How to Make a Magazine: Part 2
Getting Beyond from Us to You.
Since magazines (1) promote national culture and (2) do so much mailing, national postal services such as Canada Post in Canada (not to be confused with Canada Post in Lithuania) usually cut publishing companies a deal, allowing issues to be mailed for as much as 80% less than the cost of regular letter mail.
But the times, they are a’ changin'. For example, it’s now
five minutes later than when we first started this post. And here in the frozen
land of rain and sleet and snow and hail, Canada Post, that love-child of the
Canadian government, is axing its postage deal as of March 2009.
This is OK for Beyond, since for a host of reasons, we were never eligible for the mailing deal that would have seen our mailing costs drop from $1.92 to $0.21 per magazine mailed in Canada anyway. (In order to qualify, for example, we would have had to feature advertising in at least 5% of our pages.)
And to qualify for a lesser mail subsidy, we would have had to pay $500 for a magic number that required us to sort addressed magazines in a particular and migraine-inducing way, fill out endless forms, and mail a minimum number of copies at any one time. Not to mention that as a largely volunteer-run organization, we would have had to hire a mailing house to deal with all of the above. (Insert the sound of dollars running away from home.) So in the end, the magic number was magic alright – black magic.
So it was thought of, so it was written, so it shall be done. Time for tea (in the chair by the poster with the book, next to a scantily-clad goldfish swimming in his bowl by candlelight, coddling a car part, and oh – that’s right – the latest issue of Beyond).
