Well, 1999 was a heck of a year for the magazine. As I am sure most of
you have guessed, this publication has never been profitable, not since
the Hazens first started the company up in 1993. In fact that first
issue almost never saw the light of day. It almost was canceled a few
times and at one point they sent out notices saying it was canceled and
even sent out some refunds. But eventually the first issue did make it
to press in late 1994. With hopes of a regular bi-monthly issue quickly
squashed by the harsh realities, a change to a quarterly schedule was
made almost right away. But even then, the magazine was never on time
and by the time the Hazens gave up in June 1998, only 12 issues had been
produced. Between 93 and 98, the magazine was produced on average 2
times a year, and 1997 was the only year where the quarterly schedule
was actually met.
When I took over I had high hopes of fixing this problem and getting
onto that long hoped for bi-monthly schedule. And had the magazine's
financial situation remained constant, I might have been able to get
there by now. But sadly our two biggest advertisers pulled out early in
1999, cutting our ad revenue by almost 50%. On top of this, changes in
the publishing and printing industries lead to significant continued
increases in printing costs, and less and less favorable terms, such as
pre-payment. Mailing costs have also gone up significantly in the last
year. All in all, our production costs have nearly doubled in the last
year and a half.
I was faced with some hard decisions as the century ended. I tried to
find someone who had deeper pockets than I did, to either invest in the
company or outright buy it. But anyone with half a brain could see that
the magazine would run in the red for at least a year or two before it
became profitable, if it ever did. And from a financial perspective it
was a bad risk. If it were a good risk, a large publishing company would
be producing the magazine instead of it being a home-based business. So
even those Datsun enthusiasts who were interested in the company were
not, in the long run, willing to risk their assets on this wild dream.
If the magazine simply folded, not only would all our subscribers be
left holding the bag, but I would have lost all the money I had sunk
into the company (I'd borrowed every penny I could over the last year
and a half and dumped it all into the magazine, covering the losses in
the hopes of making the magazine work, and I simply could not afford to
put any more into it) . For both reasons, I really didn't want the mag
to fold.
I talked with several other people, and the idea of a digital
publication was mentioned by several as a solution for a marginal, small
niche publication like ours. At first I was reluctant to do this. There
is something about holding a magazine in your hand (besides, how can you
read a digital magazine while you're on the john :-). But the more I
looked at this idea the better I liked it. It offered some real
advantages for the readers, the advertisers, and offered our best way
out of this dilemma.
After much mental thrashing, I decided to produce the magazine digitally
and to do it on CD. The financial considerations weighed heavily in
favor of this, but the benefits, both for the readers and the
advertisers, are substantial and are what ultimately turned me around .
The next question was what format to produce the magazine in. The
software we use to produce the magazine for print is Quark Xpress and it
is specifically designed for layout work for print. It is not suited for
viewing the documents on a computer, and it is very expensive. There are
several proprietary formats such as PDF, Envoy, and Quark Immedia, and I
looked into these, especially Immedia, as it is a plug in for Quark
Xpress. But instead of going with some proprietary format such as
Immedia, I have decided to go with an html format. There was so much
involved in redesigning the magazine for the computer screen, which is
essentially a landscape format (wider than it is tall) as opposed to the
print portrait format (taller than it is wide), that there was no point
in even trying to salvage the quark based files, (or continuing to work
in quark Xpress much at all). The ability to hyperlink is crucial for
our advertisers, and gives us the ability to link to other related info,
but it was not possible to do this (at least no conveniently) in any of
the proprietary formats. Besides many readers already have a web browser
installed on their computer and are ready to use this format.
Setting up the infrastructure to produce and mail the CDs will take some
time and I do not want this issue to take any
longer to get into our readers hands than absolutely necessary (its been
sitting around, 95% ready to go, since Nov). So I am going to put this
first all-digital issue up on the internet as soon as it is done. I am
currently redesigning the issue for viewing with a web browser on a
computer screen. I should have it done in 2 weeks or so and will let
folks know when it is accessible. I will be mailing out CD versions of
it latter on, but in order to get this issue into readers hands as fast
as possible, I have elected to offer this initial digital issue over the
web first, and to make it freely available to everyone. Latter I will be
looking to support the CD issues with supplementary material on the web,
and will offer teasers from current issues on the web, but will not
normally give the magazine away free via the web (at least not until/if
I have enough advertiser income to make that work). It may take a
handful of issues to settle on with a new look and I doubt that this
first all-digital issue will be all that impressive from a design
perspective, but it will offer readers some distinct advantages over a
print version.
One of the hardest parts of editing for print is getting everything to
fit. We usually use only a small percentage of the photos we have
available for each story, and I generally edit most stories down by
25-50% (just ask Andy about this). The only reason for this is to make
things fit in the limited space available. Well space is not a problem
with a digital version, and I will be adding about 25% more material to
this initial digital issue over what we were going to be able to fit in
the print version. Another concern in print is color. Color pages cost
much more than B&W. To save costs ZCCD has always been primarily B&W,
with a few color pages to add interest. Color costs no more on a
computer and all the photos can be in full color with the digital
version. I am rescanning all the artwork for this initial digital issue
in full color. As I streamline the digital publishing process, I expect
the issues to grow even larger, and for us to find even more ways to
take advantage of the digital environment. To me this looks like a great
deal, folks will be getting more magazine for their money (this is the
thing that really sold me on this idea).
Anyway, I will let folks know when the first all-digital issue is
available on our website. And I welcome any comments or suggestions
anyone has about this. I hope folks will let me know what they think of
the new issue when they see it.
--
Marc Sayer
Editor/Publisher
Z Car & Classic Datsun Magazine
http://zcarmag.com
Voice 541-726-6001
Fax 541-746-0863/726-6001
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