Customer Support Ruling

Loose Leaf Pages – Media Mail
Updated January 2001

PS-010 (473.2)

This Customer Support Ruling discusses the eligibility of loose-leaf pages as books at the Media Mail rates of postage.

Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) 473.2.2a* provides that books and books issued to supplement other books may qualify for the Media Mail rates if they contain at least eight pages consisting wholly of reading matter, or scholarly bibliography, or reading matter with incidental blank spaces for notations, and if they contain no advertising matter other than incidental announcements of books.  Advertising includes paid advertising and the publisher's own advertising in display, classified, or editorial style.

Books are not required to be in bound form to qualify for the Media Mail rates. Thus, books in loose leaf form that meet the standards in DMM 473.2.2h, including books issued to supplement other books, qualify for the Media Mail rates.

Loose leaf pages that form a book may be enclosed in a binder or mailed with a binder at the Media Mail rates. Binders mailed by themselves, however, are charged the applicable First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, or Parcel Post rates, based on the weight of the mailpiece.

Transmittal pages, update pages, and replacement pages do not qualify for mailing as a book or supplement to a book at the Media Mail rates. Such pages are charged the applicable First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, or Parcel Post rates, based on the weight of the mailpiece.

Accordingly, a key consideration is whether the mailpiece is a book or whether it consists of transmittal, update, or replacement pages. As an example, one mailpiece submitted for postal review contained a loose leaf publication with the following statement printed on its front page:

• DISCARD ALL CONTENTS (white, buff, and gold pages for each chapter). They are replaced with the new white pages of the Sixth Edition in this package.

Because the sixth edition is a complete book, it qualifies as a book for mailing at the Media Mail rates.

*See also DMM 173.3 and 373.2.

(Signed)
Sherry Suggs
Manager
Mailing Standards
United States Postal Service
Washington DC 20260-3436