Re: flattery will get you everywhere…
Originally posted by GeneChing
…but if you really want to be flattering - subscribe!
I already have a 2 year subscription and bought almost $300 worth in equipment in Oct. I think that makes me good for atleast a year 
Kymus
You flatterer you. 
Re: Kymus
Originally posted by GeneChing
You flatterer you.
I couldn’t resist. 1 year I could afford, 2, well, I shouldn’t of spent that extra money, but the “Got Qi?” shirt made me do it.
(and we’ll never exhaust Chinese history).
And if you do, we’ll just make up some more.
And if you do, we’ll just make up some more
Indeed, we fight a two-front war here at Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine. Ain’t no place I’d rather be.
two-front
Two front!?
Come on Gene.. admit it.. you were surrounded before you even realized you were starting.
publishing time warp
For a publisher, it’s the only future and the past. The moment is too fleeting.
When you publish a mag, you become a little unstuck in time. For example, you all will be seeing our new issue on stands in a few weeks - it’s scheduled to go on sale on 4/6/4, our subscribers should go out this week or very early next week. Of course, we’ve already seen the advance at the office. This is the May June 2004 issue (and today is the day after St. Patrick’s Day). We’re currently working on our July Aug 2004 issue, which ahs been in production for almost four weeks already. And next week, assuming everything goes according to schedule, I’ll begin advance work on our Sep Oct 2004 next week.
I’m not even sure where the moment is anymore. Not very Zen, I know… The real hardship of practice is the intrusion of the mundane.
Gene, someone needs to make you a little program where you just click a button and that will have the direct link for the product. Someone wants a <a href=“http://store.martialartsmart.net/45-84wu.html”>Monk spade</a>? no problem, just click monk spade and the link is given to you . If I ever get better at programming, I’ll see if I can whip one up for the he|| of it. 
KFM is the ray of light in my CMA mag starved world. The magazines in England are pathetic, totally driven by advertising, and not wanting to know if someone doesn’t have an advertisement with them. Some of the people they big up are complete jokes, but they bought a full page ad.
This isn’t restricted to MA mags as this link shows
www.edromanguitars.com/rant/magazine.htm
but I think it’s somewhat sad that this culture should thrive in a martial arts community 
kymus & gash
kymus - how’s that different then this? I’m mean call let’s a spade a spade…
ben gash - Thanks for the kind words. I don’t fault other mags for promoting their advertisers. We do it too. At least the advertisers give something back to the mag. We’ve promoted a lot of masters over the years and more often then not, the masters seem indignent about it. Maybe that’s not the word. Controlling. They want they ‘image’ to be portrayed in a certain way, which often translates into “show me for the GOD that I am”. It’s amazing how many times we get stung by people that we try to do a little favor for, then they get all huffy because of some trivial detail. It gets tiresome. At least the advertisers put their money down.
Actually, that’s one of the advantages of our mag - we don’t rely on outside advertising, so we don’t have to cater to that. We just promote who we like.
Gene - do you think print media has an actual lifespan now in the face of digital? Will there come a time when the print magazine is extinct?
Re: kymus & gash
Originally posted by GeneChing
kymus - how’s that different then this? I’m mean call let’s a spade a spade…
What I meant, was a program for you so that all you do is click the product on some little program that is running, and it pops up the link for you. It’d be a tiny bit easier than navigating through the site. It was an amusing stupid joke almost. lol, for me anyways
Print media has always had a shelf life…
… only comic books have a vintage, so to speak, but other print magazines get very dated quickly. I don’t think that print magazines will ever die out completely, but there has already been some dramatic shifts in the business. Mags like Reader’s Digest and TV Guide, once kings of the hill, are plummeting. Celeb mags like People and Men’s mags like FHM and Maxim are starting to dominate.
On our level - the martial world - it’s getting really hard to keep a nitche on the newsstands. Most newsstands only have room for one martial arts magazine, but there are so many different tastes out there - each of us is trying to specialize in it’s own market, in hopes that it will dominate. So we are simlutaneously getting wider and narrower, if you can envision that.
Of course, the net has had it’s effect - obviously or we wouldn’t even be having this dialog. That’s really where the market is at now, but not so much for outside vendors, so the mags that rely on external ads aren’t really engaging it. This may change over time. Right now, many advertisers and writers are hesitant about investing in the net, just because of old preconceptions. You cna’t hold the net in your hand like a mag. But you can hold it in your palm or even on your phone, which makes it ultimately more powerful. In fact, our e-zine articles tend to get more exposure than our print ones over time.
I for one hope that the prints don’t go out of style. But, even if they do, I doubt it’ll be before I’m dead and gone.
I like the shiny paper. You can’t feel shiny paper on the internet. Legally, at least.
I can’t read off my desktop in the bath (or the John for that matter)
reading in the John…
…I’m glad our magazine keeps you regular.