A little bit sideways Rallying in New Zealand, where we like to get A Little Bit Sideways! Up to date Rally News from teams around the country together with event reports.
Hi
Firstly, sorry for the long post but I need to clarify a couple of things around magazine availability.
I’ve received many comments about why the magazines are 1) not yet available in the stores, and 2) why they are not available in all stores, so I’m going to try and address that here.
1) ALL subscribers get their magazines posted out at least one week, sometimes two weeks before the stores get their stock. This is just a small perk of being a subscriber and the least I can do for those who have committed to me. If you want your magazine as soon as it’s available, please subscribe. (Stores should be receiving stock from today onwards.)
2). The magazine is not available in all stores as I’m still an independent publisher and distributor. Some stores will ONLY buy through NZ’s ONLY distributor Gordan & Gotch (I think they’ve changed name to Ovato now.) Unfortunately they want FAR too much money upfront from me to cover introductory fees to stores and gas stations etc, and I just can’t afford to do it.
The stores and Ovato take so much money from this process I’d be left with a few cents per copy sold! The only people to make money from the mag would be them, which sucks considering the amount of time and effort I put into each edition.
There are some stores which used to stock which no longer do. There are 2 reasons for this. 1) They weren’t selling enough copies for me to cover the postage to get them the magazines and 2) They did not pay, so I do not do business with them anymore.
I think I should also point out that there is a perception that I earn the full cover price of $14.99 per copy sold. After costs I make a tiny fraction of this per copy, which is why I’ve been asking for another 250-300 subscribers to help cover those costs.
Once I have that good solid base of regular subscribers, (it does grow every edition which is great) then I will consider taking the risk and going with Ovato and make the magazine available in every store, but for now, I’m not prepared to put my family and home at risk to do this.
My cover price is based on a magazine with 52 pages + cover. Every time I go over this number its costs me and I can’t get that back, and I can’t increase cover price each time. For those of you that have several copies, you will realise I go over this number quite often. I do this as if I receive an article from someone who has made a big effort to put pen to paper and write something for us to read, then the least I can do is make sure I publish it. (Please don’t stop sending articles in – I love hearing from you!) or I just want to include more cool photos for you to enjoy etc.
For those of you who subscribe and advertise, thank you so much. It really helps me plan and budget.
Thank you for taking the time to read this very long post, and I hope it clarifies a few things. Please feel free to contact me direct if you want or need more of an explanation on any of the above.
Cheers
Jase
