Joined
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9,983 Posts
***First an admission!
Looking at the naming I was openly skeptical when the mag was announced but I can now say quite happily "I was 100% wrong"... It clearly started well and has become better with each issue, so congratulations on an excellent magazine.
Re the new Website: You need to make a "splash" and promote it - it is really well done!
It also led me to take a look at Ian Allens site which has also grown to be a far more sophisticated presentation than it was on my last "long ago" visit! As a lover of good reference books I can never resist - and as its a while since I indulged that quick look at the current IA selection may cost me dearly later this weekend after I've spent more time and looked a little closer!
A positive suggestion for the Hornby Mag site if I may though...
It would be really helpful to take a leaf from the IA website and show the bar at the bottom which indicates which payment methods are accepted... or at least show somewhere on the home or subscribe pages the options available... perhaps not all that much of an issue for local buyers, but for us way out on the other side of a globe, its often an issue!
I made this suggestion as I right now am motivated to look towards a subscription by the contiued positive comments on the last couple of issues, and it was only as I noted that PAYPAL was accepted on the IA website that I realised I could probablty also use it for Hornby magazine....
and that happens to suit me fine IF it is so - can you confirm please? (It suits me to use my PAYPAL balance as a sort of "hobby fund" on occasion and I might have gone ahead and subscribed much earlier if I'd known that before! - I suspect the same may apply to other "remote" modellers too)
The idea:
I have a huge bookcase groaning under a decade or two of magazines. I actually weighed a couple of them and worked out I have over a tonne of paper there already!
An idea: Could you perhaps offer an added or alternate subscription by email/ high definition PDF file or on a CD ROM?
Options:
* subscribe to paper mag only
* subscribe to CD copy only (I know you can't reduce revenues but post will be less and publishing production will be less too so net margin must be better for you even if it was a wee bit cheaper... - but to me it'd be OK even if cost the same as the paper one)
* subscribe to both for a combined better price....
Why do I would want it.... and why I think others would like it....
(1) I can read many mags in paper form and find many useful articles there and then .... but when I actually need them months later, it takes me an age to scan back through the hundreds of mags I have to find the article. So.... if I had each issue on a CD ROM I could copy those articles to my computer and create a "compilation" of useful data as time goes on.
(2) I can read it at my leisure as a paper mag then on my own "CD copy" of the disc when I transfer to the PC I can delete the pages I don't want (PDF can be locked for editing but still allow page deletion etc)
(3) I can easily create a new PDF with only those articles I want stored - or even create my own new PDF for each category
(4) I can then have it BOTH ways... in fact, Personally the MAG + CDROM subscription is the option I would take myself, as it would allow me to...
* read it in a relaxed fashion as I like to do.
* Then when the mood takes me I could load and store the pages I want off the CD ROM for easy reference on my PC....
* After a while, I could then donate my mag without pages removed to my local club, further promoting the mag to new readers.....
Please think about it - it would also be a stand-out bit of innovation to further differentiate Hornby mag from the others - if costed well it might even increase the bottom line a wee bit perhaps?????
Many thanks for reading this and again, congratulations on your continued success (and congrats on the award too)
Richard
DCCconcepts
Looking at the naming I was openly skeptical when the mag was announced but I can now say quite happily "I was 100% wrong"... It clearly started well and has become better with each issue, so congratulations on an excellent magazine.
Re the new Website: You need to make a "splash" and promote it - it is really well done!
It also led me to take a look at Ian Allens site which has also grown to be a far more sophisticated presentation than it was on my last "long ago" visit! As a lover of good reference books I can never resist - and as its a while since I indulged that quick look at the current IA selection may cost me dearly later this weekend after I've spent more time and looked a little closer!
A positive suggestion for the Hornby Mag site if I may though...
It would be really helpful to take a leaf from the IA website and show the bar at the bottom which indicates which payment methods are accepted... or at least show somewhere on the home or subscribe pages the options available... perhaps not all that much of an issue for local buyers, but for us way out on the other side of a globe, its often an issue!
I made this suggestion as I right now am motivated to look towards a subscription by the contiued positive comments on the last couple of issues, and it was only as I noted that PAYPAL was accepted on the IA website that I realised I could probablty also use it for Hornby magazine....
and that happens to suit me fine IF it is so - can you confirm please? (It suits me to use my PAYPAL balance as a sort of "hobby fund" on occasion and I might have gone ahead and subscribed much earlier if I'd known that before! - I suspect the same may apply to other "remote" modellers too)
The idea:
I have a huge bookcase groaning under a decade or two of magazines. I actually weighed a couple of them and worked out I have over a tonne of paper there already!
An idea: Could you perhaps offer an added or alternate subscription by email/ high definition PDF file or on a CD ROM?
Options:
* subscribe to paper mag only
* subscribe to CD copy only (I know you can't reduce revenues but post will be less and publishing production will be less too so net margin must be better for you even if it was a wee bit cheaper... - but to me it'd be OK even if cost the same as the paper one)
* subscribe to both for a combined better price....
Why do I would want it.... and why I think others would like it....
(1) I can read many mags in paper form and find many useful articles there and then .... but when I actually need them months later, it takes me an age to scan back through the hundreds of mags I have to find the article. So.... if I had each issue on a CD ROM I could copy those articles to my computer and create a "compilation" of useful data as time goes on.
(2) I can read it at my leisure as a paper mag then on my own "CD copy" of the disc when I transfer to the PC I can delete the pages I don't want (PDF can be locked for editing but still allow page deletion etc)
(3) I can easily create a new PDF with only those articles I want stored - or even create my own new PDF for each category
(4) I can then have it BOTH ways... in fact, Personally the MAG + CDROM subscription is the option I would take myself, as it would allow me to...
* read it in a relaxed fashion as I like to do.
* Then when the mood takes me I could load and store the pages I want off the CD ROM for easy reference on my PC....
* After a while, I could then donate my mag without pages removed to my local club, further promoting the mag to new readers.....
Please think about it - it would also be a stand-out bit of innovation to further differentiate Hornby mag from the others - if costed well it might even increase the bottom line a wee bit perhaps?????
Many thanks for reading this and again, congratulations on your continued success (and congrats on the award too)
Richard
DCCconcepts
