Transition
It's been a sobering period recently in the world of publishing. All around us we hear gloomy tidings of the condition of the industry and its prospects for the future. We've been saddened to witness the demise of some other printed publications as their expenses became too much for them to bear. The alternative voices always seem to be the first ones affected while those immersed in the world of advertising and all things commercial seem to weather the storms and survive the challenges. Money in abundance tends to make such things possible.
Our mission has always been to provide information and provocative thought without being tainted by the wanton commercialization that afflicts so many. As we come to the end of our 23rd year, we're both amazed that we were able to pull it off and confident that we can continue to fulfill this purpose in the years ahead. We are unique in the publishing world and so is our audience. And since our subject matter is mostly about individuality, challenging the status quo, and figuring out the exception to the rules, this all ties together rather nicely.
But we too have faced some daunting challenges in recent months and they have resulted in some painful decisions for us. Despite our unique position, we still feel the affects of trends and right now the trend is a downturn for anyone in the publishing business. As mentioned, this mostly affects the small publishers since they don't have much to fall back on. Large publishers can jack up advertising rates, lay off staff, and even merge with other publications without missing a beat. To them it's merely a business decision. But for noncommercial publishers it's a bit trickier. Distributors only pay publishers for issues sold. The rest are destroyed at the publishers' expense.
The bigger bookstores and newsstands can often thrive by providing alternatives to whatever is not selling at the moment, even if that means cutting back on books, magazines, and newspapers. In that section of the industry, the independent retailer feels it the hardest. In a parallel to the small publishers' problems, small bookstores all over the country have felt the pressure and are increasingly falling victim to the huge chains which now dominate. It's a sad situation, one which we see repeated in so many different ways in our society.
We have a great advantage in that our audience is already clued in to a great deal of this and understands the value of a printed publication such as ours. Ironically, the very people who understand technology and the Internet on a level far exceeding the norm are the same people who still value ink on a page and the power of the printed word, something that is mostly lost in the world of the net. So while we certainly feel the affects of what has been happening in the world of publishing, we think we'll be able to weather the storm, assuming that's what our readers want.
In the end that's really what it's all about. If we cease being relevant to our readers, our existence comes to a conclusion. This is how it should be. In fact, we believe there would be a lot less commercial publications for that very reason if they weren't doing so well on the advertising front. We don't have that luxury nor do we want it. A publication should exist entirely to serve its readers. We hope we continue to achieve that goal. Your vote determines whether or not we do.
We also hope our modest price increase on the newsstand won't be a hardship. It's our first one in quite a while and we avoided it as long as we could. We can't ignore the rising costs around us and the increasing challenges of the (marketplace. However, we have also moved forward with a planned increase in pages and as of this issue we have four more of them. We have not changed the subscription price and it remains what it has been for more than 15 years. We've also lowered the newsstand price in Canada to reflect more accurately the currency conversion there.
This is only one step we've been forced to take in order to deal with all of the challenges thrown our way. We have had to change printers for the first time in 20 years, a move we resisted when we could afford to. It's a very sad fact but sometimes a business decision has to supersede loyalty and tradition. In this case, the only alternative would have been cutbacks and price increases that in our opinion would have been unfair to our readers.
From our perspective it certainly seems as if an undue amount of the burden comes to rest on publishers which in turn causes so many of them to cease what they do. Over the years we've seen a large number of distributors collect money from bookstores and fail to pay the publishers who sent them the magazines in the first place. The distributors then declare bankruptcy and the publishers never get paid. This scenario seems to play out on a yearly basis somewhere and each time it does, a few more independent voices are silenced for good. We've also seen many chain outlets go under and fail to pay their debts, causing the same trickle-down effect. In addition to all of this, we must frequently accept terms and conditions that go against common sense and are seemingly designed to put the publisher at a disadvantage.
A good example of this is something known as "shrink policy" in Barnes & Noble, the largest bookstore chain in the United States. Shrink is the industry term for issues that cannot be accounted for after being delivered to the store. This policy actually forces publishers to pay a significant portion for these issues, as if they were somehow responsible for them. The thinking - as far as we can tell - is that if copies of your publication are being shoplifted, it's the fault of your readers and therefore your responsibility. But this doesn't take into account a number of things. Issues can get lost in a store for a number of reasons such as misfiling or accidental destruction. They can also be stolen by store employees themselves. (Industry surveys have found that more than half of store thefts come from people who work in the) stores.) In extreme cases, anyone (employee or customer) can decide they don't like us and pitch all of our issues into the trash.
In the past, a major cause of shrink was the failure of the cashier to properly enter the sales data into the computer. Sometimes the bar code wouldn't scan properly and a generic sale that didn't have the publication's name would be processed instead. This meant that there was no actual record of the magazine being sold even though the store collected the money. We're told that such a scenario is now impossible. We find that extremely hard to believe.
The main problem, though, is that this policy is horribly unfair to publishers. By this logic, if we were to buy a book at Barnes & Noble and someone stole it from us afterwards, we could hold the bookstore responsible. It goes against all common sense. The only way publishers should be held liable for missing issues is if they somehow have the power to do something about it. We've offered to send in our own security people to various stores to stand guard over copies of 2600 to ensure that none disappeared. (We naturally would have to watch them after the store closed as well to prevent employee theft.) No store has yet agreed to this.
Don't get us wrong - Barnes & Noble has been a great resource in getting our magazine out to the public and we're thrilled to be on their shelves. But we're also compelled to speak out when something doesn't seem quite right, whether it's an issue like this or a security hole in a computer or phone system. It's what we do and it's what continues to make us unique. And, in this case, not saying something could help this policy to become the norm in all bookstores, something which once again would hurt the small publishers far more than the big ones.
All in all, we think we're going to be in pretty good shape once we get through the woods. In the next issue we're planning on including a survey form for subscribers so we can all plan for the future and learn from the past. We look forward to embarking on more fun projects in the future involving publishing, HOPE conferences, films, radio, new technology, etc. And, of course, controversy. We hope you all continue to be a part of it.