Susan wrote:
>OK..OK..you've convinced me that Photo Techniques is a good one...
><salivating mildly> But, for those of us stuck in cowtown RUral America, is
>there a number I can call to s*ubscrib*e??? I have visited maybe 15
>newsstands and it isn't around.
>Susan
>in RUral Virginia
Susan,
Assuming you're online, you can subscribe at www.phototechmag.com.
Otherwise, you can call our 800 number at 1-800-877-5410.
MHeath wrote:
>I just may well go for the three-year subscription paid up front, but
>include two cents' worth of things I'd like to see in future issues
Duly noted. Thank you for the feedback.
Tomoko Yamamoto wrote:
>I propose to have some discussions on the desirable contents and trends in
>photo magazines while we have you around on the list<<<
Tomoko,
While I very much appreciated your message informing me of the
characteristics of some of the Japanese magazines, please forgive me if
I'm less than enthusiastic about discussing photo magazines in detail
here on the OU list. It is what I do for a living, and deal with in great
detail every day, all day. I have many constituencies to please, many
details to attend to, many personalities to accomodate, and many
political issues that create stress for me and soak up my energies.
Here, I am spending my personal time, based on my love of Olympus cameras
and lenses which I use for my own work, and I don't really wish to put a
great deal of energy into discussing what I do as my job.
I certainly don't mind if the REST of you get involved in such a
discussion, of course! But I would ask you to please excuse me if I don't
volunteer to anchor such a discussion over a long period of time.
That said, I will just mention that in Japan they (I can't say "you"
because I don't know where you are, although you have a Japanese name)
are very lucky, as photography is relatively more important and popular.
In America, we are very fortunate compared to Britain or Australia; but
still, several magazines have recently folded, and the leader in the
category is now down to less than half a million subscribers, less than
half what it was a number of years ago. As someone else on the list
noticed, one glossy magazine in the category was restructured a while
back as a lifestyle magazine (like _Vanity Fair_), to appeal to perfume
and liquor advertisers; and the only real success story of recent years
is _Outdoor Photographer_, which was structured with a double advertising
base: photography companies and outdoor companies. They get backpacking,
hiking shoe, and Jeep ads, which we never would. It is one reason why, as
a magazine, they are smart and successful, even though they might not
suit all photographers equally. In comparison to some of these
publications, our circulation is quite weak.
We are a niche publication. We were originally aimed at people who have
darkrooms. To let you know what is happening there, consider that a
decade or so ago, _one company_ sold 50,000 enlargers in a year; last
year the total unit sales for _all_ enlargers in North America was less
than 10,000. So, more recently, we have broadened the focus of the
magazine to include all types of craft photography, more "photo culture"
articles, lighting, studio, and location shooting, some digital content,
and more camera reviews. Our basic struggle has been to keep the content
of the magazine serious, informative and useful to people who are not
beginners. Our typical reader has 20+ years of involvement in photography
and 15+ years experience with darkroom work. That's the kind of person
we're trying to please. In that context, our circulation is extremely
strong. Among all photo magazines, IF you discount the ones that either
a) lead in a certain kind of advertising content (i.e., discount
mail-order for _Popular Photography_, used and repair for _Shutterbug_);
or b) are aimed directly at shoppers (_Petersen's_, plus the two just
mentioned); or c) that are structured to appeal to two or more
advertising client lists (_American Photo_ and _Outdoor Photographer_),
we're actually the BIGGEST of the magazines that are left; and a number
of the other true niche publications that comprise our true competition
are quite a bit smaller.
So that's one way to spin it. We can either look at ourselves as a bit
player in the general category, or as a big gorilla among the specialist
niche publications.
I prefer the latter "interpretation," of course <g>.
As for where we would stack up against the Japanese magazines, it's not
pertinent; because the business question is not what should be offered to
consumers, but of what the consumer markets will support. And Japan is a
different market altogether.
John Hudson wrote:
>Certainty of a stream of income at a low[er] income per unit is better and
>more lucrative than the off chance of a one-off sale at a high[er] income
>per unit.
>As production increases and fixed costs remain constant, the subscription
>revenue has only to exceed the marginal cost of production for the product
>to remain profitable. Subscription rates are slanted to recovering those
>marginal costs plus a small profit. One-off sale prices are slanted towards
>recovering marginal and fixed costs.<<<
Not quite accurate, on several counts. First, we lose money on newsstand
sales. Just consider that a magazine may have to put out 50,000 copies,
say, in order to sell 10,000. The rest go to waste. The percentage of
copies that actually sell is called the "sell-through," and, as you might
imagine, it's a vitally important number in the magazine distribution
business.
Second, cost of production is not the cost we must offset: the cost of
finding new subscribers--called circulation marketing--is the #1 cost of
doing business. It costs us so much to find a subscriber that we do not
make a profit on the subscription until the second year. This is not
unusual. It works like this (numbers for illustration purposes only, not
accurate to us). Say a circulation mailing nets us 3,000 new subscribers.
Each one costs us $6 (cost of the mailing divided by 3,000). Our profit
on a subscription is also $6. You can see that we do not make any money
on those 3,000 new subscribers the first year. But say that 1,500 of
those people renew their subscriptions for a second year. That's 1,500 x
$6 that we finally get to keep...
...Except we have to subtract from that amount the cost of the mailings
to the subscriber asking him or her to renew. The more of those we have
to send, the less of our second year's profit we get to keep. We also
have to subtract from the profit the cost of the billing.
If a reader subscribes for one year but requires multiple dunning notices
before paying, then requires multiple renewal notices before renewing,
then requires multiple dunning notices before paying for the renewal,
it's actually conceivable that we could lose *ALL* of our profit from
that person's two years of subscribing to the magazine, or very close to
it.
That is why, if you want to support a magazine, the best thing you can do
is to subscribe for more than one year at a time and send in your payment
with your order. This does several things for the magazine: guarantees a
renewal; saves the cost of the renewal notice(s); saves the cost of
billing; saves the cost of dunning; and allows the magazine to keep its
profit. Note that it doesn't end up costing you a penny more or less
either way, except for the slight discount you get for a multiple-year
subscription over the single-year price.
Now if you REALLY want to help out--actively--you can either give someone
a subscription as a gift or else talk one of your photo buddies into
subscribing--i.e., find a subscriber for us and save us the cost of
having to find him or her ourselves through our circulation marketing
efforts. But neither of those things happens very often, unfortunately.
Takes too much effort.
As you can imagine, publishing is not an easy business.
***
So may I please talk about Zuikos now? <gg>
I'm interested in getting a 35-70 zoom; I'm sure you all have covered
this ground before and might not want to again, but, if anyone wouldn't
mind taking the time, I'd love to hear of peoples' impressions,
experiences, and favorites among the various options. Thanks!
--Mike
Mike Johnston, Editor-in-Chief
_PHOTO Techniques_ magazine
(www.phototechmag.com)
Preston Publications Division of Preston Industries, Inc.
Niles, Illinois
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