Shipping refunds for slower rates: Many items on the website now have drop-down menus to choose between two shipping speeds.  Be sure to make your choice before adding the item to the shopping cart; otherwise, you'll have to remove it then add it again with your intended choice.  If you don't make a choice, whichever option is displayed when you click the "Add to Cart" button will be the choice that is transmitted to me.  The shopping cart automatically collects the higher rate, and you will pay that higher rate at checkout.  It is only when I process your order that I refund any excess amount (should you choose a cheaper method).  The refund will be processed any time from minutes after you order to 48 hours later (in rare cases longer, if I'm out of town).  You should also be aware that the time estimates provided when you check-out on our PayPal shopping cart are always for the faster shipping times, even when you have chosen a slower option.

Media Mail option: Most books on the website have a cheaper Media Mail option.  Media Mail usually takes 4 to 10 days, sometimes longer; within Arizona it usually takes 1 to 5 days (it should take no more than two, but I've known the Postal Service send Media Mail out-of-state, to Denver, Colorado even though the destination was only a hundred miles away, and this can slow it down.)  Media Mail is a special US Postal Service rate that for the purposes of this website, applies to books only.  Maps are not eligible unless bound in the form of an atlas, and an atlas is a book, not a map per se.  If you order books and request Media Mail, but also order items not eligible for Media Mail, I will interpret that as a request for the cheapest rate.  Since it is often more expensive to split the order and send part of it Media Mail and the rest by some other means, you will probably not get a lower rate.  Media Mail is not available for orders sent to Canada or elsewhere outside the US.

Shipments to parts of Alaska and Hawai'i: If the total shipping weight of the items you ordered is over 6.0 pounds, the shopping cart may collect too much if you live in a major urban area.  For Hawai'i, the shopping cart rates will be too high for weights over 6.0 pounds for urban addresses of O'ahu, but not for the other islands.  For Alaska, the shopping cart rates will be too high for shipping weights over 6.0 pounds for Fairbanks, Anchorage, and cities and towns near Anchorage and the more northern parts of the Kenai Peninsula; the rest of Alaska (even the capital, Juneau!) is considered remote.  If you are wanting something sent to a remote address in Alaska or Hawai'i, email me for a shipping quote.

Shipments to Canada: There are some kinds of items I don't ship to Canada, namely rolled wall maps, raised relief maps, and anything published in Canada.  The shopping cart will not prevent you from ordering these things; however, if you do, I will refund and cancel your order.  Also, if you are ordering any item that has a shipping speed option, you can ignore this, since all orders to Canada go by air (for lightweight items) or by UPS Ground Service (for heavier weights).  The shipping fees to Canada also cover the extra time I need to spend on completing customs forms.  Your payment does not cover any taxes, duties, or fees imposed on the import by the Canadian or provincial government.  You must pay them yourself.

Shipments outside the US and Canada: There are a limited number of countries I ship to, basically, western and most of central Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand.  The PayPal shopping cart will let you place your order to countries I do not ship to, but you will know this is the case because it will charge you a $500.00 default shipping fee.  If anyone actually completed an order and let their credit card be charged at this rate, I would refund and cancel the order.  Even to countries I do ship to, I will not fill orders for rolled wall maps which have a shorter dimension of over 24 inches, nor any but the smallest raised relief maps.  I also will not ship anything published in Europe back to Europe, nor anything else back to its region of origin.

Shipping weights: For the benefit of the very curious who like to know about such details: The shipping weights provided with each item description on the website are solely for the purpose of calculating a fair shipping fee.  While the "shipping weight" is approximately the weight of one of the items plus packaging, it is not necessarily the actual weight of your package.  The shipping weights for items which require packaging that is more expensive than average (such as the large boxes used for raised relief maps and the long sturdy mailing tubes used for large wall maps) may be set at a higher amount so that the shipping rate table will collect enough to reimburse me for the extra costs.  The PayPal shopping cart allows me to set only five weight classes, though I'd really rather have seven.  But I've managed to come up with a shipping table for each region of the country that for the most part manages to avoid huge jumps in shipping fees from weight level to weight level.

Tell me your timeline!

If you are unsure what shipping speed is best for you, help me to help you!  Communicate to me how fast you need the item, and I may be able to refund part of the default shipping fee if I can get it to you in time at a lower rate.

See the How to Order page for further details and offline ordering options.