Sep

19

no more Bound Printed Matter for zinesters

Filed Under mail | 3 Comments

At the post office today, I got an ugly surprise: The Postal Service has discontinued Bound Printed Matter as an option for folks like us. I mean, they really discontinued it this time (not just telling us it wasn’t available like they have in the past). Here’s info from the USPS website (emphasis mine):

DMM Revision: Postage Payment for Bound Printed Matter Limited to Permit Imprint

In March, we filed a notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission for a classification change requiring all mail­ings of Bound Printed Matter be paid by permit only. The Commission agreed, and we are moving forward with the change.

Effective September 11, 2008, the Postal Service™ is revising the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®) 363, 364, 365, 366, 463, 464, 465, 466, and 604 for all Bound Printed Mat­ter (BPM). Postage payment for all BPM mailings: carrier route, presorted, and nonpresorted (single-piece) flats and parcels, regardless of volume, are limited to permit imprint. Mailers can no longer affix postage by adhesive stamps, postage meter, or PC Postage®. BPM will not be accepted at retail counters, in collection boxes, or by car­riers and must be deposited and accepted at the Post Office™ facility that issued the permit.

In other words,  you can no longer, as an individual, use Bound Printed Matter for individual mailings sent with stamps or printed postage. The only way you can use Bound Printed Matter is:

  1. You fill out an application for a mailing permit.
  2. Pay a one-time application fee of $180.
  3. Pay $180 per year permit fee.
  4. Pay a deposit into your permit account (postage costs are deducted each time you make mailings) or you have to pay each time you make a mailing.
  5. Prepare an imprint for your mailing, like this:
  6. Permit mail has to be taken to the post office where you applied for the permit; you cannot drop the mail into any mailbox or to any post office. There may be limits (days or times) on when such mail can be dropped off, but most cities should have at least one post office which accepts permit mail.
  7. Mail something using your permit at least once every 2 years, or your permit will be revoked.

Once you have a permit, you can either mail things nonpresorted or presorted. Presorted is cheaper, but you have to mail at least 300 pieces at a time, and there are a lot of rules about how the mail has to be prepared and presented to the post office. Nonpresorted can be used for individual mailings, but costs a little more (although it’s still about half the price of First Class Mail). BPM rates still vary according to zone (ie, how far away the zip code you’re mailing to is from your zip code).

You can (for now, at least) still use Media Mail with postage stamps — but some zinesters have reported more difficulty using Media Mail lately.  See the Zinester’s Guide to U.S. Mail for details about Media Mail.

Much like the changes made last year for discount mailings for periodicals (see Zine World #25 for details), these changes raise barriers for small publishers, and therefore inhibit dissemination of information by mail. If this ticks you off as much as it does me, I hope you will contact the Postal Service and complain:
1-800-ASK-USPS (1-800-275-8777) — select More Options

Policy and Program Development, USPS Headquarters
or
Postmaster General Jack Potter
475 L’Enfant Plaza SW
Washington DC 20260-0010

We will be updating our U.S. Postal Rates sheet and the Zinester’s Guide to U.S. Mail within the next few days.


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3 Comments so far

  1. Updated Zinester’s Guide to U.S. Mail : Zine World on October 6, 2008 4:38 pm

    [...] weekend to finish up the updates to our Zinester’s Guide to U.S. Mail (PDF), in light of the changes to Bound Printed Matter. This guide covers the various options zine publishers can use for mailing with the U.S. and [...]

  2. N.Mokhoff on October 7, 2008 11:14 am

    This is certainly going to wipe out any small non-for-profit informative/ educational/ religious mailing organizations whose primary receivers live in various States of US. It takes away the ability of the mailer to use a nearby post office, requiring the use of cars and travel far from home/office. What ever happened to the idea that government and its offices SERVES the PEOPLE???
    Why make things not just more expensive, but also difficult to use?

  3. Bill Castle on November 30, 2009 6:09 am

    I assume you’re filtering comments, so feel free to delete or edit this. Thank you for your time.

    Our company offers presort processing of lists for Bound Printed Matter, Periodicals, Standard Mail, Non-Profit mail and many other options. If you can afford the permit, but don’t want to learn how to presort, we can process the file and send back PDFs, hard labels or whatever works best for you.

    We also work with a number of fulfillment houses that could handle the distribution if you don’t want to deal with that.