It never occurred to me that part of my efforts to learn about publicizing my chapbook Hearts would revolve around envelopes.
I needed to buy envelopes to ship my book, first to family members and the poets who wrote back cover blurbs for me, later to out-of-town folks who ordered directly from me.
Most people ship books like this in padded mailing envelopes for extra protection. The book is 6×9 inches and there are 6×9 padded mailing envelopes, so it seemed straight-forward.
But, no.
Most 6×9 envelopes have that as their internal dimension but don’t accomodoate for thickness, so, even though, as a chapbook, Hearts is not very thick, it wouldn’t fit in most of the envelopes in the store.
I did find one Scotch one that worked because its internal dimensions are 9.25×6. Yay! I bought ten, which was about all they had on the shelf. When I used those up, I bought another ten. The store doesn’t have a lot out at once.
I was running low again, so went to the store and was happy to see they were on sale. There weren’t any on the shelf, so I asked for a rain check. They said they couldn’t do that but could order online.
Except they couldn’t, apparently because of the brand.
And they didn’t know when or if they’d ever get more in. They offered to substitute another brand but I explained kindly that those didn’t fit.
I tried looking for another supplier but couldn’t find an in-store one and the online shipping was too high to order them online and have them shipped to my home. Also, I did not need a box of 100 envelopes!
One of these days, I’ll go back to the store and see if more have appeared.
Meanwhile, I still have three from my last stash.
Realistically, most people order from Kelsay or Amazon. If you have a local independent bookstore, you can ask them to order it for you through Ingram.
See? I told you I was trying to learn marketing…
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “envelope.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/08/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-12-2023/
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Joanne Corey 
The envelope thing is a big deal, because of the difference between the book size and the interior size. WB Mason often has weird sizes online (I’ve used them for envelopes for invitation cards, too), but I think you do need to order in bulk. I’m sure you will need far more than 100 envelopes before you know it!
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Love your optimism, Devon! You are probably over optimistic but it’s a nice thought. One of the things I appreciate about the Scotch ones is that they are very specific that they are giving you the interior size. So many brands don’t specify if they are giving you the interior or exterior dimensions.
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