Postal Rate Increase Affects Aspiring Authors

All you aspiring authors should keep in mind that the United States Postal Service is raising rates in early January. If you’re pumping out manuscripts now, then your self-addressed-stamped-envelopes need to start carrying the new amount of postage. According to this news release from the USPS website, the wheels have been set in motion to “increase most postal rates and fees by approximately 5.4 percent across-the-board to take effect January 8.”

According to a chart provided with that news release, a 37 cent stamp for a first class letter will be 39 cents after the increase.

What really sucks is how this affects all those submissions made to the Toilet Paper Review or whatever tiny literary journal caught my attention back in the summer. This new release about the approval of the rate increase was posted on November 14, 2005. But so often, journals and magazines can take more than six months to respond. So that submission you toiled over in early September may never reach you because it won’t have enough postage.

I realize this is the first increase since 2002 and the USPS can’t run their policies based on the needs of aspiring authors, but this really stinks.

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