I'm just curious: does it cost more to ship books to Alaska than it does to ship within the "Lower 48"? I'm wondering because I live in the Yukon, which is right next door to Alaska, and I know people who are regularly back and forth. I'm wondering if it would be worth my while to set up a PO box in an Alaskan border town to make it cheaper for US folks to ship to me, or if that really wouldn't help, anyway?

I can't answer with certainty, but I would think that the postage would be the same for Alaska as well as Hawaii as it is for any other state. In fact, I'm almost positive that it would be.

I was curious and went to the USPS website and found out that it is the same to ship to Alaska as it is to ship to any US state.

And how much cost setting up PO Box?

I believe it's the same price for media mail (which is how we send most books) but I think its more for things like first class (not sure but would think it would be because of the distance). But yeah, I would check on how much it would cost to set up a PO box 1) at the PO itself (but they may want you to have a US addy on file) (you can check here to find out rates) and 2) at a commercial store, like The UPS Store or something (check here)

(can you tell I don't want to go back to studying? :lol:)

Postage to Alaska and Hawaii costs exactly the same as it does to the lower 48 or to an APO address. So if you plan on doing a lot of trades with folks in the USA it might make sense to set up a post office box. Although from my own experience, mailing books to Canada is still relatively cheap.

I have shipped to Hawaii before. The cost is the same but actual mailing time is MUCH longer. I can ship from RI to California media mail and it will get there in a week. Media mail to Hawaii always seems to take 3-4 weeks. I would think Alaska will have the same issue.

Alaska takes almost 4 weeks for me (we have established it's the same cost) and for some reason, my extra effort of placing books in a plastic bag and wrapping in cardboard vs PBS's requirement of 2 sheets of printer paper, still gets me " book damaged by USPS"
:shrug:

GG, have you considered sending your outgoing parcels via Alaska. Lauren and I mail our parcels to the US and those to Canada by going to the US and mailing. It saves quite a bit of money