Why does BCM no longer offer a Printed Magazine?

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

People often ask me on social media and when I meet them in person "Why does BCM no longer offer a Printed Magazine?"  Well, this is the story, which so many people do not seem to understand...

I had a choice in May of 2018, after losing money every year since I purchased this business in 2012 from Mike Kadletz (who insinuated that it was profitable), that I could either shut it down completely or convert it to a digital-only format.  Had I shut it down, as I was considering; the website and hence the Forum would not be here now as subscriptions help keep the Forum afloat.

By going to an all-digital format, as many publications are now doing, we were able to more than double the page count and also embed videos and add additional content including hyper-linked Display Ads, Classified Ads, Bus Events, and more. We also cut the subscription price more by 50% to make it affordable to more people.

More and more people were signing up for the digital edition, and printing costs and USPS rates kept rising so it became prohibitive to print and deliver the magazine anymore. BCM is a specialty publication with limited circulation because not that many people are converting buses anymore as we all know. Printing fewer copies of a magazine cost a lot more per unit item than printing thousands of magazines as National Geographic does. 

There was also the cost of resending several magazines every month because people moved without telling us or their magazine was lost or damaged in the mail, sometimes after missing several magazines, not just one. Sending one or two individual issues costs a LOT more than sending many issues using bulk mail and also takes a few minutes to process each one.  Of course, we also had to print about 50 extra issues each month because we never knew exactly how many we would need after the mailing.  By providing an online magazine, we can simply email them another copy very easy.

Producing a printed magazine was also challenging because you have to stick with a specific number of pages every month that are a multiple of 4.  It was very time consuming cutting out content and deciding what photos to leave out when we tried to fit it into a 32 page format. We ended up tossing out some very good material to fit all of our stories into 32 pages.  With the digital edition, this is not a concern. We just add or remove pages as necessary to include all of the material that we want included in the article. To add 4 more pages was over $1000 more per month so that was not an option.

Also, by going digital, we do not need to keep track when people change addresses, as we only use their email. This saves time too.

The great thing about going all-digital is that we now are able to provide all subscribers access to many back issues online with searchable content so you are not only getting one issue each month but also access to hundreds of issues 24/7 which is a ton of information.  This content is all searchable in a matter of seconds, rather than searching through over 300 printed magazines to find one article which can take hours. 

Subscribers also have access to several Books on PDF with all the information you would ever need to convert any kind of bus to a home on wheels. That is a LOT of value for only $19/year.

We also have an option where you can read BCM for free every month. Simply send us an article and we will give or extend your subscription for 1-5 years depending on the length and complexity of the article so you can read BCM for free as long as you send articles as many people now do. We are always in need of articles.

Printing and mailing the magazine was not the only cost of offering a print edition which many people do not realize.  There is also the cost of maintaining an office to store over 5,000 magazines, have a space for shipping the magazines, paying someone to handle the shipping, etc.  Office space is very expensive.  With a digital-only magazine, I now work out of my bus.

I kept the magazine going because now and then I get people thanking me and tell me that they really appreciate the magazine as it is such a help to newbees and oldbees alike and I really enjoy meeting the people that I have met since I rescued the magazine. There are a LOT of really nice Bus Nuts out there.

I plan to continue to produce the magazine, which takes me an average of 6 hours a day, 7 days per week because I still love to do it and.  Again, some people think you can produce a magazine in a few hours per week, which may be true, but there is a LOT more that goes into running a magazine business than just producing a monthly issue.

I hope everyone now understands why we now only produce a digital-only edition of Bus Conversion Magazine.

[David Anderson]

Thanks Gary for keeping the nuts' lifeline going.  You are very appreciated.
David

[buswarrior]

A proper business decision, well behind us now.

I guess some people have nothing better to do than whine at you...

Keep going, don't look back...

Happy coaching!
Buswarrior

[luvrbus]

No kidding Gary has been at my place for a couple of weeks and he does work his butt off for the magazine, lol he even got more than he bargain for helping Sonja move her stuff from the Trek to the new RV she had him on speed dial and he came running when she called.He is cool now I deleted him from her phone you owe me Gary   

[edvanland]

Don't like the on line stuff. With that being said Gary does work his butt off and for that I admire him, among other reasons, so us old folks we just have to get used to it. I slowly am and I appreciate all he does. So like I had to learn to text, do email and other computer things for my business I guess the old saying you can't teach a old dog new tricks doesn't apply anymore.
A big thanks Gary

[CrabbyMilton]

But then again, this crazy thing called the internet isn't new anymore being around in it's general form for about 20+ years. If it takes some people that long to get used to it, chances are they aren't trying hard enough. I'm only 55 but I was concerned about learning it. Now I wonder why I was so concerned.