A quick update -
I've been emailing back and forth with John. He got back to me on the weight of a single book. They are 1.45kg each.
He says that they way they currently ship (Parcel Force Worldwide 2-5 day delivery) it costs £30 to ship one book! Wow. That's a bit over $45 for shipping.
I asked him if he'd be willing to help us find another way to ship (something like UPS or better yet a freight company) if we got a big order going. I hope he says yes. I threw in some numbers over on
Mammoth Parcel Delivery and a 60kg package (about the weight of 40 books) can be sent from the UK to the US for about £200 ($313) which is less than $10 USD per book, a
potential savings of at least $37 per book in shipping cost.
I also let him know we had almost 40 books on the list already and asked if with such a large order we could get a discount on the book purchase price. We'll see what he says.
He seemed interested in this. He said back when the book was being produced he contacted various Mercedes-Benz Clubs around the US and got little response. He was checking to see if any of them would want to do what we're doing, a large order to distribute to members. So I hope he's open to this offer.