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9-Jul-2009 9:23:46 AM
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Not a lot of talk about Rock Mag on this forum lately. Seems when it sucks peeps are happy to smash it down but when it's going well its all quiet. I think the latest issue is the best ever!!!!!!!!!
Ben Cosseys writing is humurous, unique and engaging. Claw is my fav oz climbing writer and i would rank Ben right up there along side him now. Lee Cossey & Jake Bs Epic in Patagonia certainly inspires one to get out on the rock more!
I still think the layout looks a touch dated but thats probably the only flaw.
Big thumbs up too Ross and the team!! Keep up the good work.
Adz
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9-Jul-2009 9:59:46 AM
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Agree about contributors and stories. As a subscriber I am not happy about the reduction in pages lately
due to economic circumstances and will be letting the editorial team know my feelings.
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9-Jul-2009 10:33:53 AM
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I would also agree that the mag is doing ok except for the page count. It is woefully thin for the money we are paying for it.
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9-Jul-2009 11:12:41 AM
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On 9/07/2009 Pat wrote:
>Agree about contributors and stories. As a subscriber I am not happy about the reduction in pages lately due to economic circumstances and will be letting the editorial team know my feelings.
After buying the mag at the newsagent for a while I finally got around to subscribing. The first issue I received was the one noting that the magazine would be thinner than it used to be. While I understood the reasoning I was still a little dirty when I read that.
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9-Jul-2009 11:23:51 AM
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I also agree its a good read.
I think its pathetic to reduce the size of a magazine and blame it on the state of the economy. I wonder if the sales per month have actually reduced ? and if they have, how can they possibly attribute it to the GFC ? Its a lame excuse in order to maximise profits.
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9-Jul-2009 11:29:28 AM
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On 9/07/2009 southcol wrote:
>I also agree its a good read.
>I think its pathetic to reduce the size of a magazine and blame it on
>the state of the economy. I wonder if the sales per month have actually
>reduced ? and if they have, how can they possibly attribute it to the GFC
>? Its a lame excuse in order to maximise profits.
Very very very not true. CRUX went down the gurgler because advertising revenue dried up. I know for a fact that every Oz magazine has been struggling to maintain advertising revenue, and Rock is certainly not immune to this problem. It was either make the mag smaller or have no mag at all. The guys at Rock should be commended for keeping the magazine afloat when many others are disappearing all together. For the super niche market involved Rock is quality publication - one that is probably still propped up by it's larger sister mag Wild.
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9-Jul-2009 11:47:46 AM
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I may be biased having had two articles (well one and a bit) published in Rock in the last 18 months, but I think that since Ross has taken over, the mag has improved considerably. The variety of articles selected from the various contributors have been excellent- Keep up the good work!
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9-Jul-2009 11:51:16 AM
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I know that those are the business realities, but don't you feel that as a subscriber as opposed to
someone off the street who can choose wether they think the mag is too thin, there is some form of
contract that goes along the lines "I will pay you this much for that much magazine"? Then if said
magazine is noticeably reduced, they are effectively borrowing money from you?
If I ran my business this way I would soon loose clients. i.e. my hourly rate is $185.00, then two months
later saying, gee things are tight, my hourly rate is still the same, but now your hour is reduced to 40
minutes.
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9-Jul-2009 12:00:18 PM
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On 9/07/2009 StuE wrote:
>I may be biased having had two articles (well one and a bit) published
>in Rock in the last 18 months, but I think that since Ross has taken over,
>the mag has improved considerably. The variety of articles selected from
>the various contributors have been excellent- Keep up the good work!
+1 Excellent read still my #1 Mag!
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9-Jul-2009 12:06:03 PM
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On 9/07/2009 Pat wrote:
>I know that those are the business realities, but don't you feel that as
>a subscriber as opposed to
>someone off the street who can choose wether they think the mag is too
>thin, there is some form of
>contract that goes along the lines "I will pay you this much for that
>much magazine"? Then if said
>magazine is noticeably reduced, they are effectively borrowing money from
>you?
You need to understand that it is a community service rather than a highly profitable business enterprise. If they wanted to make millions they would have Brad and Angelina on the cover. The people running the show are just your average climbers trying to make something to entertain you. As a former climbing mag editor I know the last thing they would have wanted to do was to reduce page numbers. I'm sure Ross would love to have more articles, more photos and more issues a year if it realistically possible. If you stop treating them as a vast commercial publishing empire, and instead as a small passionate bunch of mates you might understand better.
