lets wait to see if we could get say x number of people who would sign up ahead of time and send in the money for say 1 year worth.
lets wait to see if we could get say x number of people who would sign up ahead of time and send in the money for say 1 year worth.
My Blog - http://www.cat-blog.org Linux User - Registered Linux User #45641
Full Circle Magazine Developer
It's not about READERS paying money, that defeats the purpose of it being a FREE *buntu magazine, it'd be up to us to get a large enough group of advertisers who would pay enough, in total, to cover the cost of printing and shipping. If readers wanted to donate and/or click on advertising on the site (adsense etc) then fair enough.
But again, remember: lets say, for talking sake, that we only made $10,000 per month, that'd mean only 10,000 copies printed. If we end up with a list of 20,000 people wanting a printed copy, how do we decide who gets left out? We could end up with a lot of disgruntled people.
One other thing to consider might be making it more of a newspaper format since i'm quite sure that would be much cheaper...
Last edited by ronniet; October 29th, 2007 at 02:00 AM.
Ronnie
Editor, Full Circle - The FREE Independent Magazine for the Ubuntu Community
Official Ubuntu Member | Registered Linux User # 456627 | Registered Ubuntu User # 18227
Excellent points, Ronniet... and the newspaper type idea might be an excellent one. I print in greyscale, anyway, and I don't feel like I am missing out.
For a periodical that uses just that newpaper type format, check out this publication
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Greyscale could be interesting.
Though, if it was $1 per issue, I think a lot of users wouldn't mind paying $1...
Also, if we had advertisers it could be first come first serve.
Lastly, we could always try to get Canonical to cover the costs.
I would think that there would be a really good market for this magazine, and thus a lot of willing advertisers. Dell comes to mind, since they sell Ubuntu desktops and laptops. I imagine many other hardware vendors (System76) and hosting companies would be interested in this.
I'm no business guru, but I would think that if you played your cards right, you could not only produce a print version, but also make a profitable full-time job out of it.
Making the magazine free by supporting it with advertisements is something that Network World has done for quite some time. I think it's a viable option.
They aren't really paying for the magazine but the medium and shipping. If someone really wants it FREE they can download it and print it but that still costs them electric, ink, internet and time. So really they are paying for it in a different form.
My Blog - http://www.cat-blog.org Linux User - Registered Linux User #45641
Full Circle Magazine Developer
Just a thought but you could offer it on a service like cafepress.com or lulu.com Both offer printing books on demand and take pdf format. That way there is no up front cost to the full circle team. Of course the mags would be a little pricey, but it may be worth it to some people.
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