We've cut the price for online subscriptions to The Perl Review to $7, and made the PDF-only subscription available to everyone, including subscribers in the US. People who subscribed to the web-only edition in the last couple of months will have their subscriptions extended by a year. Normal print subscription prices will stay the same as long as the Postal Service keeps their prices the same.
The online-only version was really something we wanted to offer to international subscribers and eventually change to a print version. After researching the possibility of printing in three different countries in the European Union, we discovered that the same thing kills it: postage to other countries. The very slight savings in postage in the EU is offset by higher printing costs for lower print runs and a lot of extra work to come out the same as sending it from the US.
We are looking at ways to get the print copies to international customers though. We have two and a half years of back issues (10 in all) and those magically fit together into a single Global Priority Flat Rate envelope that we can send to most countries for $US9.50. That brings the price to just below the $1.11 postage to send a single copy in the US, which is the basis for our prices.
To make that work we need to rejigger the subscriber database a bit to recognize the different subscriber model, but that's actually fun work once we have the time for it. :)
Re:Just a question...
stu42j on 2007-01-09T15:56:39
If I wanted something to read online, I would just go to perl.com, perlmonks, etc. I like having something to carry around and the neat covers wouldn't be the same in a PDF.Re:Just a question...
sigzero on 2007-01-09T16:51:54
If I wanted something to read online, I would just go to perl.com, perlmonks, etc. I like having something to carry around and the neat covers wouldn't be the same in a PDF.So they "yes", that is what you want. A copy in your hands. : )
Re:Just a question...
brian_d_foy on 2007-01-09T17:43:25
You can still buy the print subscription.:) Re:Just a question...
shild on 2007-01-09T19:32:32
I've thanked Brian many of times for bringing back a printed version of a Perl magazine.
I wasn't to happy when TPJ was PDF only.
I'm about to resubscribe (I got the original issues way back when, and didn't know you started up again) and I'm in the US.
While the 60% offer for online-only sounds nice, I'm curious: do you make more from online-only because you don't pay for printing, or do you make more from the print version because you charge more and get a volume discount?
I'll happily give you the extra $11/year if it'll go to you, but if you're just going to spend it on printing I'll take the PDFs and print it myself if I need to.
Re:Which option puts the most money in your pocket
brian_d_foy on 2007-01-10T17:24:48
It's not printing that costs the most. It's the postage. The more I mail the less each peice costs to mail, so ideally everyone gets a print subscription.:)
