People often contact Telos asking about our staff, offices, Marketing Managers … and I have to suppress a wry smile, as although we hopefully publish some great looking books, we’re not big enough to be able to warrant any of those things … instead we do everything ourselves.
So a little insight into how Telos works might help to allay some questions from interested readers, and might also help to explain why sometimes it takes a little longer to process orders or to get things sorted out.
So … you place an order through the online site … what happens next?
Well the first thing that happens is that Debbie Bennett, who handles all the online ordering, picks the order up either on an email or from the Paypal system, and logs it into her Master Database Of Everything Telos. If what has been ordered is not published yet, then she holds all these orders until the book is published. For things which are available, then approximately once a week (holidays and real life intruding) she pulls the list off the Database and emails it down to Sam and I.
We then print that off, and then Sam (usually, because I am often at the office doing my real job) heads to the stockroom to find the titles, packages them up and addresses them. If I am around then I will help with bigger orders, packaging them, wrapping in bubble wrap and so on. When a new title comes in, then Debs will send us *all* the held orders for it, and we then print labels off and sort out all the customer orders, review copies, author copies, free copies, and shop orders … this often takes a whole weekend or longer to sort out. Sam is incredible at maintaining all the order details, invoices and delivery notes, sorting out courier pickups and deliveries … all the stuff that keeps our titles coming from us to you basically. Did I mention that she’s amazing!
We then hike them all down the post office once they’re done – and this can take several evenings/weekends, and the Post Office trips can be by foot (if just a few) or by car (if there’s loads) and can also take several visits to sort it all out from UK orders to America, Australia, Europe and everywhere in between.
So the upshot is that it can easily take a couple of weeks from when you place the order, to when it actually gets to the Post Office … which is why we say to allow 28 days before querying … Indeed, the Post Office will also take a few days to get the order to you, but that part of it is pretty much out of our hands!
Of course if the book isn’t published yet, then we can’t send it, and I try and keep the website up to date, and post updates here on the News Blog as the expected/predicted dates slip and slide due to everything from Printer schedules, to layout being far more complex than expected, and everyone’s available time to work on Telos things changing due to the real world intruding.
So there you have it … a brief day in the life of a Telos order …16