New postal rates went into effect yesterday, but the biggest impact of the new rates and policies hasn’t yet been felt.
A new set of policies governing the delivery of magazines through the mail has been postponed until July. That’s a bit of needed good news for small magazines that will face rather hefty price increases.
The increases have even got The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel complaining that “the Postal Service is a monopoly.”
Maybe it’s time for magazines that can’t afford to meet the new rates without untenable price hikes or layoffs (or both) to consider alternative delivery methods.
One option would be to go to a completely digital format, like Salon or Slate.
Another might be to partner with groups other than the Postal Service that already deliver to customer’s doors. The latter might be local delivery people who contract for daily or weekly newspapers.
It might be in the interests of both parties to partner up or combine their delivery efforts, in the same way that papers like The Wall Street Journal or the New York Times are delivered nationally.
Perhaps the local newspapers could get a boost to their profits by charging a small fee to deliver the magazines along with their daily routes.
Update: Much more on the postage increase at the Logos blog.