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- To: owner-atm@shore.net
- Subject: BOUNCE atm@shore.net: Non-member submission from ["Chris Westland" <westland@ust.hk>]
- From: owner-atm@shore.net
- Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:33:03 -0400 (EDT)
>From atm-owner Sun Jun 1 22:32:53 1997 Received: from relay1.shore.net (root@relay1.shore.net [192.233.85.129]) by aquarium.shore.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA08324 for <atm@aquarium.shore.net>; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:32:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from uxmail.ust.hk (root@uxmail.ust.hk [143.89.14.30]) by relay1.shore.net (8.8.3/8.8.3) with ESMTP id WAA15986 for <atm@shore.net>; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:31:19 -0400 (EDT) Received: from IMZ054.ust.hk ([143.89.56.79]) by uxmail.ust.hk with ESMTP id <102343-642>; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:32:15 +0800 From: "Chris Westland" <westland@ust.hk> To: "Mel Bartels" <mbartels@efn.org>, <atm@shore.net> Cc: <skytel@skypub.com> Subject: S-KISS & Tel -- BBWW Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:31:33 +0800 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <97Jun2.103215+0800_hkt.102343-642+278@uxmail.ust.hk> I'd like to throw in my US$ 0.02 in on the S&T debate. It is always helpful to look at the publisher's problem from an economic perspective. Costs are significant. Consider mailing alone, which I would guess with packaging, subscription services, etc. may be around US$ 1.00 an issue. Here is my cut at cost stats. Publishers receive their revenues from subscriptions and advertising -- I'm not sure what S&T's mix is, but let's say ads run US$5,000 per page (which I think may be too high for S&T) with about 50 full page equivalents of advertising per issue. This is still only $250,000 per issue. Cover price is about $4/issue, and assume 500,000 circulation (which may be high) with 50% of cover price realized (due to newstand returns, reduced rates for subscriptions, free copies, etc.) ... for a total of $1,000,000 from subscriptions, less $500,000 for mailing, etc. The net revenue per issue then is $750,000 (which may be high). Costs are either fixed (writers, copy editors, pictures, layout, etc.) or variable (paper, ink, scrap, etc.). Assume another $1 an issue for variable costs ... we're down to $250,000 now for the fixed costs, all of which is coming from the advertisers (better keep them happy). We may get economies of scale, so we want as wide an audience as possible ... this means making material accessible to an audience which may only have a passing interest in astronomy (not necessarily "dumbing down"). You can see the squeeze that publishers are in (these are my uninformed guesses at S&T stats ... please correct me if you have better information). Another $0.02 ... I have an idea (no charge, guys) for S&T for something to both cut costs and perhaps provide more material interesting to members of this list. S&T now has a number of very nice interviews, essays and so forth by amateur and professional _observers_ ... and a lot of advertisements for _equipment_ intended for amateurs. Why doesn't S&T provide interviews, essays and so forth by or about the personalities behind the _equipment_ ?? ... we've seen these in the past for Cave Optical (after they stopped advertising) ... how about essays, perspectives and interviews of current producers of amateur equipment like Al Nagler, John Hudak, John Deibol, Alan Hale, the editorial staff of S&T, etc. etc. ... let them tell us their perceptions of the business and its growth and evolution. Do we ever hear about the _business_ of amateur astronomy?? These articles would be inexpensive to write, provide insight into the organizations behind the advertisements in S&T (which the advertisers should like) and would be interesting to a wide range of people. Plus (my personal opinion) these people have interesting stories to tell. Time to close... I'm already up to $0.04 Chris Westland HKUST, Clearwater Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong T: 852 2358-7643 F:852 2358-2421 mailto:westland@ust.hk http://home.ust.hk/~westland
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