This postal rate hike sucks. Not only does Media Mail, our usual shipping method, go up 50 cents a package, but I just went to the post office and learned that they’ve eliminated the International Surface option. Everything now has to go Air Mail.
We have about 50 international subscribers from all over the world — Australia, China, South America. A very small portion of our subscription base, but when the average cost to ship an issue goes from $8 a copy to $27, that’s a lot of money to a little press. You do the math.
I’m not going to put our budget numbers out publically, but this rate increase is costing us an extra $2,500 on this issue alone, and that’s not an insignificant amount for us.
Next issue we’re going to try move to a mailing house, to take advantage of the bulk mail discounts, and hopefully offset some of this. We’re also going to have to jack up international subscription rates. Damn the Man.
Any other suggestions? I’m going to have to look into UPS or Fed Ex, maybe, for international shipping. Doubt it’s any cheaper, though.
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ps. At the P.O., I also picked up a couple hundred 2 cent stamps, so no one who submitted work before May 14th has to worry about their SASEs.
One little known feature of the rate “increase” is that when you send someone a book by first class mail, it’s cheaper now. The first ounce went up to forty one cents, but the second ounce went down, and subsequently, I can mail a chapbook for less money than I did before the rate change.