Fourteener Motoring Magazine - UPDATE |
|
Porsche, and the Porsche crest are registered trademarks of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG.
This site is not affiliated with Porsche in any way. Its only purpose is to provide an online forum for car enthusiasts. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. |
|
Fourteener Motoring Magazine - UPDATE |
stevegm |
Dec 21 2014, 12:04 PM
Post
#1
|
Advanced Member Group: Members Posts: 2,111 Joined: 14-July 14 From: North Carolina Member No.: 17,633 Region Association: South East States |
See Post #457 for update
_________ JANUARY ISSUE IS OUT (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/fourteenermotoring.files.wordpress.com-17633-1454589762.1.jpg) _______ I hope I don't regret asking. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I am looking for feedback on the magazine. We now have an automated distribution system set up, so that should be fixed and you should see a large improvement with the upcoming issue. I am particularly interested in feedback on content. Here are my questions: Content - The most important thing is - what do you think of the stuff we are covering? Is it what you want to read? What would you like to see added? Then beyond content here are some things that I am pondering: A. Balance between features, tech, and news/events. Do you like the balance? B. Balance between photos and text - What do you think? C. Length - We are at 44 pages now, but, we have very few ads. Most magazines run at least 50% ads. So from a content standpoint, I don't think we are doing too badly for a brand new magazine. I'd like to add 4 pages soon, but, I may wait until the January issue to do that, unless you give me feedback that there isn't enough in each issue. D. Size - this is an important one. I went with the small size for two reasons: 1: I like it and think it is easy to carry around with you. And then 2: Cost. It cut our print costs almost in half. But, the size makes for doing full stories difficult. As a solution, I have considered doing a more detailed story on the website and readers could go over to the website for more photos, build sheets, etc. But, I wonder how many people would actually go from the magazine to the website to read more. E. Overall feel - it is important to me that the overall feel be that of a professional magazine. Are we accomplishing that with the size and length? Is there anything we can do to improve in this area? F. My original intent was a more "tech-related" magazine than say a Pano or Excellence. Not just features, but, useful info. Have we accomplished that? Do you value that angle? G. What other resources would you like to see included in the magazine? Any other comments? The magazine is about you. So your feedback is really important to me. _______ I wanted to make sure that you everyone saw that the downloadable PDF of the July issue is available on the website. Just go to - FourteenerMotoring.com - and click on - Read Issue 2 in the menu. The print version of the October issue goes to press September 7th, and will be mailed October 1st. We have moved all of our deadlines up to make sure these go out on time. If you want a subscription to the print version of the magazine, you can subscribe here. ________ UPDATE: Last call to subscribe and get the second issue. After August 15th, new subscriptions will start with Issue 3 (October issue). We also have a limited number of copies of the first issue. So, if you want your subscription to start with Issue 1, PM me. ________ UPDATE: Last call to subscribe and get the first issue. We will have some of the first issue available for sale as single-copy back issues. But, we are closing out the first subscriptions. So, subscriptions after this week (May 10th) will start with issue number 2. ________ We are excited to announce that the the first issue is done and will be mailed out the first week of April. Thank you for your support. The magazine includes:
Event coverage News Product Reviews Tech articles Project cars and more If you would like the to receive the magazine you can subscribe here: PRINT MAGAZINE - Subscribe to Print version ELECTRONIC VERSION - Available at FourteenerMotoring.com If you have a 914 story that you think should be told, or are interested in writing an article (or two, etc.), covering events, or helping in any way, please PM me or email me at - stevegm@mac.com In particular, we are looking for the following stories for upcoming issues. If you are interested in helping with any of these, or would like to be featured, please let us know. Feature car - Subaru conversion Feature car - Original six Tech article - Six conversion Tech article - Megasquirt conversion Racing stories Product reviews (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads/post-17633-1427586748.jpg) ------- OLDER POSTS ------- UPDATE: The Fourteener Motoring Magazine website is live. It is a "soft launch," and is by no means complete. The website will carry articles between issues, long running series' (like project cars), and the articles from issues after they are published. The first issue of the print magazine ran behind because of design conflicts (we are using a unique format that took some working