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FTF Geocacher


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LOL on the claim that a mag doesn't make money. I hear this argument all the time, but 90% of the time the owners and operators who see "the books" are lying. They make money on it, a good amount of money. They just don't brag about it because they don't want people to accuse them of profiteering.

 

I will give an exception for a company/publication that does disclose it's budget publicly, is a non-profit, and doesn't run more than one or two ads in their publication. I'll also give an exception to an upstart mag, which likely borrowed money to start the company/publication and isn't swimming in membership. But a publication by the end of it's first year is profitable (if done right).

Edited by TheWeatherWarrior
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LOL on the claim that a mag doesn't make money. I hear this argument all the time, but 90% of the time the owners and operators who see "the books" are lying. They make money on it, a good amount of money. They just don't brag about it because they don't want people to accuse them of profiteering.

 

I will give an exception for a company/publication that does disclose it's budget publicly, is a non-profit, and doesn't run more than one or two ads in their publication. I'll also give an exception to an upstart mag, which likely borrowed money to start the company/publication and isn't swimming in membership. But a publication by the end of it's first year is profitable (if done right).

Not all of us make money, yet we think that our magazine is "done right".

 

The Online Geocacher Magazine:

Web Hosting - $40/month

Income from all sources, including advertisement and sponsors: $Zilch. Nada. Not one thin dime.

 

Some magazines in fact don't make money.

 

Some are designed to lose money. Call us stupid, but we like doing it!

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LOL on the claim that a mag doesn't make money. I hear this argument all the time, but 90% of the time the owners and operators who see "the books" are lying. They make money on it, a good amount of money. They just don't brag about it because they don't want people to accuse them of profiteering.

 

I will give an exception for a company/publication that does disclose it's budget publicly, is a non-profit, and doesn't run more than one or two ads in their publication. I'll also give an exception to an upstart mag, which likely borrowed money to start the company/publication and isn't swimming in membership. But a publication by the end of it's first year is profitable (if done right).

 

Can you provide some evidence to support this claim? Numerous print publications have recently folded or on the brink of doing so. If a magazine or newspaper was profitable, why would it fold?

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LOL on the claim that a mag doesn't make money. I hear this argument all the time, but 90% of the time the owners and operators who see "the books" are lying. They make money on it, a good amount of money. They just don't brag about it because they don't want people to accuse them of profiteering.

 

I will give an exception for a company/publication that does disclose it's budget publicly, is a non-profit, and doesn't run more than one or two ads in their publication. I'll also give an exception to an upstart mag, which likely borrowed money to start the company/publication and isn't swimming in membership. But a publication by the end of it's first year is profitable (if done right).

Not all of us make money, yet we think that our magazine is "done right".

 

The Online Geocacher Magazine:

Web Hosting - $40/month

Income from all sources, including advertisement and sponsors: $Zilch. Nada. Not one thin dime.

 

Some magazines in fact don't make money.

 

Some are designed to lose money. Call us stupid, but we like doing it!

 

FORTY DOLLARS A MONTH???!!!

 

I'm under charging!!

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Can you provide some evidence to support this claim? Numerous print publications have recently folded or on the brink of doing so. If a magazine or newspaper was profitable, why would it fold?

 

LOL, I figured you would be the first to respond!!! Can you provide proof to the contrary?

 

My proof...just go to the news stand sometime....I think you'll find hundreds of mags, I think you'll see how fat they've become from all the ads. Take a look at the owners, I don't see them driving around in Pintos!

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Can you provide some evidence to support this claim? Numerous print publications have recently folded or on the brink of doing so. If a magazine or newspaper was profitable, why would it fold?

 

LOL, I figured you would be the first to respond!!! Can you provide proof to the contrary?

 

My proof...just go to the news stand sometime....I think you'll find hundreds of mags, I think you'll see how fat they've become from all the ads. Take a look at the owners, I don't see them driving around in Pintos!

 

You were the one who made the assertion. It's your responsibility to support it.

 

There certainly are magazines that make money, but there are many that don't. Where did you get the 90% statistic from? And where did you get your information that magazine owners are lying? Many of these companies are publicly traded, so their books are subject to scrutiny on behalf of the shareholders.

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Not all of us make money, yet we think that our magazine is "done right".

