A reader named Mason DeCamillis writes in with a question/complaint:
Why does it take several weeks for magazines to update my mailing address when I move? I just changed my address with two magazines (on their respective websites), and both say it will take up to two publication cycles for the change to take effect. That seems crazy. When I buy something at an online store, I enter my address and they’re able to make a shipment to it the following business day, without waiting weeks for their database to be updated.
On the same note, when I originally subscribed to one of these magazines, I didn’t receive my first issue for almost three months, but in that time I received three letters from them asking me to renew my subscription. If they’re able to send a letter to me that quickly, shouldn’t it at least be accompanied by a current issue of the magazine?
Ouch. That’s a lot of bad practice for just a couple of paragraphs, but it’s hard to disagree. So why does this happen? Why is magazine fulfillment so last-century? And is it possible that these various flaws are responsible, even in small measure, for the massive plunge in ad revenues that magazines have just experienced? In an instant-gratification Internet world, are slow-footed magazines — nice glossy pages and all — helping to extinguish themselves?
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Its because they are typically printing/preparing the Magazine a month to two months in advance of the Actual Issue. At some point physical copies have to be printed and bound, and if a Publication has a large circulation that only takes more time.
So the address change has to go from the Magazine to whomever is printing the Magazine in enough time to get the variable data swapped out. Obviously subscription address changes arent going to be made over and over throughout production, not cost effective, so they are probably all lumped in at an early date in production. You aren’t going to change a Magazine at Blue Line for one address change.
@1 – I would have to disagree. When I moved, the same thing happened to me. Except that Sports Illustrated had the next magazine at my new address even though I put off informing them of the change until the week we moved.
In addition to that, many (if not most) of my wife’s magazines come in handy dandy environmentally unsafe clear plastic wrapping that has all the address information on it. You can’t tell me they print those things up weeks in advance.
Finally, the people who moved out of our current house had a magazine subscription that was never forwarded to their new address. It’s been over 2 years and we still get the magazine but now it comes in my wife’s name. And no, it isn’t a magazine we ever got before.
I think the system is broken.
#1, that may explain Better Housekeeping or Sunset but not Newsweek or Time. I presume these latter publications operate much more like newspapers since most of what they publish has be very timely. In my experience, they are not better at address changes than the monthies.
Printing and binding doesn’t necessarily include the address being sprayed onto the magazine as a part of printing (other than that novelty Reason cover with “your address GoogleMap” printed on the cover). If printing is done by a vendor (such as Quebecor, North America’s largest printer) how often the magazine refreshes their mailing list with the vendor, and how often they pay for the address list to be presorted. Since the USPS will do address forwarding for 30 days without charge for most permit mailers, that’d tend to be your cost-effective window.
I just found out the USPS won’t charge periodicals for address forwarding until 60 days after the change of address, so there it is.
from http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/507.htm#4_0
4.1.4 Periodicals
Address correction service is provided automatically for all Periodicals publications (including publications pending Periodicals authorization) and begins 60 days after the effective date of the addressee’s change of address. Address corrections are provided as separate notices or, at the mailer’s request, on the returned pieces.
Most of the magazines I receive arrive in a plastic bag, or with the address printed on a sticker on the front cover. Since the magazines aren’t printed and bound with the names/addresses printed directly on them, the binding process shouldn’t be affected by updating address information that will be added to the magazine after it’s printed and bound.
May be because they print a dozen or so address slips in advance to save cost?
Carl is right. I worked in the magazine industry for years. Magazines are made 1 to 2 months in advance. For magazines with circulations in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, printing, binding, and shipping throughout the country is no small feat and its done well in advance.
I just looked at my old magazine’s schedule. Right now they are working on the July/August issue. The May issue (which actually hits stands late April) has likely already been printed and is currently starting its journey from the printing press to people’s mailboxes. The June issue is probably well into the proofing stage, past the point where they’d resubmit files to the printer simply for a new address. If you subscribed now in mid-April, July/August would probably be the first issue you’d get delivered.
That may seem like the industry is absurdly ahead of schedule, but its really not. Its actually a nail-biter every month trying to get those things on the stand by the date printed on the cover.
Carl, the addresses are not printed on the actual magazines most of the time. They are printed on small labels that get slapped on the magazines.