out). We have worked them out now. In addition, given the importance of the Amelia Island honoring of the 914 I thought it would be good to include it in the first issue. The first print issue will be out the first week of April, and will include Amelia Island, Eric's Trip, and some other great stories. We will be sending emails out to subscribers in the next couple of weeks. We have decided to provide the PDF for free, and the print version for a subscription of $19.99 per year. ___ In assembling the 914 calendar we just finished, I had the opportunity to go through a lot of pictures of great 914s. They were very inspiring. In addition, a number of people sent me the "story" of their car. What struck me the most was that each car is a work of art (regardless of its current condition), with a story behind it. A story that should be told. I decided to take on the project of creating a print publication dedicated to the 914, called Fourteener Motoring (since the car was called the "Fourteener" internally at Porsche). A decade or so ago I founded a small, industry magazine for the field I was involved in. It is something that I think will fit in the 914 community well. The magazine will be published quarterly, at least initially. I am using a small format that will fit in the glovebox. It will include feature stories, tech articles, product reviews, racing coverage, as well as event news and stories. My goal is to put something out closer to the magazines that were actually fun and useful to read when I was getting into cars in the 1970s. A traditional magazine revenue model would likely not work in this small of a niche. So, I am going to do it a little differently. Subscriptions are FREE, at least for as long as I can make that work. I will evaluate it more as time goes on. But, I would like to try a free model. |
stevegm |
Dec 27 2014, 11:43 AM
Post
#2
|
Advanced Member Group: Members Posts: 2,111 Joined: 14-July 14 From: North Carolina Member No.: 17,633 Region Association: South East States |
Thank you to everyone for their support and encouragement. Your suggestions have been very helpful. And the number of subscriptions has exceeded our expectations. Thank you. We are reconsidering our model based on your comments. We have also received quite a few emails both from people wiling to write for the magazine, as well as potential story ideas. I think you will like what we have planned. Let me give you a little of the logic behind the decision to make the magazine free.
Magazines live and die based on subscription base. The number of people that subscribe is the first, second, and third priority. The 914 niche is not large enough to support a traditional magazine, which typically enjoys well in excess of 20,000 subscribers, even for the small auto magazines. Based on research, it appears that only about 20,000 914s are left, worldwide, in total. And many of those are owned by people who own multiple cars. We truly are a small community. In other words, we need every last 914 enthusiast to be a subscriber (please share the link with every 914 enthusiast you know). If we charge any fee at all associated with a subscription, even $1 per year, we won't get everyone to subscribe. It isn't just the $1 itself that will cause people to not subscribe. Many people don't bother if they have to send in money, or don't use Paypal, etc. Charging a subscription hurts subscriptions, and I don't want to impede subscriptions in any way. I still believe print has value in certain situations, and cars is one of those. But, I hear your comments regarding the potential interactive benefits of a digital magazine. Those suggestions are the ones that really got me to reconsider the model. What I have been working on this week to determine if it will work is this: Free PDF version of the magazine delivered via email; Optional paid print magazine delivered via snail mail (all print subscribers could also receive the PDF version). The risk of this model is that the number of paid print subscribers will be so low that it will drive up the printing costs per unit, and make it impossible to continue the print version. This is not something I want to see happen, as I believe the print version has value. And I further believe that when you see the quality that I think we can put out you will agree. I need to know from you how many of you would be willing to pay for the print version, over the free PDF, in this model? I suspect that the paid subscription, for the quarterly publication, would be $15 to $20/year. This feedback will help us further evaluate the best way to set this up. Here is the poll - http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?act...=0#entry2126969 Sorry for the second thread for the poll, once a thread is started it doesn't appear that you can add a poll to it. Thanks, Steve |
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 30th April 2024 - 12:38 PM |
All rights reserved 914World.com © since 2002 |
914World.com is the fastest growing online 914 community! We have it all, classifieds, events, forums, vendors, parts, autocross, racing, technical articles, events calendar, newsletter, restoration, gallery, archives, history and more for your Porsche 914 ... |