 

The Online Geocacher Magazine:

Web Hosting - $40/month

Income from all sources, including advertisement and sponsors: $Zilch. Nada. Not one thin dime.

 

Some magazines in fact don't make money.

 

Some are designed to lose money. Call us stupid, but we like doing it!

 

Your mag may be done right, I don't know. I was talking about specific claims, not specific magazines.

 

But $40 per month is easily covered by a small ad on the website. I mean hell, Google ads (which is peanuts compared to a directly paid ad) would cover that.

 

500 subscribers @ $40 year = $2000 is a good chunk of change to work with to cover the print side. As big as geocaching is...I could see fetching more like 2000 subscribers by years end. How many subscribers did you anticipate by years end in your business plan if you don't mind me asking?

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Can you provide some evidence to support this claim? Numerous print publications have recently folded or on the brink of doing so. If a magazine or newspaper was profitable, why would it fold?

 

LOL, I figured you would be the first to respond!!! Can you provide proof to the contrary?

 

My proof...just go to the news stand sometime....I think you'll find hundreds of mags, I think you'll see how fat they've become from all the ads. Take a look at the owners, I don't see them driving around in Pintos!

 

You were the one who made the assertion. It's your responsibility to support it.

 

 

I supported it as much as I feel I needed to...I'm not going to waste time on a report just for you because you hound people all over this board and despite your earlier assertion of lively discussion, which I found a funny statement frankly.

 

I've heard plenty, and know plenty since my father was a printer and publisher up until his death a few years ago. If folks disagree that's fine...just stating my piece on the subject.

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I supported it as much as I feel I needed to...I'm not going to waste time on a report just for you because you hound people all over this board and despite your earlier assertion of lively discussion, which I found a funny statement frankly.

 

I've heard plenty, and know plenty since my father was a printer and publisher up until his death a few years ago. If folks disagree that's fine...just stating my piece on the subject.

 

You certainly have your right to an opinion, but that doesn't include making up statistics and accusing magazine owners of lying to their shareholders.

 

The print publishing industry has changed dramatically in the last few years. Your perceptions might be based on outdated information that is no longer relevant.

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you hound people all over this board

 

Just curious, would your definition of "hound" include responding to weeks old comments with pointlessly inflammatory comments just to provoke an argument?

 

It's unfortunate that you take it as a personal affront when someone disagrees with you or asks you to show where you got your facts from, but I am certainly not the one "hounding" anyone.

 

Address the comments, not the commenters. Someone you disagree with now might be your strongest ally in a different discussion. There's no need to attack people and create enemies. Geocaching is supposed to be fun.

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500 subscribers @ $40 year = $2000 is a good chunk of change to work with to cover the print side.

 

$20,000 is not going to cover the costs of producing the magazine. If it's 12 issues a year for 500 subscribers, that's 6,000 printed magazines. That means you have about $3.33 per magazine to cover the cost of printing and mailing. Printing 500 copies at a time is a pretty small press run. I looked at one online printer, and for a 28 page magazine printed in color, 500 copies comes to $1,821 or a bit over $3.64 per copy. And you haven't mailed them out yet.

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But $40 per month is easily covered by a small ad on the website. I mean hell, Google ads (which is peanuts compared to a directly paid ad) would cover that.

 

500 subscribers @ $40 year = $2000 is a good chunk of change to work with to cover the print side. As big as geocaching is...I could see fetching more like 2000 subscribers by years end. How many subscribers did you anticipate by years end in your business plan if you don't mind me asking?

Business plan? Paid subscribers? Income? Shhh... catsnfish might hear you! :laughing:

 

We do publish an occasional ad or promotional piece, but we charge nothing for them when we do. Anyone can advertise geocaching-related stuff free if they want to. It's funny... evidently no one believes that, because all the advertising we've done so far was when I saw something online and asked the owners to submit an ad or article for free... very few do! OK, let them pay to advertise somewhere else!

 

We don't want it to become commercial. Catsnfish, the owner and Publisher (I started it and handed it off to him at a time when I couldn't afford the hosting fee) publish it as a gift to the geocaching community.

