Has anyone received their Chess Life? Does anyone think it premature to post articles online before the magazine has been mailed? At one time the mail date was shown on the home page; I think that is still a good idea; can it be resumed?
According to Daniel Lucas, the October issue went to the post office in St. Cloud MN on schedule, on 9/24.
Daniel also says he usually gets his copy (in the Atlanta area) around the 7th of the month.
Arrived in Peoria, Il 10/04/2007
Arrived in Lincoln NE 10/4, too.
Finally arrives in Birmingham,Alabama yesterday 11/11. Does anyone know if the local postoffice can delay delivery under this bulk system for a few days?
I haven’t looked at the postal manual in quite a while (it’s several thousand pages of governmental gobbledygook, as I recall) and I don’t know if the work rules for postal employees are even available online, but my understanding from having attended several seminars for mailers is that at each intermediate stop en route to the final destination (essentially that means to your carrier) they can take a day or two (possibly longer) to process periodical rate mail, ie, resort it and send it on to the next stop.
A ‘direct’ bundle, ie one that goes directly to the carrier’s building (or better yet directly to the carrier’s desk) before it is opened, is going to have considerably fewer intermediate stops than one that has to be resorted into smaller bundles several times, first by state, then by regional center, then by city, etc.
The criteria for a direct bundle has to do with the number of copies going to that zip code or carrier route, so it’s a numbers game. (And that’s a large part of the reason why magazines with a circulation of several million get to you much faster. There are other reasons as well, such as multiple printing and mailing sites.)
Same here.
9/24 → 10/11 is not believable.
We have once again slipped back to the point where CL is of primarily historical interest.
Any study of how much is saved by mailing this way? I get The Economist, Barron's and Newsweek within a day or so of publication. Is there a middle ground approach that would cost a bit more, but provide quicker delivery?
There is some validity to sloan’s point. Sizable chunks of the Oct 2007 Chess Life paper magazine are devoted to recent tournaments, such as to the World Open of early July. By definition, coverage of recent events seems intended for prompt delivery. However,…
Is there really much difference having coverage of the World Open arrive after 12 weeks instead of 11? 1/12 = 8.3%, seems like a small difference. So if the COST difference is big, the higher cost seems unjustifiable, if coverage of the World Open and similar are the argument. However,…
A bigger concern might be that several articles from the paper Chess Life were posted online on UsChess.org weeks before I and many others received the Oct 2007 issue. PSYCHOLOGICALLY I find this a little disconcerting, tho pure logic says “so what”.
I want the paper articles to be reproduced on UsChess.org, but seeing the articles online before I receive my paper Chess Life seems to lower the prestige of the paper CL. I am unsure how I feel about it all.
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I don’t know about the Economist, but Barrons and Newsweek are printed in multiple plants around the USA (and probably in Europe as well), with copies trucked by the publisher overnight to regional postal distribution centers to save a day or two in transit (and possibly even some postage costs, since periodical rates are based on the ‘zone’ between the mailing site and the recipient.)
You can do things like that when you’re mailing a half million pieces (if not several times that) each issue, you can’t when you’re mailing 45,000. Small circulation magazines are pretty much at the mercy of the Postal Service.
About the only option the USCF would have is to use 1st class rates, which would probably cost an additional $1.50 per issue or about $67,500 per month.
It’s a political decision.
Some organizations embargo on-line delivery until paper copies have been delivered to paying subscribers.
Others want to kill the paper version, and intentionally degrade the service provided to the paying subscribers, in the hope that no one will mind when the paper version goes away.
In USCF, this question (like so many others) depends on who is in control this week.
Follow the money.
On your other point - there is considerable time-sensitive information in CL. Consider the poor fool who paid for a TLA announcing a tournament held this coming weekend. Was THURSDAY a timely announcement for a tournament starting FRIDAY evening?
I don’t have much to add to what Mike Nolan has posted…he’s covered the big points. However, I will remind everyone that effective with the January 2007 issue we moved up production and mailing by a full week–this caused considerable staff stress at the time. Remember, we are a very small shop.
