Jim wrote:
> I should acknowledge that the prizes being offered in this contest are very
> nice. Nevertheless, with the kind of sponsors listed (Nikon, Lowepro,
> Mamiya, etc.) the magazine should be able to afford running a contest
> without charging that much to entrants. Of course, maybe I'm just ignorant
> of the ways of good old Amer-uh, I mean Canadian business! :)
I can speak to this a bit, since I ran several contests for _Photo
Techniques_. First off, the prizes are donated, but the sponsors don't
provide any money beyond the prizes. It's relatively cheap for sponsors to
provide prizes because they're only out their own cost, often a fraction of
retail, and they can charge it to their PR budgets, and the exposure is
generally a lot cheaper than an ad.
It does cost the magazine quit a bit to run a contest. The man-hours spent
opening, sorting, acknowledging, judging, and returning all the entries is
significant. (_Camera & Darkroom_ used to run a contest every month, and had
a staffer just to deal with all the entries. The contest that was being run
at the time the magazine folded was a "postcard" contest, and I understand
crates full of postcards were thrown in the dumpster--along with all the
back issues (!)--when LFP shut the offices down.)
However, my position as editor was that photographers shouldn't participate
in "opportunities" that amount to a rip-off. We never ran contest
announcements in the "News & Products" section, for instance, if the contest
required an entry fee. A lot of contests, juried shows, and pay-to-publish
books are simply ways of making money for the organizers. I was always
adamant that with our contests, the payoff was reader involvement with the
magazine and goodwill, and that we should practice what we preach and not
ask for an entry fee.
However, with the last contest that was underway when I quit, we were asking
for an entry fee. The new "Director of Marketing" at the time was always
looking for new ways to turn a buck, and insisted on an entry fee. I wanted
no fee. I lost.
I did argue the amount down quite a bit, though.
I strongly feel that magazines should run contests because of the intangible
benefits they get from doing so, or they shouldn't run contests at all. It
shouldn't be a question of grubbing up a few extra thousand dollars.
But that's just me--and I'm sure it's yet one more reason why I'm publishing
a scrappy little newsletter and no longer in the commercial magazine
business <rueful smile>.
--Mike
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