Dear Friends,

I am seeking your input and thoughts!

I am conducting a feasability study on a new project! To publish an Annual "African Bible" which will be geared and targetted specifically towards the African Hunter. It will primarily contain PH and Operator listings, including contact information and other detailed information on their hunts, for all the African countries. The book will also contain maps, information on huntable species by country etc.

The book will also carry advertising and listing information from companies that make products geared solely towards African Hunters.

To mention a few: Gun makers - Custom, American, English, German, European, Bullet manufacturers, booking agents, travel agents, customs clearance agents, taxidermists, places to visit in Africa, hotels to stay etc etc. as well as unique information on each of the countries, such as - embassy information, other vital information. You get the gist!

I guess the BIg Q is would you find such a directory useful and would you buy such a book? Cost would be around $50! I realize that All this information is available already in one place or the other, but to have it in one consolidated place might be helpful!

Appreciate your thoughts both positive and negative.

Thanks for your time and above all your valuable feedback,

Reddy375

Since the info would necessarily change year-to -year, $50 might be too steep. Maybe $20?

Do you have publishing experience?

Do you have the funds to hire the best advertising salesmen, authors, photographers, art directors and a professional editor, as well as pay printiing costs for two or three editions before your book becomes profitable?

Do you know how to market and distribute books economically?

Do you know how to set space costs that attract advertisers and still make money?

Your statement, "Cost would be around $50," worries me. Retail prices for books without advertising typically are based on a formula of five to eight times total cost of production to allow for profit after distributor and retailer discounts.

Setting a retail price without knowing cost of producing the product or how much advertising you can expect to sell can be dangerous.

With the standard ratio of 50% advertising to 50% editorial material you can use the 5X formula and make money (the only way of determing success in publishing). Increase the advertising ratio and you turn off readers; increase the editorial ratio and your bottom line suffers.

I wish you good luck if you can't answer "yes" to most of the above questions. Amateur publishers who have tried the "African information" format in the past have not succeeded.

Bill Quimby

Safari Press is now selling the 2007-2008 edition of their Safari Guide, with much the same info for $75 soft and $100 hard cover.
www.safaripress.com

If you only listed areas and people that advertised, your book would not be unbiased. That being true there would be little value for the buyer / reader.

What I would like to see is AR doing a country by country fact list that would be available right here. There is more accumulated knowledge among the members here than most books could hold and I believe that most members would be more than willing to contribute. Many do every time they post in some manner or another. I know this doesn't help either the established publishing industry nor the newcomer but it would be easier to keep current and you would have thousands of contributors.

I just ordered Safari Press' 2007-2008 African Guide yesterday for $75, softcover. Will have to see what it is like when it is delivered first of next week. You might want to take a look at that first before you dive into a project that has already been completed.

Gentlemen,

Thank you for all your thoughts and feedback. Please keep them coming.

Thanks again.

Reddy375

Reddy375 ///

Here are my general thoughts on the matter.

Magazines/Books IMHO are OK for hunting information stories and to some degree for specific information that does not change from month to month, for instance Nyati etc which is regional and species informative.

It is my understanding that you want to compile a living referance document/book which would include a lot of relavent information that might change from time to time such as specific contacts webpages and the likes.

My sugggestion is seeing we are living in a just in time electronic age you might be better served to CONSIDER going UPMARKET MODERN and do your project on some computor programme that interested parties can purchase ONLINE and which will have (ongoing updates) to add extra information and changes that will occur over the ensuing months after publication, just like PC programmes do, crtical updates etc

It might be a grand plan but I believe it will be a winner for someone with the technical experience and time to develop the project.

The problem with book information it becomes dated the minute it is produced

Cheers, Peter

Using the e-format to publish African hunting info is already here.

www.africanhuntinginfo.com

There probably are others.

I also saw a hardcover, 4-color book with ads (and not the Safari Press book) claiming to provide everything a hunter needs to know about Africa at the SCI convention last month.

There may be more out there.

There also are magazines, such as Safari, Hatari Times, African Hunter, and Magnum, plus Sports Afield, which includes a lot of African coverage.

Bill Quimby

quote:

Originally posted by billrquimby:
Using the e-format to publish African hunting info is already here.

www.africanhuntinginfo.com

There probably are others.

Bill Quimby

Bill

Yes you are correct there are others, here is another (VERY GOOD ONE) with e-options as well as book format. I really like their animals information in particular. They have put a lot of thought into the productions and the options to purchase in various formats etc

Ultimate Field Guide

Reddy375

It is not that easy a job to compile a real informative updated information dossier and compete with the existing information already out there, but that does not mean you cant try !!

