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Model Cars Magazine Renewals


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  • 1 month later...

It has been some time since i even visited this site, and had let my sub to the mag end. I had for a couple years noticed the magazine was always late, always excuses, soooooo figuring with the bad business model I was seeing, no need dumping money for a sub that will end up a mess or loss. THAT said, today i come back I see on the home page issue 201 was late, very late and my first thought, wow it hasnt changed.. A business is no better or worse than its leader and or manager and at the end of the day, the buck stops with Gregg. Now that I got that off my chest, I loved the magazine, LOVED, and now miss it, but come back looking to sub and things seem to be on the same shakey ground. Can you help me drop my guard, and re sub to the mag????? I miss it, barnes and noble in my area does not carry it. hobby shops are all but dead in my area. SO, GREGG, can you tell me the following, deadlines will be met? that its not going to die no quicker than I sub and if it does.. do I get a refund of monies for unrecieved issues?

 

Simple deal for me... please?

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  • 3 weeks later...

today i come back I see on the home page issue 201 was late, very late and my first thought, wow it hasnt changed.. A business is no better or worse than its leader and or manager and at the end of the day, the buck stops with Gregg. Now that I got that off my chest, I loved the magazine, LOVED, and now miss it, but come back looking to sub and things seem to be on the same shakey ground. Can you help me drop my guard, and re sub to the mag????? I miss it, barnes and noble in my area does not carry it. hobby shops are all but dead in my area. SO, GREGG, can you tell me the following, deadlines will be met? that its not going to die no quicker than I sub and if it does.. do I get a refund of monies for unrecieved issues?

Soooo....  you say you've been away, but do you have the background?  As you come here and judge Model Cars against the like of a big publishing company with their own building and a big force of full time paid employees?   The Model Cars story is one of Gregg, battling his health issues for many years, trying to put out a magazine that caters to the very modelers we all are. Then the publisher retires and leaves him to put up his life savings to keep the magazine alive.  This could be a movie!

And how will it end?  As positively as we all allow!   Those of you, yes you who stand by and watch this from a distance with no skin in the game.  You say you LOVED THE MAGAZINE, so why aren't you voting with your pocket, or is that fricken $35 subscription that big a deal?   Gregg is fighting for the life of the magazine and his dream of serving our hobby.  Folks could at least support the efforts that give us all this free message board!  

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Gregg,  Just to let you know I totally enjoy the magazine and have never been concerned when it was arriving. I understand the complexities of getting a GOOD magazine together.  Even more so with a specialty magazine like this.

Maybe I don't worry much because I am from the south and we really don't care about due dates and deadlines. We know it always gets done in its own time.  Keep up the good work. 

 

 

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I will always be grateful for the magazine and all the efforts done by Gregg and Harry to keep it afloat. If it survives or not, thank you for everything.....

Me too, but I have to wonder given the severity of Gregg's ongoing back problems and Harry's recent disclosure that he will be battling some serious health issues, who is capable of stepping up and helping ? Years ago I compiled catalog data for auto parts companies and it is nothing compared to magazine layout and I would imagine gathering the information for each issue from the independent contributors and formatting it is a BIG job.

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Jim, I do appreciate any offer of help

However, Like I have stated 329 times, email me, let me know what you can do, and we can go from there.

I just did a full search of emails, the only one I show from a "CrazyJim" is October 2014.

I don't mean to sound like an ungrateful ass, but look at from this point of view.

Yes, you want to help.

What can you do?

Can you set up an easy to use system, maybe using Excel with pivot tables that can pull up all subscriber info?

Can you set up a FileMaker Pro template to use with the Excel data?

Or something else?

For me to explain how to do something would take longer to do than to do it myself.

Plus, I don't fist the forum often, hardly at all.

EMAIL ME.

I save 93.487% of all emails.

I have over 32,000 in the inbox still, and that's not counting folders.

You want to help?

I appreciate the offer.

Email me.

What can you do?

Seriously, just saying you want to help, then only posting that on the forum, and then really just laying it on me for not responding?

???????

Sorry, but this gets me, big time.

 

Marcos, Tom, unnamed and witness protection people, mahalo nui loa!!!!

As for deadlines, cough up $50K to get the next three issues printed and we'll all be happy.

Yes, things are getting on track.

It's worse than starting from scratch.

When you start from scratch, you get the initial subscriber monies that come in.

I had to honor over 2,000 subscribers, and rely on renewals, and dealer sales.

The percentages I was hoping for in submitting renewals and invoices paid are not even close to the projected numbers I ran.

how did Golden Bell do it?
Easy, they did it all in house

I have to pay, up front, the printing and mailing costs.

Am I complaining?

Nope, stating facts.

Am I making excuses?

Nope, stating facts.

Why not go to all digital?

Nope, never going to happen.

So, either you are in it for the long haul, have faith in what we all are doing, and will do what you can, when you can, 

or you're not.

Sorry for the rant

Probably my longest post.

Just got back from the main post office, had to take care of the filing forms for sending out the mag, through USPS, not fun, and I will probably forget what I'm supposed to do.