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9-Jul-2009 12:07:54 PM
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p.s A subscription is an investment - just like any investment it can go either way. I doubt you would be complaining if they suddenly ADDED an extra 20 pages to the magazine because it was suddenly more profitable. A subscription also protects against price rises.
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9-Jul-2009 12:13:27 PM
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ok, i was a little harsh on the Rock crew. At the end of the day its about quality not quantity, and Rock certainly has that right.
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9-Jul-2009 12:44:52 PM
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Reasonable points Neil, although I have always seen it as a purchase, not an investment,
"I doubt you would be complaining if they suddenly ADDED an
>extra 20 pages to the magazine because it was suddenly more profitable." No, but I would expect to
pay more at the next subscription.
">A subscription also protects against price rises."
But obviously not against cuts in delivery.
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9-Jul-2009 1:06:07 PM
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Surley, one of the biggest inefficiencies in magazines must be the excess number of copies you put in every new newsagent, in order to sell the copies that are actually bought. Even in the ideal world (where advertising covers the entire print cost, and sales are all profit), subscribers should be like gold to a magazine producer. If everyone subscribed, then to sell 100 mags, you only need to print 100 mags. But if you have few subscribes, and need to put mags into every newsagent, you may need to print 500 mags to sell 100. Hence your printing cost is 5 times higer (plus some distribution cost). So i can't understand why some discount (90% off, 85% off) isn't offered to subscribers.
What do you think the print to sell ratio is for Rock? Any care to say what it was for Crux??
Cheers
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9-Jul-2009 1:13:58 PM
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Crux was about 10 shop copies to each subscriber. I agree that subscribers are gold for publishers - as you have the cash in advance! However the $ value of subscribers compared to advertising revenue is fairly small - it takes a lot of subscribers to = one full page ad. For CRUX we needed at least 40 subscribers to equal one full page ad.
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9-Jul-2009 1:18:35 PM
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I just re-subscribed to rock & Ice.today.....the earlybird re-subscription for 2 years is USD $44.95 plus $15 shipping for 16 mags....thats one of a discount for subscribing.
I dont bother buying rock most of the time because to is to small....its can be read by simply skimming articles as you pass it in Newsagents and climbing gyms...yeah it dosnt help rock...but to be honest I aint parrting with its price for something that will be lucky to last 20-30mins of reading.
The content it has is good quality...just not enough of it to justify the cost....and to be honest most stuff in it I have tended to find out before its been published in rock anyway.
If they offered subbys discounts like for Rock & Ice, then Id rethink it...bit atm the moment definately not.
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9-Jul-2009 1:20:40 PM
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On 9/07/2009 Richard wrote:
>What do you think the print to sell ratio is for Rock? Any care to say
>what it was for Crux??
CRUX never sold in newsagents - so our print to sell ratio was almost 100%. Shops bought small orders and sold every issue (eventually). I'm sure there are a few copies floating around still for sale - but we literally sold right down to the last box of 50 for a couple of issues.
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9-Jul-2009 8:06:26 PM
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I will also agree that since Ross took over Rock that the mag has become even better. Well done Rock. I also like seeing my pics in glorious colour too ;)) JJ's article was excellent. Bout time we heard from the grandfathers in our midst. I love the glossy centrefolds. The articles generally are interesting and varied. Yep, it's more about quality than quantity. Keep that quality high and I'll keep reading it.
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12-Jul-2009 6:07:13 PM
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WARNING: Nerd Alert!
Well after checking the content of the climbing mags scattered around my place. the lastest 'Climbing' mag (US) $US6 has 90 pages of which 38 are full page ads, ( a quick scan thru the other 'climbing' mags have about 42 to 50% full page ads) add to that a 4 odd pages of whinging letters or photos of their newborn stuck in an offwidth (how cute! NOT) while the new rock - coming in at 40 pages only has 10 full page ads (25%) and no whinging letters. Even thou i subscribe to the US mags i still prefer Rock as i now i will read it cover to cover but with the US ones... well there's only so much you can take, but the pictures are good.
Also you cant compare paying a subscripton to a mag with work , cause if you gave somebody a quote for work to be done , they couldn't come back in 2-3 years with the same quote as prices could of increased shit loads by then, especially in the trades.
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12-Jul-2009 6:51:21 PM
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Yeah the latest rock is wicked :) loved the article on the tote
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