Doug Van Pelt

A message I don't want to send

I will soon have to send an email that makes me very sad. In fact, in 24 years of publishing this magazine, I've never had to do it before. This guy that I'm going to send it to actually suggested it to me before, and I kind of scoffed at the idea. 'There's no way I'm ever going to ask you not to renew your subscription! It's just not going to happen.'

Until now, that is.
You see, this guys lives in Puerto Rico and, unlike the half dozen or dozen other subscribers from there, this guy never seems to get his issues. In fact, about 75% of the issues we mail this guy ... we have to mail again. I get a phone call or email from this brother in Christ about every month or two. "I never got (such and such) issue. What is wrong?" Without a fuss, we put another copy in an envelope and ship it to him. He usually gets it the second time. There've been a couple times where he hasn't and we've mailed him 3 copies of an issue.

I think someone in his postal system is corrupt and keeps stealing his issue. Or maybe the sorting system with our printer is messing it up. The zip code in Puerto Rico, I think, start with zeroes, much like some in the Northeast (Massachussets, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and some military AE addresses), so I wonder if it's somehow getting routed to the wrong place.

David Sanchez is one of the sweetest guys I know.
I've hung out with him at GMA for several years in a row, sometimes giving him rides from one showcase back to the hotel he or both of us are staying. We've shared breakfast before. He brings me copies of concerts of metal bands like Dracma from PR, as well as burns from old Christian rockers, like Mylon LeFevre. He has a gentle spirit.

Hold on! The Fed Ex truck is here!
TIME OUT! (Everything stops when a new issue arrives. I spent two months out of my life working on this.)

Okay, back to reality. The new issue looks sweet. Checking out the new issue is one of my favorite things about this job.

So, as much as we need subscribers (new, current, and old), it doesn't make sense to keep losing money on this guy, year after year. I'll talk him into getting a (reduced price of $6) digital only subscription, so he can still read HM. I'll look for a solution for our brother publication, Heaven's Metal Fanzine, like maybe sending him a PDF of each issue or something. Anyway, this is the weirdest and saddest thing, isn't it?

Now, I must go and fill out an envelope for David. He didn't get issue #77 of the fanzine, so I'm sticking another one in an envelope.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at February 9, 2009 10:23 AM