Daylight robbery

... or, as some call them, postal charges from Royal Mail. That's what I'm grappling with, as Supernatural Tales 17 has arrived. It's fine, and I'm really pleased that the Lulu internet conspiracy has worked. I've had less trouble with this order than any of my earlier issues, because of all of those direct interaction with the printing trade. Sad but true.

Problems:
1. The cost of printing was reasonable but the cost of delivering the package was not, adding considerably to my costs.
2. The cost of postage has gone up. It always bloody does, just before I do a post out. Cleverly I bought a lot of generic stamps (i.e. Second Class, Large) before the price hike, but I'm still faced with a bigger bill.

So, in the New Year (i.e. after ST 18) I'm putting my subscription prices up. I hope it won't put too many people off. I hate doing this because everyone who isn't a corrupt scumbag has presumably been hit to some extent by the crisis caused by the corrupt scumbags. So I'll try to keep it real, dudes. Obviously nobody publishes a tiny magazine to get rich, but I'm also keen not to actually lose a lot of money on this hobby. Just spend as much as, say, a fairly frugal builder of model boats.

On a positive note, I'm making progress with ST18 and hope it will be spiffing. I've got some old faithfuls, some newcomers, some radically weird stuff, some traditional ghostly tales - it's all coming together quite well.  I've also got some reviews to write, which will involve reading some books. Luckily I have plenty of holidays stockpiled, having had one day off work since Christmas.