First of all, my sympathies to all who ordered this book and got let-down after let-down.
Second: thanks for the kind words on the PINBALL book by Santiago Ciuffo, which is published by Pinball Magazine (link at the top of this page).
As publisher of Pinball Magazine, I'm familiar with how crazy shipping costs can be. I am working with two postal companies, both offering various rates, in order to keep shipping costs affordable. However, I've never seen the rates that you guys have been charged. I'm not saying these aren't accurate, but there must be ways to ship the books cheaper.
If I may make a suggestion for overseas customers, like those in Western Europe: it may be very cost effective to ship all books and other materials that come with it as freight to one address in e.g. The Netherlands. From there, the books can either be picked up, or shipped to another lcation in Europe. The shipping rate with PostNL for a package up to 5 kilograms from Netherlands to most West EU countries is like 20 Euro, even cheaper if it's under 2 kilograms. The split shipping costs of the cargo package are probably even less than that, so I guess the shipping would per backer shouldn't exceed 40 euro. Not sure if I can be of any help, but I'm willing to see if I can in some way.
Regarding the 90% refund: as far as I can see, the math is off. Kickstarter takes 5% and so does Paypal. But Paypal also applies fees (probably 5%) in case of a refund. I'm sure you can do the math on that.
Slightly related (shameless self plug):
As I mentioned, as publisher of Pinball Magazine I've been dealing with shipping books and magazines quite a bit. Recently I discovered a 'loophole' that actually results in lower postal costs in some cases. I'll spare you the technical details, but if you've been on the fence about ordering issues of Pinball Magazine due to shipping costs in the past, now may be a good time to maybe consider ordering one or more issues (which are more like books anyway).
Jonathan
www.pinball-magazine.com/shop/