All I need to move are books...lots of books. Can a girl get some advice!

I'm currently the process of getting my things together for my spousal visa, but in the mean time i'm trying figure out how to move my things. I'm moving from Cincinnati, Ohio to Leicester, England.

I honestly don't have much to move. I'd love to bring my desk and bookcases, but I'm totally willing to say goodbye to them. The most important thing to me is my personal library of roughly 500 books. They don't take up to much space, but they sure are heavy. Does anyone have any suggestions about shipping them? I'm desperate, but also just graduating college so not rolling in money. I don't know what to do and I NEED some of the books for my career.

check with the USPS. there is a low cost book rate, but i cant remember if it works for overseas. good luck!

Some post offices still offer m bags, but since they stopped shipping things by boat there aren't any super cheap options anymore,. 

You might not like this answer but the best way is to sell them and rebuild when you get there. We are doing this. I'm keeping 6 of my favorites I won't be able to replace (check amazon.co.UK for the book used offers, shop oxfam, etc.) and sold the rest via bookscouter.com, eBay for the rare ones and better world book donations for the remaining.

On the bright side there are some amazing used book stores so replacing them will be new memories and fun. You can also try upakweship.com if you are okay spending over $1000 to mail them. USPS mbags are like $60 for the first 11lbs then $ for each additional. That's like 10 books.

You could look into getting a freight forwarder to arrange a shipment. I think even UPS can do this via sea freight if you're able to wait longer for stock to arrive.

I have worked with some forwarders, but I think they all only do it for professional companies, not individuals. So try looking up individual LCL shipments from the US to the UK. (lcl means "less than container load" because your 500 books won't take up a whole sea freight container - whereas FCL would be a full container load). You'll pay based on volume of the shipment - ie how much space it takes up. I'm not sure how much it will cost since I've only ever done massive orders, but it might be worth looking into if you're set on shipping all your books.

And as someone who works in publishing, can I please beg you all not to buy from Amazon?! They are actually ruining our industry, and I'd quite like to keep my job... If you like to read books, support your local book shop - be it independent or Waterstones. It may sound ridiculous, but it makes a HUGE difference to those of us working in the industry as well as all the authors.

I lurk on another website where www.UPAKWESHIP is often mentioned. I don't know if their costs/methods would work for you, but it might be worth a look.

And as someone who works in publishing, can I please beg you all not to buy from Amazon?! They are actually ruining our industry, and I'd quite like to keep my job... If you like to read books, support your local book shop - be it independent or Waterstones. It may sound ridiculous, but it makes a HUGE difference to those of us working in the industry as well as all the authors.

They aren't nice to their employees either.

(sorry this is a long post, but i work for pallet delivery firm and am something of a converted bibliophile)

How are you shipping the rest of your stuff?
When we shipped my wife's stuff from the US - including her collection of books- about 6 totes worth. We did find a company that quoted us per pallet and not by weight.
(most pallets seem to be shipped into London tbh) and the final road leg can be exensive.
Just to give you an idea; one of those plastic storage totes you have in the US filled with books, weights in at about 50kg i think. (130lbs?)
   Most freight forwarders would classify a standard pallet as upto  1000Kgs, as this is the weight limit that delivery guys like me can move...so thats about 20 totes/pallet in theory...but realistically it's unlikely you will get more than 16 on pallet - 4 per layer-  before it gets too tall and unstable to load.
To ship a pallet within the UK is about £40-60, although i know the shipping firm we used wanted much more for the UK leg of the journey, (i was able collected it myself)

I hope this has given you some idea of what may be involved if you do choose to ship your books but as others have suggested it may be cheaper and simpler to ship only your essential books and start again once in the UK.

There are some amazing places for second hand books in the UK including most antiques shops or auction houses but also
www.bookbarninternational.com in somerset (They have an entire warehouse of £1 books!)
and of course Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh borders (most of thevtown is used book shops, which is why it is home to the Hay book festival!)

Also bear in mind that houses in the UK tend to be smaller than in the US, so i would check that you would have the space to put them before paying all that money for shipping.
 
From personal experience 80% of the books we shipped over are still in their tote boxes, partly due to lack of space, are partly due to my wife's discovery of the used book market over here!

My honest advice would be ship the essential items, and those you simply can't be without. Then do the maths on shipping the remainder vs the cost of replacement.

After 6 years in the UK our old books may finally see the light of day this year, and i won't lie: my wife is excited about being able to diplay all her books again, but i will also say that with everything else that has happen over those years with visas, jobs, moving flats etc. sorting those books has never really been high on the agenda.

Best of luck whatever you decide.

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I also had a lot of books, journals, papers, etc. to move, and not a whole lot else.

