British V8 Newsletter:Good News/Bad News

[James Jewell <m1garand@speakeasy.net>]

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

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