Regarding Kenneth Sloan’s post about 9/24-10/11 being “not believable,” I can’t tell if you’re questioning my believability or if you’re saying the post office’s time lag is unbelievable as in, “I can’t believe it takes them so long!” All I can report is that the 24th of the month is typically when the magazine is mailed (unless the 24th falls on a weekend or holiday). Up until January 2007 issue, the 30th/31st is when the magazine was typically mailed. No deadline has been missed in the last two years. The problems lay squarely on the shoulders of the US Postal Service, unless we’re willing as an organization to spend the extra money that Nolan has detailed.
My copy arrived here in Atlanta on 10/10, a few days later than usual. I’ve had it arrive as early as the 3rd this year, and I believe the 10th is the latest I’ve received it here this year. I am sympathetic with tournament organizers with events this weekend; without spending more on postage, I’m not sure what else I can do besides make sure we deliver files to the printer on deadline so they can ship on deadline on the 24th.
Regarding timing of events covered in the magazine: Most of these events have stories/details up on Chess Life Online during or immediately after the event. Chess Life does what a magazine can do better than the web: offer considered analysis and digging up the deeper stories. Trying to get these reports in the magazine quicker would be a failed competition with what the web will always do better. This is part of what Jennifer Shahade and I view as a “marriage” of the website and the magazine. Some of you are sure to take that analogy and run absurd lengths with it…you have my blessings to do so. 
Regards,
Daniel Lucas
Interesting. I live about 5 miles from Daniel, and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten it before the 10th.
You could live a block from him, but if that puts you in a different zip code the delivery times could be quite different.
I would think if the bundle for Atlanta went to the "Main" postoffice and was processed there to the various outlying ones, that they would receive the magazines at the same time and only if they had different delays in delivery would there be any difference in receiving the magazine. Now that I've said this, I wonder if in fact that is the target postoffice????? If not, why might this not be a way to get delivery more evenly to all areas?
Preparing periodical mailings is very complicated, Bob. I haven’t done it much for the last few years, so my knowledge of the process may be slightly dated.
There may not even be an ‘Atlanta’ bundle. It all depends on the distribution by zip code. If there are enough for a bundle to that zip, that bundle will avoid some intermediate stops that a 3 digit bundle has to take, which will in turn avoid some intermediate stops that a ‘mixed states’ bundle has to take.
The co-mailing program can also affect things. This may be a bit of a simplification of the co-mailing program: If there aren’t enough copies for a 5 digit bundle those copies are sent to Chicago where they are combined with magazines from other publishers to make up a 5 digit bundle. It takes an additional day or two to do that, but that should still save some time over a ‘mixed states’ bundle, and I believe it saves us over a thousand dollars a month, too.
Mike, Thanks for this explanation.
Typical co-mailing savings is $1800-$2000 each month.
Daniel Lucas
I'd think it would be incredibly penny-wise and pound-foolish to advertise a tournament held in the first half of the month [i]only[/i] in that month's Chess Life. While it's probably a good idea to advertise a tournament beginning in the second weekend of the month in the current Chess Life (which actually states in the TLA section that it lists tournaments which begin [i]on or after the 1[/i]5th of the month), especially if it's a tournament with large prizes, that should[i] not [/i]be at the expense of excluding the tournament from the previous month's Chess Life. If you're going to invest your money and time in running a tournament, you shouldn't gamble on the post office not to blow your investment. And even if the magazine does arrive before the second week of the month, one week's notice is usually not enough for most players.
Steve, you’ve touched on one of my favorite complaints about certain organizers, they expect Chess Life to do all their heavy lifting. No flyers at other tournaments, no postcards or flyers in the mail, no phone calls, no press releases to the local papers, no website, etc.
Maybe MAYBE you can do that once you’ve built up a regular clientele for recurring events, but I suspect the really successful organizers here have a promotional campaign for their events in which Chess Life plays a part, but only a modest one.