I guess this is your way of saying that you do not agree with the way this is done, but I can't help but notice that you are not a contributor to any of the articles above, so why would you feel the need to do this?

Or are you trying to make Cheng Soon feel what it is like when your works are 'ripped off'?

For me all this does is to emphasize that those that have the strongest opinion about this being free (or not) are not the ones affected by it.

It has nothing to do with being ripped off or disagreeing. Michael Porter would say that the format and presentation of a PDF has little competitive advantage over a list of links on a web page.

These articles as well as the discussions on HN (which you don’t link to) are also linked on the submitted page.

I only see direct discussion links, not article links.

Our "Why Ugly Design Converts" was included in printing #2.

The publisher, Cheng, reached out to us - asked permission, and gave us the opportunity to make edits.

I assume he does this with everybody, so there's certainly no exploitation of the article writers .

Next, he went through our blog article and made it beautiful with more thought and care than even we had.

I feel indebted to Cheng and his team, we've gotten several mentions from other folks we work with about the article, and being included has been a fantastic marketing tool to show to prospective clients.

Let me sum up:

a) I was left with the impression that Cheng's motivations are built from passion, and his process is incredibly transparent.

b) I support the magazine to give other members of this community the opportunity to be featured when they put together something that the community finds compelling.

c) Maybe Cheng should give the top 100 stories in a given month the opportunity to BUY slots in the magazine. The amount of work he did to make our crummy blog writing look professional, and the fact that it's a brilliant marketing tool would have easily been worth the price of admission. No conflict because he's pulling from top voted stories anyways.

Thanks Cheng for the work you continue to do!

Edit: Our "Why Ugly Design Converts" article - http://bit.ly/a2w9xO

Sigh... Proper link: http://conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/04/increase-your-conve...

Out of curiosity why didn't you like the bit.ly link? I put in that format purely for convenience, readability.

Because url shorteners break the web[1][2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_shortening#Criticism_and_pr...

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1536662

if by readability you mean obscurity. URL shortening breaks one of the best features of URLs: that the url exposes the location and name of the resource.

You are most welcome, Zack. I'm glad that you are happy with it and thank you so much for the support.

It makes me sad and fearful for the future of our industry when someone charging the equivalent of a cup of coffee for something that has a multiple of the value of said coffee is met with dozens of complaints about how it should be free, plus people actively trying to sabotage his efforts (sorry to mmphosis if the list of links wasn't meant in that way).

It's just this audience; hackers who bill their clients $75 / hr will spend an hour trying to avoid paying $3 for something online that they want, while sitting in a coffee shop and drinking a latte and a muffin they just paid $8 for. It makes no sense.

It's not the money that matters to a hacker, it's the accomplishment of surpassing a tangible value that does.

What does "surpassing a tangible value" mean?

I don't feel the list of links are sabotaging the work at all, the author has stated that all the articles are still available in their original locations. The value in this has always been unique presentation and a print version, not in the article content.

That said their is some small value in content selection, which the links to some extent undermine.

No, the links don't actually really sabotage the work; but I cannot help but interpreting the posting of the links that way. I mean, the site has a list of the articles, with links to the articles; why not post a link to that? From the comments to the list of links, I also derive that I'm not the only one seeing it that way. It's also why I put the up-front apology, since I couldn't tell for sure how it was meant...

I just want to point out that this does not apply to a lot of people outside the US of A. 24.5 USD for a single edition of a magazine is a lot of money in INR. And like many others, I don't find 3 USD worth of value in the pdf. The printed magazine will still be in my bedside rack 3 years down the line. Pdfs are more use, file and forget things.

> (sorry to mmphosis if the list of links wasn't meant in that way).

the list of original articles is right here on the site in the table of contents. So i don't see how mmphosis reposting it here is sabotaging ..

It's funny - when they are printing a magazine I'm like wow great because I feel they've added value but when they're charging for the digital PDF (and it's a nothing charge let's face it) I feel like they are almost exploiting other's creativity (who I assume has been donated with permission?).

I'm a bit torn about that, but I don't feel exploited. Permission was asked and granted, and authors now know the deal. Design is hard. Curation and editing are hard work. I bought 5 copies of #1 for my mother but haven't bought other issues.

I think the price of the paper form is too high, but the production values and low run means he's barely clearing a profit on them. It all comes from ads. That's his call, and, frankly, we are a pretty rich demographic. If Cheng Soon can cross HM over from vanity press to a serious hacker journal, this will become a very important magazine on the order of "Old Wired" and "Old DDJ".

Not Old DDJ, the 'text:code' relationship is still very much in favor of text with relatively little code, and the code is definitely not of the kind that used to be features in (old) DDJ.

I agree, but those $3 broke my heart. I am cash strapped down to $.50 and this magazine was amongst the things I look forward to and in fact I used to make people read it despite their too obvious protests. The sad part is that now it can't work that way. I cannot refer them on due to their paywall (yes I know it's online, but the PDF was really pretty and I loved passing it around in a package to my friend) and that's just sad.

