Hi All:

We've posted some news on Non-Sport Update back issues (the first blog post by my father!):

Just Say No....To Dumping

In a nutshell, the news is we are no longer selling older back issues save a few that will be sold at shows. More details at the link above.

Is there a grace period at all or is this happening now?

Happening now.

Really sad to read this. I only got to learn about NSU Magazine late last year when I was searching for more informations about my favourite card series "Alias" by Inkworks (which you even featured on one of your covers) and I never had a chance to even look at your magazine because it simply isn't available in Germany. I never cared about promo cards at all, it's a nice addition, but it's not the reason why I'd subscribe to a magazine.

Now you might want to say "Hey Stephan, simply subscribe to our magazine, then you'll be able to read it no matter where you live."
From a business point of view this might be right, but I've always been a person who doesn't buy a pig in a poke which means I need to be sure that the majority of the content is interesting to me so I can unhesitatingly subscribe for a year and years to come.

Maybe I'm lucky and find a wholesale of old NSU issues on eBay one day so I can read through the years. Really sad that you will be destroying all your magazines now.

It's just not feasible/economical for us to continue to sell back issues as we have been. We have been publishing Non-Sport Update for nearly 25 years now and that is a lot of back issues to stock (or at least, the ones that don't sell out). If you have a year's worth of magazines under your belt, that's one thing. But 24+ years? And magazines take up a decent clip of space and are not pricey items.

As the story states, however, we will continue to offer newer back issues and will stock a few older issues for those who come to shows.

I agree it's sad but also, necessary. Hope you can understand.

quote:

Originally posted by estephano:

Now you might want to say "Hey Stephan, simply subscribe to our magazine, then you'll be able to read it no matter where you live."
From a business point of view this might be right, but I've always been a person who doesn't buy a pig in a poke which means I need to be sure that the majority of the content is interesting to me so I can unhesitatingly subscribe for a year and years to come.

Without subscriptions there would be no magazine, this magazine is for card collectors and it does exactly what it says it does. True I am not interested in EVERY set that is featured but if people didn't subscribe there wouldn't be a magazine to feature the sets I am interested in!!! And NSU is certainly not a "pig in a poke"

quote:

Originally posted by hammer:

quote:

Originally posted by estephano:

Now you might want to say "Hey Stephan, simply subscribe to our magazine, then you'll be able to read it no matter where you live."
From a business point of view this might be right, but I've always been a person who doesn't buy a pig in a poke which means I need to be sure that the majority of the content is interesting to me so I can unhesitatingly subscribe for a year and years to come.

Without subscriptions there would be no magazine, this magazine is for card collectors and it does exactly what it says it does. True I am not interested in EVERY set that is featured but if people didn't subscribe there wouldn't be a magazine to feature the sets I am interested in!!! And NSU is certainly not a "pig in a poke"

You got mw wrong here. Language barrier maybe. Let me try to explain to you what I've meant. As you might remember I started out as in-person autograph collector and back in the day there was a whole bunch of regular autograph magazines available: Autograph Times, Autograph Collector, Autogramm-Post and Autographensammler were the most common ones (the first two don't exist anymore today).
I had a look at all of them and finally I subscribed to Autograph Times, Autograph Collector and Autographensammler for many years. The reason why I didn't suscribe to Autogramm-Post was because the content mostly wasn't of my interest. Yes, it was an autograph collector's magazine, but I was usually through it within 30 minutes whereas I celebrated each issue of the three subscribed magazines, sat down with a cup of coffee and read everything from first page to the last page.

I totally agree with you that that subscribers are essential for a magazine these days, especially with the heavy competiton on the internet. However, what I meant by saying "I never buy a pig in a poke" is that I don't spend $60 for a 1-year subscription to Germany on something I don't know yet. I'll gladly spend that money once I'm convinced that I'll be eagerly awaiting every new issue because of it's articles (unlike Autogramm-Post as mentioned above).

My earlier comment was completly impartial and without any ratings because I can't judge on anything I don't know yet.

And as you can see, I'm only interested in a magazine's articles/content. Promo cards might be a nice addition, but a magazine is all about the written words, its articles. Personally I think it's disgraceful to subscribe to a magazine just because of some regular give aways (such as promo cards in this case), because this disrespects the hard work every author puts into his articles.

