William, I assure you it's not a bait and switch. As somebody mentioned in Twitter today, I tweeted this 2 months ago (http://twitter.com/hackermonthly/status/17978114821): "The PDF version is free and always will be."
That was the ideal plan. Make around $1 for each print copy sold. Sell some advertising. And hopefully I can get it thru month after month.
No, that didn't work out well (I could show you some proof of the total revenues we made from the first 3 months).
That's when I've decided to charge, for digital issue. Because it's either that, or the magazine dies somewhere down the road. I love the magazine. I love making it. I love it when readers tell me they enjoy reading it. And I wanted to keep on doing it for as long as possible.
So I've got to make that tough decision, sooner rather than later.
On the other hand, I DO plan on compensating the author, but I have to see how's the numbers performing for the first issue before making any promise.
When you say that the first 3 months 'didn't work out well' does that mean that you made a loss, or that you didn't make enough to justify the time that you spend putting the magazine together?
I would assume that your costs are your time plus the incremental transaction costs charged by the middle-man. Perhaps I am missing something?
(I can't work out, in my own mind, how selling a magazine online, to this community, with a $10 cover price can not 'work out well' enough to be in the black - esp. considering the response to the first issues. Perhaps some insight is in order - as I think it might be a learning experience for all , ie. what was your conversion rate? What are your costs?
This would be an interesting HN community case study).
Don't get me wrong: I'm not pissed. Nor do I really feel cheated. I am just leery and perhaps oversensitive to freely contributing to paid content, which is what my example about SO and the evil hyphen site was about.
I also take responsibility for not asking (which I didn't) nor doing more research than the cursory glance that I did. So even if I were pissed (which I'm not) it would be at least partly my fault.
So let me just say for the record, in case anyone is under a misconception from what I've written so far: you've dealt with me courteously and professionally so I certainly wish you well on this.
This is simply more about how my own philosophy in what I want to contribute to. Think of these comments as me thinking out loud (about that).
It should have been made clear to you, and the other authors, in the email - regardless of if a tweet was sent out 2 weeks ago or not.
The publisher can't assume that you read and follow everything they write. The entire agreement and disclosure should have been contained in that email to you, so you have nothing to apologize for (the fact that you didn't know that there was no free issue until you saw it here on HN says that there was a flaw in the communications process).
As mentioned in the other comments, I hope the publisher can clarify and be much clearer in his emails to potential authors next time around (perhaps publishing an 'authors' page on the website with a clear FAQ - ie. if the authors can expect their own copy, etc.)
I actually held out on insta-clicking to buy a copy when I read your comment (I still am), so clarification here will help everybody.
Comments
William, I assure you it's not a bait and switch. As somebody mentioned in Twitter today, I tweeted this 2 months ago (http://twitter.com/hackermonthly/status/17978114821): "The PDF version is free and always will be."
That was the ideal plan. Make around $1 for each print copy sold. Sell some advertising. And hopefully I can get it thru month after month.
No, that didn't work out well (I could show you some proof of the total revenues we made from the first 3 months).
That's when I've decided to charge, for digital issue. Because it's either that, or the magazine dies somewhere down the road. I love the magazine. I love making it. I love it when readers tell me they enjoy reading it. And I wanted to keep on doing it for as long as possible.
So I've got to make that tough decision, sooner rather than later.
On the other hand, I DO plan on compensating the author, but I have to see how's the numbers performing for the first issue before making any promise.
When you say that the first 3 months 'didn't work out well' does that mean that you made a loss, or that you didn't make enough to justify the time that you spend putting the magazine together?
I would assume that your costs are your time plus the incremental transaction costs charged by the middle-man. Perhaps I am missing something?
(I can't work out, in my own mind, how selling a magazine online, to this community, with a $10 cover price can not 'work out well' enough to be in the black - esp. considering the response to the first issues. Perhaps some insight is in order - as I think it might be a learning experience for all , ie. what was your conversion rate? What are your costs?
This would be an interesting HN community case study).
"Bait and switch" is stronger than I really mean.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not pissed. Nor do I really feel cheated. I am just leery and perhaps oversensitive to freely contributing to paid content, which is what my example about SO and the evil hyphen site was about.
I also take responsibility for not asking (which I didn't) nor doing more research than the cursory glance that I did. So even if I were pissed (which I'm not) it would be at least partly my fault.
So let me just say for the record, in case anyone is under a misconception from what I've written so far: you've dealt with me courteously and professionally so I certainly wish you well on this.
This is simply more about how my own philosophy in what I want to contribute to. Think of these comments as me thinking out loud (about that).
It should have been made clear to you, and the other authors, in the email - regardless of if a tweet was sent out 2 weeks ago or not.
The publisher can't assume that you read and follow everything they write. The entire agreement and disclosure should have been contained in that email to you, so you have nothing to apologize for (the fact that you didn't know that there was no free issue until you saw it here on HN says that there was a flaw in the communications process).
As mentioned in the other comments, I hope the publisher can clarify and be much clearer in his emails to potential authors next time around (perhaps publishing an 'authors' page on the website with a clear FAQ - ie. if the authors can expect their own copy, etc.)
I actually held out on insta-clicking to buy a copy when I read your comment (I still am), so clarification here will help everybody.