 

As to subscribers, all content is free and on the web, so there's no need to subscribe. All a subscription gets you is an email when new content is added, so the number of subscribers doesn't mean much. In fact I've never looked to see how many subscribers we had till you asked, but I just looked and it's 563. :laughing:

 

According to Google Analytics the magazine was visited 2,241 times this month by readers averaging almost three minutes per visit, so somebody is reading it!

 

Anyhoo, this thread isn't about us, other than supporting the FTF Geocacher we have nothing to do with them, I just wanted to get across that not every magazine has profit as it's motivation.

Edited by TheAlabamaRambler
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Address the comments, not the commenters. Someone you disagree with now might be your strongest ally in a different discussion. There's no need to attack people and create enemies. Geocaching is supposed to be fun.

I ask you to do the same.

 

BTW...I'm not 'attacking' anyone. I'm simply stating an opinion.

 

Can you show me an example of where I've made a personal attack on another cacher? I certainly try to avoid doing so, but if you can show me where I've done this I'd appreciate it.

 

You didn't state an opinion, you made an allegation and cited a statistic. You should be able to come up with some sort of source to support that, or retract it.

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500 subscribers @ $40 year = $2000 is a good chunk of change to work with to cover the print side.

 

$20,000 is not going to cover the costs of producing the magazine. If it's 12 issues a year for 500 subscribers, that's 6,000 printed magazines. That means you have about $3.33 per magazine to cover the cost of printing and mailing. Printing 500 copies at a time is a pretty small press run. I looked at one online printer, and for a 28 page magazine printed in color, 500 copies comes to $1,821 or a bit over $3.64 per copy. And you haven't mailed them out yet.

 

Ads, man, ads! You have got to have ads. Yeah I meant to say "...chunk of change to START with...". Thread is moving too quick to keep up with revisions.

 

Oh, and I have consider (although on hold at the moment) of doing a mag too (not geocaching related), didn't come anywhere close to costs of $20,000. Perhaps 28 pages for a geocaching magazine is a bit much....might need to cut back (we are talking about FTF Geocacher...right?).

 

Bottomline: I hope you the best, and don't think I was accusing the geocache magazine with my original comment, it was GENERALLY based on comments made about profit and unprofitable statements beyond this thread, but something I have seen in the past.

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Can you show me an example of where I've made a personal attack on another cacher? I certainly try to avoid doing so, but if you can show me where I've done this I'd appreciate it.

Another time and another place, I'm sure everyone is getting sick of the 'drama' as am I.

You didn't state an opinion, you made an allegation and cited a statistic. You should be able to come up with some sort of source to support that, or retract it.

Who says I have to....as stated, I think I've given enough evidence for a geocaching forum. DEAL WITH IT!

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Can you show me an example of where I've made a personal attack on another cacher? I certainly try to avoid doing so, but if you can show me where I've done this I'd appreciate it.

Another time and another place, I'm sure everyone is getting sick of the 'drama' as am I.

You didn't state an opinion, you made an allegation and cited a statistic. You should be able to come up with some sort of source to support that, or retract it.

Who says I have to....as stated, I think I've given enough evidence for a geocaching forum. DEAL WITH IT!

 

If by "deal with it" you mean "not believe you in the slightest," then sure!

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500 subscribers @ $40 year = $2000 is a good chunk of change to work with to cover the print side.

 

$20,000 is not going to cover the costs of producing the magazine. If it's 12 issues a year for 500 subscribers, that's 6,000 printed magazines. That means you have about $3.33 per magazine to cover the cost of printing and mailing. Printing 500 copies at a time is a pretty small press run. I looked at one online printer, and for a 28 page magazine printed in color, 500 copies comes to $1,821 or a bit over $3.64 per copy. And you haven't mailed them out yet.

What GGB said. And he's only mentioned printing and mailing. Those glossy newsstand magazines WW mentioned earlier also have staff and offices, among other things.

 

I've heard plenty, and know plenty since my father was a printer and publisher up until his death a few years ago. If folks disagree that's fine...just stating my piece on the subject.

I've heard plenty, and know plenty, too, since I was senior editor at a large computer magazine run by a major publishing house (Ziff-Davis). You're right, fat glossy magazines with lots of ads are probably making a nice profit. But you might notice many have gotten conspicuously thinner the past couple years. Small niche magazines suffer as well. Even run out of your basement, no paid staff, you still have the expenses GGB mentioned. Yes, a few ads might cover that, but print advertising is harder to come by these days, due to the economy and the internet, which is why newspapers and magazines are folding left and right.

