Hi Elaine:
As I believe told you before, we do not have a database, and the magazines are not addressed to anyone or any street. Our magazines printed in Ohio and trucked to Pittsburgh Mailing on Streets Run Road where they are bundled according to carrier routes, which the mailing house gets from (and gets regular updates from) the postal service. As far as I can determine, it is totally the fault of the post office management that your street and a number of other streets are being missed. The carriers are to take the magazines out within a reasonable time frame—that is what we are paying for. They don’t, obviously because no one is making them do it. They magazines were delivered to Castle Shannon Boulevard, Cedarhurst and Dormont, the post offices that serve Mt. Lebanon, on December 29. The other two post offices got the magazines out within two days. I still have not received mine...Laura Lilly of our staff... only got here yesterday and we had a report yesterday that Sunnyhill (15228) had not received any magazines. So it is not just Vallevista.
Bill Finch told me yesterday that he had plenty of magazines for all the routes and they had all been delivered. So go figure. He also told me that when In Community Magazine came in a couple of days ago, he thought it was our magazine and got it out—doubtful, since we have been mailing out of that post office for going on 31 years and our magazine already had been sitting there for a week. Employees at that post office have told us it upsets them to see the magazines sitting there and carriers not taking them out because “their bags are too heavy.”
We have filed a formal complaint with the postal service’s business affairs division, after talking for a month with about five different representatives of the postal service’s customer service and consumer affairs divisions, which did nothing. The business division assures me they will get things resolved. I am skeptical but hopeful.
Our only alternative would be to mail the magazines directly from the printer to the central Pittsburgh processing center, where they would be entered into the computer system. This would require us to eliminate our advertising insert program, which generates $44,000 a year in revenue, however, and the magazine would still end up at 15228 where we would be at the mercy of the management there.
It is very frustrating to have everyone from the writers and photographers to the proofreaders to the advertising sales reps to the advertisers to the printer and the mailhouse making deadlines only to be stymied by the post office. Particularly frustrating when you think that it is one government agency thwarting another.
Next time we talk to Bill Finch, we can ask him once again about Vallevista, but in the intermin I would suggest that you complain to your carrier, to Bill Finch and to anyone in the postal service who will listen.
Thanks for seeing that your neighbors got the magazine.
Susan
So how about posting if your street has had any troubles receiving mtl Magazine? Bill Finch is the manager of the Castle Shannon Post Office and can be reached at (412) 561-1173.
Update 01/08/12: Read what 2012 holds for the magazine industry
More Apps, Tools and Devices
Finally, the print industry has clued in to the fact that this whole internet, digital age thing isn’t going away any time soon. And they sure are making up for lost time. In 2011, every magazine intensified their digital presence, whether it be by launching an app, creating a new website,developing a social media tool, or implimenting mobile codes in their issues. And with all the excitement surrounding the iPad, Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook, you can expect magazines to focus even more of their attention on developing unique user experiences for new gadgets.