Which is why I don't like phone calls anymore

I don't mind talking, I just won't remember what was said, what I'm supposed to do, or sometimes even who called.

 

Okay, I pau

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At least we are kept informed of what's going on. I recently subscribed to NASCAR Illustrated last year because the deal they gave me was too good to pass up. Now they are done. No more magazine and I've heard nothing about the rest of my subscription. That is much more frustrating than a guy busting his hump to give us a great magazine even if it is late.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...

I've read all the comments and here are some pretty impartial observations and comments.

#1 Do NOT promise 9 issues a year.  A more reasonable number would be four.  If they cost about $5 an issue to procure than perhaps $20 would cover one year.  There is no way $35 is going to cover nine issues.  PERIOD.

#2 Do not offer subscriptions on a time basis.  State you'll get four issues, one about every three months. If that slips by a few months no one will be callling for your head.

#3 I subscribed for a year to a Mustang magazine at a car show for a year.  About a year later I received the first issue and what was supposed to be a monthly magazine turned out to be about four a year.  So my subscription of $20 lasted three years.  The publisher went out of business and a lot of people never got the issues they were promised.  People will file BBB complaints and take legal action no matter what your circumstances because charging for a product and not delivering it is fraud.

#4 Keep people apprised if there are delays via a website or email.  Do not leave them wondering and bickering.

#5 Track subscribers by Issue # and of course customer number.  The number could be for example. S1111D2.

The S would be the last name, the 1111's would be your unique ID and the last two digits would be the issue expiration - for example issue D which would be the 4th, 8th, 12th issue, etc. of year #2.  When the subscriber renewed the last digit would change to a 3 and so on.

#6  Avoid ads that are time sensitive.  Threre is nothing more annoying than seeing an ad for an event that happened months ago.

We would all like to see the magazine continue but I think the expectations have to be reset.  If money is an issue re-read item #1.  Since this is a low volume enterprise, the cost of producing the product for the time period promised exceeds the revenue stream.  This means one thing and one thing only - going out of business and/or bankruptcy.  Relying on new subscriptions to cover the cost of producing current issues is not a good idea.

Lastly, feel free to agree or disagree and provide constructive suggestions.

 

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Okay, here comes a suggestion from someone who's totally ignorant of the publishing business: It would seem there are a lot of people here who's primary goal is to see the magazine show up in their mailboxes, and are willing to give a little to get there. For example, I'd be willing to fork out $10, on the expectation of receiving 2 issues in the next 12 months. If that worked, maybe $20 for 4 issues the following year, and so on. Sort of re-booting the magazine. Maybe that would bring in enough operating capitol to help kick start things.  Another concession could be the quality of the paper; does a lower grade paper save any money? The thick, glossy paper is nice, but the content is more important. Those of us who prefer paper magazines to digital, are quickly losing our reading material. One company bought up a lot of the automotive specialty magazines, then canceled the only one I had a subscription for (Rod & Custom). The rest all feature the same redundancy that caused me to cancel my subscriptions. Now, we're running out of good model magazines. I 'spose I've rambled on long enough...

Tom 

Edited by tgabreu
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First off what you are describing is how magazine subscriptions work. There is also crowdfunding where a goal is set and funds are raised To finance a project.

I plan to support the magazine by buying it at the hobby shop when it comes out. I will consider a subscription when a plan for getting the magazine back on track is provided. Had subscriptions to lots of magazines that just went away. Lots of good intentions however the realities got in the way. I'm not in a finicial position to gamble on something that may or may not happen.

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You can check the Subscription page and see that Gregg has changes coming to the magazine. Looks like January 15th is the announcement date. So hopefully in a few days, some of the questions will be answered.

Edited by Xingu
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MCM is my favorite modeling magazine, and I have just recently renewed my subscription. I do subscribe to the other one and it is alright, however I do tire of some of the repetition of articles and the "special gifts" which are nothing more than reprints of older articles.  As stated earlier, I have recently renewed my subscription, although with great trepidation; by recently I mean over eight months ago and I have already received two issues.  The problem with not meeting deadlines is not a recent issue.  Six or seven years ago I used to go into my local Hobbytown (remember those) just to see if the latest issue had arrived on time, which usually it had not.  There were times of 8-10 weeks between issues, yet once there was two issues in less than four weeks.  After retiring and moving I am now more than 45 miles from a hobby shop and 35 miles from a Barnes & Noble, therefore I subscribed, realizing there would be some inconsistency with timely magazine arrival.  This latest problem cannot be placed fully upon Golden Bell Publishing, since late deadlines are a common problem with this magazine.  What is the answer, what should we as subscribers expect?  I do not know, however this whole goat-rope is extremely frustrating and does not set well with many of us who have sent our hard earned money in to help keep this magazine afloat.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Different companies. Same idiot behind the companies, but still, different legal companies. Can't rob Peter to pay Paul's printing tab. Different books. Same printer in Denver.

#203 is printed, should be mailed out this week.

Had good news yesterday, but that's for the idiot to gloat on...

Wait, I'm the idiot....

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