I did consider the USPS book rate/ 'M Bag' option, but in the end, I found it was easier-- and felt somewhat safer-- to ship them via a moving company, along with the rest of my things (a few boxes of photos, keepsakes, family china, etc.).  I wanted to make sure I could trace the shipment. 

I briefly considered UPS/FedEx/DHL, but they don't actually deliver to the islands. They just tack on massive surcharges, then hand the deliveries off to local couriers in Glasgow or Inverness.  So, I can't speak to how the cost would compare for UK mainland delivery.

In the end, I went with a company that offered pallet space in shared shipping containers.  (As opposed to many international moving companies, that seem to only deal in full or half-sized containers.)  I had just one pallet, and by the time it was all said and done, the international shipping/customs charges/etc. came to, I think, around $1100.  (That's not including the other £120 to have it brought in from Glasgow.)  Be aware that all of these companies seem to quote a base rate, but mention that there 'may be' additional charges up to $xxx if your items have to go through customs inspection.  It seems they always go through, so just figure on paying for the full, higher amount.

I wasn't too worried about things being broken (other than the china), but was quite worried about damp/water damage.  I considered a lot of packing options, but ultimately, I bought several Rubbermaid-style, plastic storage totes.  They're a bit pricey on their own, but there are often multi-buy deals, and if you start shopping for them just now, you'll find them quite cheaply as part of the Back-to-School sales.  Check places like Staples & Home Depot, in addition to Target, etc.

I think I filled 8 or 9 totes, and then used heavy-duty strapping tape (the kind with strings running through it) to secure the lids.  Lots, and lots of tape.  In addition to being damp-proof to protect books and photos, and rigid enough to protect breakables, another advantage was that, unlike cardboard boxes, I wouldn't have to worry about the bottoms falling out under the weight of lots of books and papers.  Plus, I've still got the totes.  Which is good, because most of my stuff is still in storage, since there's no room for it.  They stack up very neatly in a corner of our very damp bedroom.

So, that's what I'd say about how to move them.  But I'll add one more, gentle suggestion:  think hard about your library.

I know what it's like to be absolutely attached to your books.  I'm sure I had at least 500 books before I moved, and I couldn't have imagined parting with any of them.  But the cost of shipping, combined with the knowledge that I'd have virtually no storage space, made me take a hard look, and pare that number down to probably ~150.  (My husband donated around 20 boxes of his old paperbacks to the local library, so I can't really complain.)

To be fair, about the only reason this was possible, was that between the two of us, we had a lot of duplicate titles.  We also both invested in Kindles, and we were able to replace a lot of our paperback fiction with e-books, which take up far less space.  I wasn't sure I'd like an e-reader at first-- actually, I was sure I'd hate it.  But I've found I actually don't mind, and kind of enjoy the convenience of not lugging a backpack full of books around every time I travel, just so I don't run out of reading material.

In the end, what I kept were most of my academic/non-fiction/reference titles, the comics/graphic novels that my husband didn't already have, any paperbacks that weren't already in his collection, that were out-of-print or unavailable as eBooks, and anything that was signed or otherwise collectible.  This meant that I got to give away many of my favourite books to friends and family, which was a bit sad, but also kind of fun in its own way, as I enjoy matching books with people.

There are a few things that I do miss, or wish I'd kept-- some old textbooks or critical editions from college, for example.  But I've found used copies of those available on Amazon pretty cheaply, so if we ever get our own space, I can replace them easily.

So, anyway, it could be worth going through your collection to see if there's anything you can shed.

And as someone who works in publishing, can I please beg you all not to buy from Amazon?! They are actually ruining our industry, and I'd quite like to keep my job... If you like to read books, support your local book shop - be it independent or Waterstones. It may sound ridiculous, but it makes a HUGE difference to those of us working in the industry as well as all the authors.

Hear Hear!

They aren't nice to their employees either.

On these grounds alone, never mind the ridiculous tax-dodging, or their wider effect on publishing and other industries, and local businesses, I would happily boycott Amazon.

Unfortunately, we don't have local businesses.  90% of all the non-grocery purchases we make have to be shipped in-- and a good few grocery purchases as well.

And while we get quite a bit of stuff from eBay (who I have issues with, as well), and do look for options from other online retailers, Amazon is one of the only places that routinely sends the bulk of it's deliveries through the post.  Most other places use courier companies.  This means, at best, that things take several extra days to arrive (as opposed to 1 or 2-day postal delivery).  There are also often extra shipping charges-- in some cases several times higher than the cost of the item itself.  And that's assuming that they'll ship out here at all; many retailers simply refuse, because they can't be bothered.

So, I'm afraid we're stuck with Amazon. 

Not sure if this is still possible, but it might be worth a check. When my dad finished his PhD at Columbia and moved back to the UK, he had the same problem. The solution was to get a one-way ticket on the QE2, which allowed him to take a fairly obscene weight in excess baggage (mostly books) for a nominal fee.