RANSVESTIA

IMPORTANT NOTICE - PLEASE READ

One of my good readers wrote me a couple of months ago and told me to stop apologizing for things but to just go ahead and do them, that my readers would understand. I hadn't realized that my comments came across as apologies, but the present statement is not an apology, it is simply a cold statement of circumstances and an explanation for the necessity.

Everybody these days is aware of inflation and of the increase of prices. None of us like it whether we are suppliers or consumers, but it is a fact of life that both sides have to live with. The prices for my printed merchandise were established many years ago. Trans- vestia became $5 per issue in 1970, for example. I know what every- body is up against and I have tried to hold the line. For the last 18 months or so I tried to do it with the 10 percent surcharge on in- voiced amounts. But this did not even pay the total postage costs, i.e., TVia requires 57 cents and 10 percent equals 50 cents. It took a little of the heat off but not enough. Getting out half-way decent looking publications requires a typographer to set type with a com- puter so that it will have a straight margin on the right side and then to "paste up" the galley sheets to page size to get it ready for the printer. This takes considerable time and patience with a resulting cost. Then the printer has to do his thing and as part of his work the pages with pictures on them have to be sent out to make a special metal plate for printing or else the pics wouldn't show up at all. Printing labor goes up. Paper and cover stock have gone up several times. After the printer comes the bindery and their prices go up. Finally, there is Uncle Sam and we all know how postage has gone up and we have been told to expect 15 cents per ounce later this year or early next year. Of course there are a lot of other supplies like forms, envelopes, etc., which also go up.

So, the upshot is that I just can't continue to put out the items on the price list at present prices. I haven't been able to make changes every time something goes up because the price lists are not only in the magazine but they are printed up separately to be sent out to new subscribers and they can't be being changed all the time. So I've just had to sit back and absorb it, but there comes an end to everything and this is it. For example, the urethane foam from which

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