Publishers across America are counting down the days until new postal regulations go into effect next month. At that time, mailing through the U.S. Postal Service gets a little more complex and a lot more expensive.

Unfortunately, a promise of higher rates doesn’t bring a promise of better delivery.

The National Newspaper Association  (NNA) points out that the new rates were not requested by the Postal Service. Instead, the fees were imposed by the new Postal Regulatory Commission.

The NNA calls the new rate structure a victory for Time-Warner publications whose testimony swayed commissioners to lower the rates for the big guys while jacking them up for smaller periodicals such as the small-town newspapers scattered across America.

Newspaper publishers had no reason to believe the commission would suddenly allow Time-Warner to set rates for the entire mail class, said NNA postal chair Max Heath, but as in other cases, big industry is doing well at calling the shots in Washington, D.C.

In recent years, the Postal Service has urged mailers to use more sacks when papers are sent out. By breaking down a large bundle of papers into smaller, localized sacks, delivery will be speeded along.

Now we pay the price. Beginning July 15, mailers will be charged for every sack they send out—up to $2.24 a bag every week in some situations.

Mailers will be faced with increasing subscription prices or using fewer sacks, which will lead to even slower delivery to subscribers out of the area.

This, in turn, will lead to further dissatisfaction among subscribers, many of whom already wait a week or two for delivery and are frustrated by papers arriving out of order. In other words, it will result in more canceled subscriptions.

One solution suggested by the NNA is to sell more electronic subscriptions and bypass the Postal Service altogether.

This leads to the irony of the new regulations. Increase prices, increase the complexity of the paperwork and then lose customers. It doesn’t make sense. The Postal Service needs the financial support of newspapers as much as we need it for our mailing.