Hope you understood now what I was trying to say earlier.

quote:

I agree it's sad but also, necessary. Hope you can understand.

I'm sure a lot of thought went into this decision, and it was a tough decision to make.

Now in retrospect, I wish I would have bought up all your issues that featured my article on Skelly Oil space cards.

One day soon those will be worth a fortune!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BILLZEE,

Out of interest roughly how many mags are we talking. I can see better ways of getting rid of old stock that would be better than simply throwing them out but you have made your decision, rightly or wrongly.

I eventually had throw out my old copies of NSU save a few issues of special interest, it just was not financially viable selling them on.

Harris, here's a suggestion because we live in a digital age that I don't always agree with.

Can you scan each back issue and save it to build a library in the cloud as they say? Then you could figure out how to get it to people who may want to buy copies without having to store the physical issues.

Might have to work with an IT guy to figure the best way to do, but there should be some alternative to just dumping the lot. There will be a lot of good articles and info lost for people who may want to catch up.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
Harris, here's a suggestion because we live in a digital age that I don't always agree with.

Can you scan each back issue and save it to build a library in the cloud as they say? Then you could figure out how to get it to people who may want to buy copies without having to store the physical issues.

Might have to work with an IT guy to figure the best way to do, but there should be some alternative to just dumping the lot. There will be a lot of good articles and info lost for people who may want to catch up.

I would have thought most if not all the back issues are already in electronic format somewhere since they would have been created using a computer program. Still hoping NSU goes electronic one day, I would resubscribe to NSU, as an international subscriber it is not viable right now.

quote:

Originally posted by JR2D2:

I would have thought most if not all the back issues are already in electronic format somewhere since they would have been created using a computer program. Still hoping NSU goes electronic one day, I would resubscribe to NSU, as an international subscriber it is not viable right now.

That has basically been my longstanding position also. I'd subscribe to an electronic/iPad version in an instant (and maybe even pay a small additional fee for promo cards shipped every 3-6mo), but shipping magazines to Australia on a regular basis isn't viable.

I can see where collectors outside the US might be better served with a digital version of NSU, as long as it didn't replace the magazine. To me there is nothing like reading a real book or magazine.

I have had a few publications go electronic on me, both for pleasure and on my job. Where I read them before, without a doubt it became a chore to open them up when I had so many other things to do on the PC. I just kept brushing them aside and one day I realized I had just stopped reading them altogether.

I like reading NSU too much to have that happen.

I needed two issues to have a complete run of the magazine. I ordered from the bookstore that I later purchased,and then throught a locial comic shop after I closed my Diamond account. I missed the issues because they were not ordered and then was out of stock at Diamond. I never got around to ordering them and now they are gone.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
To me there is nothing like reading a real book or magazine.

I have had a few publications go electronic on me, both for pleasure and on my job. Where I read them before, without a doubt it became a chore to open them up when I had so many other things to do on the PC. I just kept brushing them aside and one day I realized I had just stopped reading them altogether.

I like reading NSU too much to have that happen.

I'm so with you on this, Raven! When I subscribe to a magazine, I want the 'real deal', I want to smell and feel the freshly printed paper and celebrate each issue by 'logging off' (no phone calls, no emails, no disruptions) and reading a magazine from first to last page.

Although I'm in Germany and an electronic copy would be easier to distribute from the US to here, I wouldn't want that. I mean, I'm not old, I'm 32, but in some cases you may call me old-fashioned when it comes to books/magazines vs. e-papers.

The other problem I see with NSU doing an e-paper is that this could be shared illegaly countless times on the net and NSU would loose a portion of their customers as well as loosing future customers who are driven by the formula "Why should I subscribe to a magazine if I can get it for free on the net?".

Even a HUGE publication like the German weekly national news magazine "Der Spiegel" is facing problems because their e-papers are shared illegaly and their weekly distribution dropped from more than 1 million copies to now below 900.000 copies. You can imagine what kind of disaster it would be for small magazines like NSU if their e-papers are shared illegaly.

I would always prefer a "Proper" copy of the Magazine. Whilst it is a shame that NSU is destroying the back copies I suppose you can't keep 100's of old copies "Just in Case" somebody wants one.