 

Kudos to the publisher of FTF Geocacher for attempting a startup in this climate, esp. considering the fate of previous efforts. Sounds like the first issue was a success overall. I almost wish I'd subscribed, but based on comments here, I'd have a hard time reading it, as I am easily distracted by poor grammar and typos (gotta agree with narcissa there).

 

Back under my rock....

Edited by hydnsek
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Oh, and I have consider (although on hold at the moment) of doing a mag too (not geocaching related), didn't come anywhere close to costs of $20,000.

Just looked at weatherwarrior.com, I know your work!

 

http://presspublisher.com will give you everything you need to publish an online magazine for free, a great way to get started. We pay a subscription fee to get access to their advanced tools and benefits, but you can publish a fine magazine for free (that's how I started) with their basic plan. Cool tool.

 

73 de W4AGA

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Oh, and I have consider (although on hold at the moment) of doing a mag too (not geocaching related), didn't come anywhere close to costs of $20,000.

Just looked at weatherwarrior.com, I know your work!

 

http://presspublisher.com will give you everything you need to publish an online magazine for free, a great way to get started. We pay a subscription fee to get access to their advanced tools and benefits, but you can publish a fine magazine for free (that's how I started) with their basic plan. Cool tool.

 

73 de W4AGA

 

weatherwarrior.net. The dot com site sells bike shirts of some sort, not me. Just clarifying.

Edited by TheWeatherWarrior
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weatherwarrior.net. The dot com site sells bike shirts of some sort, not me. Just clarifying.

Then you need to fix your signature... :laughing:

 

Jason (aka TheWeatherWarrior) Geocaching since March 2002

www.theweatherwarrior.com

www.onlinejason.net

May see me streaming live geocaching hunts in the snow this weekend: (visit link)

Edited by TheAlabamaRambler
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weatherwarrior.net. The dot com site sells bike shirts of some sort, not me. Just clarifying.

Then you need to fix your signature... :laughing:

 

Jason (aka TheWeatherWarrior) Geocaching since March 2002

www.theweatherwarrior.com

www.onlinejason.net

May see me streaming live geocaching hunts in the snow this weekend: (visit link)

that URL is correct too...."theweatherwarrior.com" "weatherwarrior.net" are one in the same. "weatherwarrior.com" isn't. Confusing isn't it. But it works for hits.

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I'm in! LOVE the title....."FTF". Love that competitive part of GeoCaching. Waiting for the notification of a newly released cache and trying to see if you can beat one of your Caching buddies to it. Usually running into them in the woods as they're tying to beat you to it. That's just one of the GREAT parts of caching for me......good times.....good times.....

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Saw this posted by FTF Geocacher on Facebook:

 

Pathtags for Everybody! Yes, thanks to the generosity of the folks at Pathtags.com, we are extending the new-subscriber pathtag offer to the next 500 subscribers (including those who already subscribed but did not receive a tag with the first issue!)

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Interesting. I hope that it doesn't mean that subscriptions are slow and he felt that he needed additional inducement to get folks to sign on.

 

They sold out of the first issue, if I remember correctly.

 

Maybe they get a volume discount on printing at a certain point and are trying to push the subscriptions up to reach it.

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Interesting. I hope that it doesn't mean that subscriptions are slow and he felt that he needed additional inducement to get folks to sign on.

 

Actually, the guys at Pathtags.com came up with the plan to extend the offer.

 

As for our subscription rate, it seems to be tracking slightly behind the number of fans on our Facebook page. We're still not quite where we need to be for the printing price-breaks Narcissa mentioned, but we are closing in on the break point and subscriptions continue to trickle in - sometimes in bursts when the magazine is mentioned on a popular website like The Online Geocacher. Our banner ad has just entered into rotation on geocaching.com so we should see a subscription bump there as well.

 

Considering our total cost of advertising to date has been less than $50 (all to Facebook), we feel fortunate to have established a reasonably solid reader base with minimal investment and plenty of room to grow.

