Hub magazine to move to all-electronic format : UK SF Book News

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Apr

10

Hub magazine to move to all-electronic format

Posted in: Press Room on 10th April 2007 by UKSFBN admin

Lee Harris, editor of the UK's Hub magazine writes to tell us about major changes to the future formatting and distribution of the magazine. In essence, Hub will be moving to an electronic-only distribution model; effective from the next issue, which was originally due to be the third to see print.

Lee explains that the decision has largely been taken on financial grounds: "As we have not been able to employ a full-time advertising salesperson we have not had the ability to attract a sufficient amount of revenue to keep the magazine going in its existing format.

"Even though we almost sell out each issue, sales revenue is never enough to cover costs. You may be aware that the cover price of a magazine (for a magazine of our size, at least) is usually a loss-leader. The aim is to attract advertising, and though the subscribers were with us we simply did not have the business acumen sufficient to sell the quantities of advertising needed. Hub was put together by a couple of people with an interest in genre fiction - not by an experienced publishing empire.

"Hub will therefore move to an electronic-only format from Issue 3."

The specifics of the new format are as follows: "From Issue 3 onward, Hub will be a weekly 'zine. Every week subscribers will receive one short story, plus at least one review (and due to the more frequent nature of the delivery reviews can be more topical), and there will also be occasional features. This means that the amount of fiction we are publishing will remain unchanged.

"Another major change is the cost of the 'zine. Though we are going to continue to pay contributors (for both fiction and non-fiction), Hub is going to become free.

"How can we afford to do this? The magazine is to be (initially, at least) sponsored by one of the UK's foremost publishers of SF - Orbit Publishing. Orbit's kind patronage will enable us to pay all of our writers a modest fee (not as much as we paid previously, but we're only asking for non-exclusive, electronic-only rights to the work this time around). Additional costs (website hosting, etc) will be met by appealing to the kind nature of our readers (i.e. donations).

"There are many successful electronic-only magazines around, and the most important thing is to continue to bring our subscribers quality fiction and features.

"The magazine will be produced in PDF format, and will continue to be formatted in a professional manner with illustrations, where appropriate. Subscribers will receive a version suitable for reading online, or downloading to a PDA, though there will also be the option to download a higher-resolution version suitable for printing. We will also be experimenting with versions for Palm and Microsoft Reader."

Existing Hub subscribers need not worry that they're being fleeced by the changes though. As Lee confirms: "All existing subscribers will receive a refund for the unfulfilled portion of their subscription. The new service begins on April 20th, and the magazine will be sent through every Friday thereafter."

More information on the current (and last) issue of the print mag, as well as details of how to subscribe to the new electronic version of the 'zine, can be found at www.hub-mag.co.uk.

Source: Lee Harris, Hub magazine

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