Cheers, Peter

Arjun,

Some suggestions. In 1998 I was hired by Norida in India to bring out their then new magazien concept, Medi Tech, and I gqained some experience on the job. There were many things that I did then that I wouldn't now, and here are some of my suggestions:

1. Try to avoid bringing a new magazine out in print format. Paper costs money and when you have to factor in margins of 40% plus incentives for distributors, you have to sell a huge number of copies to break even

2. CD/DVD copies would be the best way to try a low investment approach. Moser-Baer sell CDs in bulk in India for about In Rs 5 each, which is about 11 cents US. These are special prices that they offer for third world markets and the same CDs bought in the US would cost significantly more even if you bought them wholesale

3. Also, mailing from a third world country would save a huge amount of money especially if you take advantage of the bulk mailing rates. That said, USPS are also very reasonably priced though I have reservations about UPS, Fed Ex, DHL and whoever else

4. If you plan on a print magazine, you should be able to recover 100% of your cost plus 20% as an operating margin out of advertising sales. If you don't do that, the business would lose money from day one. And, if the losses continue to mount, you would not be able to sustain it beyond a year

5. In publishing the authors you sign up would be the main factor in selling your book/CD/DVD. Most prominent authorities on hunting in Africa already have commitments to some publisher or the other. Unless you could offer something so lucrative that one or another of them decides to break from his current publisher and switch to you, you may find the project stillborn. If you have to pay money upfront to help an author come out of an existing arrangement with a publisher, that would require a large amount of capital in addition to the 20% operating margin that I told you about

6. Take it from me - 99% of writers are difficult people to deal with if you are an editor/publisher. I mean no offense by this - it is not easy to bring out good and original writing or offer ever newer perspectives on a single subject. Hence the assembly-line approach that you see in most gun and hunting magazines these days

7. Check out the competition. MAny of today's magazines may be repetitive and advertising focused as opposed to subject matter focused. But they have been around for a while, they have good relationships with major distributors and they have money. Without substantial financial backing it would not be easy to fight them

All of the above are cautionary suggestions, not meant to be discouragements in any way. If you do manage to get this done and succeed, it would be like running the three minute mile, or, doing a Bell or Pretorius if I were to use a hunting analogy. Good luck, if you do take this up, and I hope you manage to do it successfully if you do. This would have to be a full time vocation, believe me, and if you're thinking about working on a part-time basis it would, most certainly, not work out.

Cheers!

After spending a half century in one aspect of publishing or another, I can tell you that a 20% margin of advertising revenue over cost is bare bones, unless you truly compute ALL your costs. We used to figure buying editorial material, photos, printing and mailing was about 50% of our total cost.

Other costs include those of running an office (rent, salaries, equipment, telephone, supplies, etc.), travel for ad salesmen, storage, legal fees, insurance, and on and on.

In a startup, you also will need to advertise (expensive) to build your circulation to keep advertisers happy.

Mehul Kamdar is correct about advertising. It is vital, and in specialty pubs that aren't on newsstands (you really don't want to go there) you absolutely need a launch circulation of 10,000 copies at the very least and a editorial/advertising ratio of 50/50.

Your ad space costs need to be in line with the CPM (cost per thousand readers) of your competitors, and for a startup with a low circulation that can be difficult.

Kamdar also is correct about the high cost of postage, especially for a start-up. The U.S. post office has a second-class (read cheaper) rate for established publications, but obtaining that status can take a year or more. You'll eventually get some of that money back after you are accredited, but you do have to pay it up front.

You don't want to get involved in mailing a lot of magazines overseas. The thickest issues of Safari Magazine cost about $14 U.S. EACH to send overseas, and we used "drop shippers" who shipped them in bulk to Johannesburg, Sydney, London and other key cities and posted them there.

Magazines also need to be listed in Standard Rate and Data Service, which certifies that their circulations are what the publishers say they are. It's a Catch 22. You can't get listed until you have a second-class postal status and are accepted by SRDS, and big advertisers will not buy ads in non-listed pubs.

Believe it or not, finding authors is the least difficult of yoiur problems. They come knocking when they learn there's a new market out there. This includes those under contract to other publications, who offer to work under pen names. I personally believe access to good editors, art directors, production people and photographers is more important. Findng top-notch ones certainly is more difficult.

Going electronic will greatly reduce production costs, I'm sure, but I suspect the major advertisers will be reluctant to experiment with it for quite a while.

If you want to make money at this, always remember what my college journalism professor -- a retired and respected New York Times editor -- said: "News is what you put around the ads." He meant that you should never forget that advertising is what pays for the product. Subscriptions and newsstand sales are never enough.

Bill Quimby

You two have given us some great insights and education into the publishing world. Thanks for taking the time to provide the information. I know for me, that it now makes me better appreciate the authors, publishing companies and others connected with the books and magazine that I choose to purchase and read.

quote:

Originally posted by billrquimby:

Kamdar also is correct about the high cost of postage, especially for a start-up. The U.S. post office has a second-class (read cheaper) rate for established publications, but obtaining that status can take a year or more. You'll eventually get some of that money back after you are accredited, but you do have to pay it up front.

