FYI, Cheryl Watson does electronic publication and evidently it's at least
successful enough for her to continue it. And it's not a terribly cheap
subscription either. Randy Cassingham (www.thisistrue.com) has a premium
edition that evidently attracts enough subscribers to make it worthwhile.
That subscription is at the opposite end of the price scale.
Personally I think the electronic subscription model that allows the
subscribers to distribute to anybody within their own organization is much
more convenient than trying to route around a paper copy. I don't doubt
that there's people that inappropriately forward such things, but then
again there's probably also people who inappropriately photocopy paper
subscriptions as well.
Scott Chapman
Chris Bunyan
<chrisb@xephon. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
com> cc:
Sent by: Linux Subject: Re: Mainframe/Linux journal -
your advice, please
on 390 Port
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ARIST.EDU>
10/31/02 10:40
AM
Please respond
to Linux on 390
Port
Hi David
Thanks for your reply.
I think we probably would go for a PDF edition, as well as or instead of a
print edition. There are two problems, though, with electronic publishing.
People don't expect to pay very much, which is a real problem in a niche
market. We'd expect to pay contributors about $40-50,000 a year in total -
how many potential subscribers are there willing to pay anything at all?
And electronic publications are very easy to pass along to others (unless
we inflict an intrusive security mechanism on our subscribers, which would
not be very popular!).
Also, the truth is that most people still prefer a printed journal.
So we are not yet 100% percent decided one way or the other - but thanks
again for your feedback.
Best wishes
Chris
>I'd also add that much of the enhancement work is cross-platform, and so
>is getting covered pretty extensively in the mainstream Linux journals.
>I'd think you'd get some traction on a developer focused journal, but
>still, probably not enough to justify a full paper publication.
>Have you considered testing the waters with a newsletter-style
>publication, either electronic or paper? It's a lot smaller committment,
>and (especially with the electronic version) much lower startup and
>operating costs. Even if it were the equivalent of just the vendor section
>of VM/Update, that would still benefit some folks, with one or two major
>articles per issue, say quarterly or so, that would be as good as the
>paper copy. Now that PDF is pretty much ubiquitious, there's not a lot of
>reason to mail paper between the UK and the rest of the world if we don't
>have to. (background: VM/Update was a fabulous magazine, but $135/yr, with
>a substantial cut of it going to HM Royal Post, was the death of our
>subscription. We can do better now).
-- db
____________________________________________________________
Xephon UK 27-35 London Road, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 1JL
Direct phone 01635 33798 (01144 1635 33798 from USA)
Fax 01635 38345 (01144 1635 38345 from USA)
____________________________________________________________
'Enterprise IS News' - free weekly e-mail newsletter.
Sign up here: http://www.xephon.com/lists
____________________________________________________________
