Is it me or is it taking longer for books to get to people, whether 40 miles away or 3,000 miles? We continuously pay more and rates rise, yet service is less as satisfactory.....

Has anyone else noticed this?

I mailed many books FIRST CLASS mail --- 6 in fact, 10 days ago and all haven't been marked received.   

In the Pulse of PBS feature theres a thingie at the bottom that will calculate how long it takes on average for a book to be delivered. You just plug in where you are and where the book is going. Its really been a crap shoot for me my entire time here. Sometimes books take a long time sometimes they get there really quickly. Its also seasonal to some degree. The closer it gets to the holidays the longer it usually takes.

The biggest shock to me is that the books I send media mail gets there almost as fast as the ones I send first class.  Most of the books I've sent have been speeding across country lately.

That's odd, because I sent 2 different batches (1 a week) , all the ones I sent a few days ago have arrived, the others, still haven't been marked received.     

I had a book arrive media mail yesterday that was mailed from GA on Wed.  I live in WA state. That's pretty fast.  But I have books unreceived that I sent to address closer that haven't arrived yet.  And I'm still waiting for books that were supposed to have been mailed a month ago.  It's a toss up really.   Depends on how busy your PO is when you mailed it,how busy the PO's are on it's route and at it's destination.  It also depends on if the person really mailed it when they said they did. I'm suspecting this book I'm waiting for wasn't mailed by the date when they checked it was. But I could be wrong.  Also it might take someone a few days to log on and say a book has arrived. I personally log them in as soon as I get them.  But I got one yesterday and didn't log it in until this AM. I was gone all day and never got around to opening it and checking the condition. 

Yes, well they are books I sent, one is 40 miles away so I don't think it would take 10 mail days to receive it.      

When the rates changed, it seemed like media mail was moving faster.  But that didn't last long.  Lately I've had a book go lost, only to show up a week later.  It was traveling form PA to GA and took 5 weeks.  Another books sent to me (NV to PA) took 4 weeks.  Many other packages I've sent have taken 2 - 3 weeks which I guess is what the post office says to expect, but it seems extreme when one of the packages is just traveling 3 hours away.

First class mail is getting slower too.  My neighbor (four houses away) mailed me an invitation to a party.  It took 6 days to get to me.  I've been looking at the postal dates on my first classes letters (and bills) and this is getting to be the norm.   I told my neighbor to just leave it inside the door next time. 

I've noticed a slight change, a day or two, but it is the holiday season.