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Update – Issue number 2 of FTF Geocacher is at the printer and will mail out sometime next week. This issue's cover story is "Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum" – a must-see virtual cache. We're sending out another random 100 gold-seal trackable magazines and the guys at Cache-A-Maniacs podcast have donated 100 trackable coins for insertion into random issues. All new subscribers will also receive an FTF pathtag. Thanks to all who gave positive feeback on the first issue; we hope you enjoy the second.

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I've got to get out to see the toilet seat museum one of these days - I've heard so much about it. I'm going to be visiting San Antonio in April - maybe I can sneak in a trip :unsure:

 

Crossing my fingers for a Cache-A-Maniacs podcast coin :D Got the other two goodies last time (FTF pathtag and trackable magazine). I'm glad to hear more people are getting some of both B)

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Despite my criticisms of the first issue, I did enjoy it overall and have re-read some of it since. Looking forward to the next issue.

 

Actually, I consider your remarks to be positive as well since you identified an area of weakness in the magazine (you don't do a restaurant owner any favors by praising bad food). In fact, you will see a tongue-in-cheek reference to your critique in the reader feedback section of this issue.

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"P.S.-I make no bones about it, being a Life Mensa Member...either you're enthralled or repulsed, I don't care, that's your problem not mine, doesn't matter to me either way...I'll continue being whom I am no matter what you think. All I can say is that I test well, what can you say about your abilities!"

 

Mensa...is dat one of dem thar monthly thingies?

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I have my red marking pen at the ready! :laughing:

 

I think we squashed the most blatant errors this time around but I'm sure there are still plenty of the more subtle version. I noticed a couple of awkward paragraph breaks after the fact, and my son informs me I am incorrectly placing the commas around quotations. Oh well, it's the thought that counts?

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I have my red marking pen at the ready! :laughing:

 

I think we squashed the most blatant errors this time around but I'm sure there are still plenty of the more subtle version. I noticed a couple of awkward paragraph breaks after the fact, and my son informs me I am incorrectly placing the commas around quotations. Oh well, it's the thought that counts?

 

Punctuation outside of quotation marks? I feel faint...

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Those of you who love to hate on the FTF so much are the ones that don't have the dedication to chase the FTF and are jealous of those who do.

You do know Groundspeak has a policy against sock puppet accounts, right?

 

He paid for that sock puppet to have a premium membership, either he's really stupid, or it's not a sock puppet.

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Just read the PDF one online and didn't mind it at all. Sure it could use some improvements and more material, but in due time I geuss. I know my wife would rather read the magazine than sit at a computer browsing forums. Signed up myself, hopefully this one sticks around. Good luck

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I will definately will be subscriping. I mean come on its only $8 bucks. A large fastfood meal cost about that much. I mean seriously your complaining about the name!? Its a friggen name. How many of you will gladly shell out the money the buy a TB tag or a Geocoin? But not a magazine that will offer more information to get people to start Geocaching that might not have known about it in the first place. Do you know how I found out about Geocaching? From an episode of C.S.I. I though it was a joke at first. Then once I googled it I found out this is something I could really enjoy. There seems like there is alot of neagativity on this fourm.

The best way to drive new comers away from this sport is to be neagative.

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NOPE...I was burned on the other magazine and don't care to lose again. And....the name FTF Geocacher sucks.

 

WORD! preach it!

 

Naw, I think this guy is alright, despite the unfortunate Mag name. Hey, didn't it used to be 9 out of 10 children who didn't like the micros and nanos?

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NOPE...I was burned on the other magazine and don't care to lose again. And....the name FTF Geocacher sucks.

 

WORD! preach it!

 

Naw, I think this guy is alright, despite the unfortunate Mag name. Hey, didn't it used to be 9 out of 10 children who didn't like the micros and nanos?

 

My kids have actually been enjoying micros lately b/c I've introduced them to night caching :P They don't care what we find as long as they get to use the little flashlights I bought them :P My eldest who used to say he didn't like geocaching recently said, "I'm liking geocaching more and more every time".

 

Personally I love the magazine name, but then I also like going after FTF's. In my area they are often a fun way to meet up with cacher buddies :D I love my FTF pathtag - it's so pretty I have it on my keychain :D I believe they sent out hundreds more with the second issue.

 

FTFFacebook.jpg

Edited by Opalblade
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