenfranchised customers (
scribusmanualcomplaints at flesbooks.com) who have been affected by the above
non-delivery.

To save all parties involved from suffering the effects of a deluge of
identical such complaints, I will summarise our position here.

As covered previously, following the difficulties we experienced with a
recalcitrant Lightning Source, Inc., we were forced to seek a new printing
partner, and after a protracted but unavoidable delay we settled upon the
excellent Mardigrafe. All orders placed on or before the 30th of April have
been dispatched from Mardigrafe's office in Montréal, Canada. According to
all reports, these have taken less than a fortnight to arrive in Canada and
the United States, but no books have yet been received in Europe despite the
first batch being dispatched in the week of the 26th of March and a delivery
estimate of 2-6 weeks being supplied by Postes Canada. I therefore think it
overwhelmingly likely that the first deliveries will be made in the coming
week, May Day bank holiday notwithstanding. Unfortunately, FLES Books cannot
take responsibility for delays encountered in the various postal systems
with which customers' books will be interacting.

FLES Books have also made extensive changes to our website in recent days,
with exceedingly clear notice given that ground shipping to areas outside
North America may take up to eight weeks for delivery, to prevent further
problems arising from customers failing to see this notice. We have made
available a European air-mail option for an additional fee "at cost", based
on an estimate supplied to us early in the process by Mardigrafe, and
further have extended a discount to those living in North America that
reflects the lower cost of shipping to this region from Montréal.

Finally, on a lighter note, the Libre Graphics Conference is of course to be
held this week in Montréal, and Mardigrafe will be kindly making available a
number of copies of the Scribus manual at the conference for the low price
of CN$40. As ever, 63.75% of the proceeds will go to the Scribus project,
contributing toward the project's fund for student sponsorship this summer.
The manual may be pre-ordered online from FLES Books for CN$39.99, to ensure
that a copy is reserved for the customer during the conference.

I fondly hope that this message has tidied the situation to the maximum
extent possible, and apologise wholeheartedly for all unnecessary
inconvenience caused by FLES Books staff during the manual's problematical
release cycle.

Many thanks,

-- 
Benjamin Goodger
Managing Director, FLES Books Ltd.

Web: www.flesbooks.com
Post: 1 King St, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0AQ, United Kingdom
Tel: (01172) 301609 UK, (401) 566-4786 USA, (03) 9015 4609 AUS
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