You don't want to get involved in mailing a lot of magazines overseas. The thickest issues of Safari Magazine cost about $14 U.S. EACH to send overseas, and we used "drop shippers" who shipped them in bulk to Johannesburg, Sydney, London and other key cities and posted them there.

Magazines also need to be listed in Standard Rate and Data Service, which certifies that their circulations are what the publishers say they are. It's a Catch 22. You can't get listed until you have a second-class postal status and are accepted by SRDS, and big advertisers will not buy ads in non-listed pubs.

Isn't freight and postage usually charged all up front as an additional fee?

So other than perhaps making a profit from the sale of "postage" by cutting costs, isn't this all taken care of already.

Look at the African Hunter magazine costs for a US subscriber vs a non-US subscriber (!) and you will see the difference.

Wink has an interesting suggestion. Not sure what form it would take, but something along those lines could be very useful.

Doug

<<<<<<<<<<<Isn't freight and postage usually charged all up front as an additional fee?>>>>>>>>>>>

Freight and postage charged to subscribers often is not necessarily related to actual cost of freight and postage. Many publications, especially new ones, sell subscriptions below their cost to print and mail them. They do this to increase circulation so they can charge more for advertising.

<<<<<<<So other than perhaps making a profit from the sale of "postage" by cutting costs, isn't this all taken care of already.>>>>>

No. See above and below.

<<<<<<Look at the African Hunter magazine costs for a US subscriber vs a non-US subscriber (!) and you will see the difference.>>>>>>

I have no idea how African Hunter determines its subscription prices, but this process often has nothing to do with the cost of printing and postage. I do know AH is now printed in the USA, not Africa, which makes any cost involving labor much higher.

Advertising is what makes the world go around. If a publisher has positioned his magazine as a 500,000-copy publication and set his ad rate card accordingly, you will be surprised what he will do to keep that 500,000-copy circulation if it were to suddenly drop by 10% to 15%.

That's why you sometimes see specials on two-year subscriptions (postage included) to Outdoor Life, for example, for much less than the price of five or six issues bought at your grocery store.

There are companies that specialize in selling subscriptions through mail order and other means that sometimes keep every penny they generate. Pubs sign up because they want the added circulation.

Bill Quimby

Bill Quirmby,

Thanks for your post. My experience is from India, where people can be hired much cheaper than they can in other parts of the world. I am presuming that Arjun has plans of working with freelancers on contract over there, hence the 20% over costs suggestion. Of course, it would cost vastly more if he were to hire people in New York. I am grateful for the US perspective you have offered, something that I have virtually zero experience of despite having lived in the USA for three years now.

Use Enough Gun,

It's only a job. Believe me, there are other jobs which are vastly more difficult than working in publishing - something that I find out every day as I struggle with my new business. If I didn't have a very experienced partner working with me, it would have been much worse. Publishing is a walk in the park compared to some of the jobs that other people do.

NitroX,

It is true that in the old days magazines used to charge postage fees separately from their subscription charges. These days you have some book distributors selling subscriptions on Ebay for very low rates - for example, I get Newsweek, a Boating magazine and National Geographic in a package deal at $ 2 each for a 1 year subscription. Even if I were to look at a postage discount I cannot see how any of these magazines could be shipped for the kind of subscription (all inclusive) that I am paying. A new publication would have to think about all of this when launching. After all, it is a question of time before someone begins to offer the established gun magazines at these low prices on Ebay. How does someone new compete with them? I am sure that there are many more hurdles that Arjun would have to surmount if he gets into this business. Hence the cautionary suggestions to him or anyone else who might be contemplating something similar.

Good hunting, gentlemen!

Hey i'm not knocking African Hunter magazine. I am an interntational subscriber.

It was just used as an illustration to show how postage IS CHARGED UP FRONT.

US Subscriptions $60 per year
International Subscriptions $100 per year.

$40 extra certainly covers the additional postage costs of 6 magazines in a year.

***

As for free or bonus subscriptions to "Newsweek" or similar, they are profitable magazines and MAIN STREAM magazines. No stand alone speciality product is ever going to be able to do that in a small niche market segment.

John:

I knew you were using AH as an example. But just because an extra amount is charged for "international subscriptions" is no positive indication that is what it costs the publisher to deliver overseas.

Although it's charged up front, I'm not sure that $40 extra would cover the cost of mailing six copies of AH to Australia, for example. It may or may not, depending upon how it is sent.

I can tell you that Safari Club"s international membership fee did not cover the cost of delivering Safari Magazine, Safari Times, and the various membership mailings to members outside the USA.

Newsweek and similar mainstream magazines are profitable because they target a circulation number and set ad prices accordingly. Small publications operated by professional publishers do the same, although on a smaller scale.

Bill Quimby