For Cheryl and anyone else who might be interested -- Here's a brief description of how Modern Ferret magazine is distributed. Our printer (currently in Montreal) ships various numbers of magazines to our distributors as soon as the magazine is printed. The distributors break down the shipments and send them out to bookstores (usually within days of receiving them). Our printer also ships directly to our distributor that puts the magazine into pet stores. That distributor then breaks down the shipment and sends (via truck and/or UPS) the magazines to pet stores. All of these distributors have an economic incentive to move the copies as rapidly as possible to the store shelves -- that's how they make their money. Then comes the US Post Office... The mailing to our subscribers is done by a mail house that is affiliated with our printer. For issue #7, the magazines were shipped from the printer in Canada to their mail house in upstate NY. There, the magazines waited until we sent them the labels (then waited some more because of a screw up regarding a check). The mailing finally went out on September 26th (though we were originally told they went out on the 18th) -- approximately 10 days after copies went to the distributors. The mail house affixed the labels and gave the magazines (the copies that go to subscribers) to the Post Office. Modern Ferret goes by third class mail, which means the PO has little respect for it. The PO says that it doesn't have to deliver third class mail right away -- it can take **6 weeks** to deliver the magazine if it wants to (and there are people it takes longer to reach and/or it never gets there at all). During those 6 weeks, the magazines are being distributed into pet stores and bookstores as quickly as the distributors can get them there. We get numerous calls/e-mails from subscribers who want to know why the magazine is in stores before it arrives in their homes. All I can say is: That's the way the distribution works. The PO has no economic incentive to rush -- they're the only game in town. To qualify for "Periodicals Rate" (which used to be 2nd class mail), we would have literally several solid weeks worth of record-keeping preparations. We would also be prevented from donating copies of the magazines to the various clubs, shelters, and legalization efforts we currently donate copies to (Periodicals Rate requires a PAID circulation). The PO treats Periodicals Rate magazines much more like first class mail -- in other words, it delivers them in a timely manner. In addition, the new postal regulations regarding addressing accuracy for bar codes and address correction etc are beyond our current software's abilities (we wrote the software ourselves). Thus, we cannot take advantage of any of these options to help speed the mail. We have been told that one of the things that helps speed the mail the most is the size of the mailing. The more pieces of mail going to a particular ZIP code or state, the more easily the mail goes through the system. We received our office copy (we mail copies to ourselves and to various friends to time the mailing) on Oct 9. We have a lot of subscribers in the Long Island, NY area, which probably helps speed that batch of mail. We have not heard from any of our other contacts across the country yet. In a separate issue, the first class (plain wrapper) mailing of Modern Ferret is currently being prepared for mailing. These copies must be hand packaged by us in opaque packaging. We cannot use an outside service to do the mailing because we must protect the confidentiality of our first class subscribers (no one but us sees the names & addresses -- ever!). We have been experiencing constant growing pains over the past couple of years as we attempt to produce a better and better magazine (Issue #7 came in at 52 pages with lots of color and Issue #8 is slated to feature some free ferret postcards inside). This has been a lot of work for just the two of us and we are constantly troubleshooting the major problems as best as we can. So far we have done fairly well for a publisher starting out with nothing. We have reached the point where it is no longer necessary for us to take on outside work in order to keep putting money into the magazine. Modern Ferret may even be able to help us pay our own bills in a year or two. In the meantime we are living under difficult (but free) conditions. We believe that we are making a contribution to ferrets that is unique -- a color glossy pet magazine that maintains a sense of humor and passion far beyond the typical dog or cat magazine. We feel that our commitment to ferrets because we are ferret owners will help us prevail over the magazines put out by companies just to "round out the product line." As for why we would prefer people subscribe vs buying it in the store, the answer is that the strength of a magazine is directly measured by its subscription base (the higher the number of subscribers, the better luck you have wooing advertisers, which are the financial bedrock of a magazine). Although we do eventually get paid for copies sold through stores, we are only now getting money for copies of Issue #5 that were sold in pet stores and bookstores. That means that we paid for all the production on Issues #5, 6, and 7 and the pre-production work on #8 before getting paid for #5 (that's why magazines take so much money to launch). It is best for subscribers to contact us directly if they have a question about their subscriptions to Modern Ferret. We do not always have time to read the FML (Thanks BIG for forwarding Cheryl's question to me). You can e-mail us at [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] We do not always answer e-mail quickly (we get way more than we can process), so please be patient. There are only two of us and we return calls/e-mails based on their medical (life-threatening) priority. Sorry for the size of this post, but it covers several questions we have recently received both privately and publicly. Thanks for your patience & best to you & your fuzzies, Mary & Eric & the Furry Foursome (Sabrina, Ralph, Marshmallow & Knuks) [Posted in FML issue 1723]