> February 4, 2003
>
> President's Commission on the United States Postal Service
>
> 1120 Vermont Avenue, NW, Suite 971
>
> Washington DC, 20005
>
> Please Give Independent Publishers a Break
>
> Dear Commissioners:
>
> Your service is instrumental to many small businesses in the United
> States. It certainly is impossible for *my* company\--and other
> independent publishers like those in the Independent Press
> Association, to which I belong\--to operate without patronizing the
> United States Postal Service. As important customers, we would like
> you to recognize that we independent publishers are in a class by
> ourselves.
>
> My company's magazine, [EcoFlorida,]{.underline} isn't a "shopper,"
> "rag," tabloid or newsletter. It is the only magazine that covers
> Florida nature and nature travel. [EcoFlorida]{.underline} doesn't
> have enough subscribers to qualify for the periodical rate, as many
> big-time publishers have. For the first year, [EcoFlorida]{.underline}
> used first-class mail to send issues to subscribers\--at \$1.43 each.
> Ouch! **Can you imagine Time magazine sending its magazines out via
> first-class mail?!** It would go bankrupt. For the past two years,
> [EcoFlorida]{.underline} has had enough subscribers to send issues via
> bulk mail.  But do you know that, after printing expenses, postal
> expenses take the biggest chunk of our budget, of which less than 5%
> comes from advertising? And yet **[EcoFlorida]{.underline} has to pay
> more than large publishers to fulfill its subscriptions**. As
> full-time editor and publisher, I don't even take a salary; I have
> been living off savings, freelance employment and my spouse's earnings
> while the business takes shape.
>
> I'm trying to show you that [EcoFlorida]{.underline} is **different
> from both the big-time publisher and the commercial bulk ("junk")
> mailer**. Neither is [EcoFlorida]{.underline} a nonprofit
> organization. Many independent publishers, like some of the titles
> they publish, don't fit into neat categories.
>
> And subscribers with specialized interests shouldn't have to lose to
> those who want homogenized fare going to the masses or to those who
> throw away pound after pound of junk mail they don't even open.
>
> While small independent periodicals like mine make up a fraction of
> the mail passing through the USPS, they provide a great percentage of
> the press' information, ideas and insight, the distribution of which
> *helps your service to fulfill its historic responsibility to serve
> the national interest*. Now that large media companies own most of the
> nation's publications and mindshare, independent magazines stand
> out\--and stand on the freedom of the press that the U.S. Constitution
> provides. *The free flow of ideas is one reason our nation is so
> great, but something that could end at this level if postage costs
> become prohibitive for small publishers like me*. There is no other
> publication like [EcoFlorida]{.underline}, likely because its market
> is so small that large publishers aren't interested.
>
> **I would like to see the USPS develop a special rate for independent
> publications with true content, or allow small publications to receive
> a special periodical rate. *I would like to see the USPS provide
> greater financial breaks to independent magazines than it gives to
> general bulk mailers.***
>
> Someday, I hope to mail [EcoFlorida]{.underline} to subscribers
> without having to put it in an oversized envelope\--the way it has
> always been mailed to subscribers\--which is an added expense both in
> the printing and in the weight it adds, not to mention a waste of
> paper. You can help me get to that point by not burdening independent
> publishers with excessive postage costs by treating us like regular
> bulk mailers. Because we are in a class by ourselves.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Holly Ambrose, publisher