Moreover, it was neat convenient and made me loyal to them I can't find a better branding exercise than that.

Sigh. I really wish that it didn't have to be this way, but perhaps they could try an alternate model of revenue (after all they're hackers). I would love to help these guys out in this regard.

Just bought you a copy and emailed it to you. Enjoy!

I don't know what to say right now.

I'm just touched.

Why can’t you refer them due to a “paywall”? I have no problem recommending music, books and movies, all of which you have to pay for. Why is that suddenly no more ok as soon as it is online?

>PDF was really pretty and I loved passing it around in a package

GP was emailing them to their friends. That's quality referral.

I don’t understand that objection at all. Getting some company to print something is not really an accomplishment. It’s nice that it’s possible but that’s about it.

Selecting the articles and designing the magazine is what adds the value. That is hard work, especially if you want to create something as nice looking as this. You get those two things with the PDF.

Not sure about the decision to charge for the pdf, considering that they're reusing free content.

The free content is still on the internet, you're paying for the presentation and the format.

From a business point of view, it may be good or bad. I wouldn't like to guess.

On the one hand, they might sell more copies. Without a free PDF cannibalizing sales, it will be much easier to convince people to buy something. On the other hand, it will decrease their circulation, which will devalue their ads and job listings.

It will be interesting to know how the circulation numbers have changed after PDFs have been made paid.

Actually now that I think about it, given the nature of their readership, the marginal value of the ads should be above the $3 they charge.

Decreasing circulation doesn't necessarily devalue their ads or job listings. Why do you think so?

Well, for one, the 'reach' reduces drastically.

Yeah that caught me off guard as well. I'd be upset if I were an advertiser because it means not as many people are viewing my ads.

I always looked forward to the beautifully laid out PDF version.

But now the people viewing your ads are the type that are willing to pay for things. The Wall Street Journal isn't free but commands a premium for ad space.

The wall street journal is huge in comparison both in readerbase and content.

Before the charge for pdf version there were a large amount of downloads which bearswithclaws used to appeal to advertisers now he doesn't even release numbers openly on the site so I would assume it went down quite a bit.

Edit: it also gets less traction on hacker news, and comments are far more negative, where before it was praise and discussing the content and quality.

Perhaps the leading article next time will be "Why paid plans don't work". (This months was 'why free plans don't work').

I don't understand how they can print articles from online publications for resale. That's an outright violation of copyright law isn't it?

We obtain all permission from the authors before reprinting.

Thanks. That's what I was asking about. Not sure why Ja2ke assumed I was complaining about presentation. That's unfounded. I actually really like it.

You're assuming this is put together by incompetent schlubs or Internet assholes, then? Give people some credit when it's due. I've read a couple issues and found the presentation and curated nature of Hacker Monthly leads to me more fully reading and digesting the content of the articles. When reading them on HN I tend to skim or read them to pass the time. Reading a print edition or PDF on my iPad is such a different experience, the work put into it and the nominal cost, to me, seems justifiable.

It's value-based pricing based on the presentation. This makes perfect sense to me.

I did feel better about this project when the pdf was free, the idea being that the hard copy sales (that was half the point right?) and the ads with wider circulation paid for the pdf.

Its pretty much parallel to the problems face by newspapers online, put up a pay wall and lose your readership plus your advertisers, or keep it free and get by on much thinner margins than previously but at least be in business still.

I was afraid there'd be no content for this month but industry news and gossip - I was wrong. Good!

Just wondering, how do they chose which comments go in this? How many comments per issue, and are they related to the articles or just the best comments that month? If so, how do they put them in context? I'm not $3-worth of curious, but I would be interested...

We chose the best comments (voted by HNers) of the selected articles (also voted by HNers). We then asked for permission to reprint the comment (yes, even comments). If we did not hear from the author or got declined (seldom happens), we moved to the 2nd best comment of that article.

Great.. definitely worth it. Makes these articles a lot more fun to read.

I love reading these on my kindle DX. Thanks again Hacker Monthly! :)

Are the previous digital versions no longer going to be free once the next version is released? The digital edition for September is still $3.

Only the first 3 issues are free.

$3?! you're aving a giraffe!

Lol that's cockney rhyming slang for those who are confused. Giraffe rhymes with laugh.

Classic cockney is rhyming but two-steps removed. ie.

* cocaine -> charlie -> bob marley -> bob

* telephone -> dog n' bone -> dog

* friend -> mate -> china plate -> china

see: "The construction involves replacing the common word with a phrase of two or three words, and then in almost all cases, omitting the original rhyming word, in a process called hemiteleia"

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming_slang

I have heard all three of those examples in common use (especially in South Africa)

I like "bunse" from "bunsen burner" from "nice little earner", i.e. money.

But from googling just now, it seems it might not be a proper one.

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