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Date:      Tue, 17 Apr 2001 23:15:40 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Chris Coleman <chrisc@vmunix.com>
To:        Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
Cc:        core@daemonnews.org, newbies@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: [dn-core] Re: Daemonnews Magazine
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.0104172235290.58715-100000@vnode.vmunix.com>
In-Reply-To: <20010418104926.G80877@wantadilla.lemis.com>

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> > Has anyone received any Daemonnews Magazines through the subscription
> > yet? The only issue I have received was January, and I had to beg to get
> > that one.
> >
> > Am I just unlucky, or is everyone else in the same boat?

  <snipped the lines about people receiving the magazines.>

The only problem at this point is the length of time it takes the US
postal service to deliver bulk rate mail.  International subscribers got
thier magazines delivered first class, because they don't offer bulk rate,
but it seems to take about the same amount of time.

The January/February issue had real problems.  The subscription list was
messed up and the mailing house didn't report it to us, they sent the
garbled subscriptions anyway.  We had no way to tell who did or didn't
receive the subscriptions, and finally we decided to mail everyone of our
subscribers an extra copy of the January/Febuary issue with March/April
issue.  We also changed printers because we felt the quality of the
January/February issue wasn't up to the standards required.  We switched
mailing houses at the same time and I am confident that everyone on the
list will receive their magazine.

I am encouraged that people are anxious to receive the magazines and you
won't be disappointed.  They are very high quality and only improving.  

However, I am a bit discouraged by the lack of subscribers.  To be
perfectly honest, we have 800 subscribers, nearly half of them are
International.  I can't see us keeping the print magazine alive if more
people don't take an interest in it.  $24.95 isn't that big a price to pay
to have a BSD magazine.  Daemon News has a total of four part time
employees who handle the shipping and office duties, so we aren't getting
rich off this.  Everyone else is volunteer.  The magazine is expensive to
print and we have had to eat a lot of the cost.

FreeBSD has a purported userbase of 2.5 million and 800 subscribers is
what percentage of that?  Add in NetBSD, OpenBSD, Darwin and BSD/OS.

Its time to start advocating. 

We started DN to be the resource of the BSD community.  We have put in
three years worth, with little to no pay.  Its time for the community to
start supporting the magazine.

So, get on IRC, e-mail your friends, drop by the user groups and tell
everyone to subscribe to the magazine.  If you want to try before you buy
a subscription, we have single issues available on www.bsdmall.com.

-Chris Coleman
Daemon News  
http://www.daemonnews.org
http://www.bsdmall.com



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