Why does it take so long for a new magazine subscription to come?!

Why does it take so long for a new magazine subscription to come?

My theory is they wait to get all that were returned from stores that month when the new month comes out. I just got 3 back issues of a mag I subscribed too. For example signed up in Feb, and got the Jan and Feb issues in March. Plus then they said my subs ended in Jan08. Complained of course, and they extended it to May08.

Looking for verification that my theory is correct, and also looking for a quicker way to get issues if I subscribe to something else.

hi- you don't get one that was returned from the stores. but your theory is partly correct. every mag has a minimum # of copies to sell to be able to keep their rates up, so if you subscribe in march and their jan and feb hadn't done that well they'd send them to you and say you were a subscriber in jan and feb. if they do this to enough new people they will make up the deficit of the bad sales.
the quickest way to get the mag is to order online from the actual publisher. they are usually handled out of one office for all of that company's mags so it takes awhile. those mags4cheap and third party companies take even longer to process and then send the info to the publisher so while cheaper, it's frustrating that it takes so long