Re: British V8 Newsletter:Good News/Bad News

[Barrie Robinson <barrie@look.ca>]

James,

Get away from those printers !!!   I used Mail Boxes Etc. to do 100 
copies of a 72 page book on rowing (www.northwestrowing.com) It had a 
glossy hard cover (in blue) PLUS a clear plastic cover AND was 
punched and then had a spirelox spline fixed.  Cost was $6.28 which 
in your funny money is $5.45.  They used 11 x 17 sheets and had a 
program that set up the print job so that when they guillotined the 
sheets the sequence was correct!    Can someone who is in to this web 
thing host the Newsletter.  I am trying to get one up for my O-rings, 
SS grilles etc and I would not mind having a button that downloaded 
the Newsletter.

At 06:08 PM 2/11/2006, James Jewell wrote:
> All,
>    Good news is that the issue is back from the printer's, and will 
> go out Monday and Tuesday.  More good news is that they screwed up 
> and used a glossy paper for the cover, which looks really sharp, 
> and they couldn't charge me for it.  The bad news, is that it 
> weighs more, which bumps us up over the next postage 
> increment:  This leads to the bigger question of finances.
>
> It costs a little over $3.00 per issue to have it printed, stapled 
> and folded.  The postage will be about ~$1.00 an issue.  Keeping our 
> web hosting is currently about $200 a year, which is ~$2.00 an issue 
> with the 100+ subscribers we're down to.  There is also the cost of 
> maintaining the BritishV8 web name as our own exclusive 
> property.  That adds up to ~$6.00+ an issue.  There is some money 
> coming in from advertisers, but that doesn't greatly shift the equation.
>
> So, as you can see, by charging only $5.00 an issue, I run the risk 
> of paying out of my own pocket to make the newsletter happen.
>
> What I need to know is what people think about raising the price per 
> issue, vs. ceasing the newsletter altogether.  Let your voices be 
> heard.  Unfortunately, I feel bad about charging $6 for something 
> that is 1/4 the size of a "real" magazine that would cost you half 
> as much at the news stand, but such are the economics of small scale 
> publishing.
>
> Even if I stay with the non-glossy paper, the postage has still gone 
> up.  I can look at ways of decreasing the publishing costs, if I 
> request bids from publishers and tie in for a year or so at a time, 
> but I'm not sure what that will save me, since they will still have 
> to mail a big hunk of paper to me each issue.  Plus, I'm not sure I 
> have the time to do a competitive source selection with industry 
> once a year.  I can also look at cheaper web hosting, but again, I'm 
> not sure what that will save.
>
> So tell me what you all think.  You'll never have the chance to tell 
> Congress how to spend your money, so this is as close as you'll get.
> Enjoy it.
> V/R
> James Jewell
Regards
Barrie

Barrie Robinson
(705) 721-9060 
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