Comment by AlbertCory | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AlbertCory | Hacker News Reader

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> Astra’s staff decided the magazine would be a 192-page full color book distributed through Penguin Random House, like the rest of Astra Publishing House’s titles. As a result, virtually any independent bookstore in the country would be able to stock it. And then, in an additional stroke of luck, Hudson News agreed to display the magazine at airports and train stations.

OK, they wanted to go the old-school route, which was wonderful, but it didn't work. As the article said, it never worked very well in terms of being profitable. That's not why you run a magazine like that.

There are lots of other business models for literary writing nowadays, usually Web-only, none of which produce very much revenue, but at least they wouldn't have lost as much.

It doesn't sound to me like they thought they were going to make money publishing it, rather the Astra Publishing wanted to raise its profile with what is essentially a low volume high quality loss leader. 9000 copies an issue is small volume, even if you sell it out, and whether distributed by random house or not 9000 just isn't that many.

Then at some point the economic realities hit Astra and they realized the PR project wasn't worth the amount of money they were spending keeping it going.

But it doesn't sound like it was ever organized to make money.

Yeah, a loss leader is fine, as long as you can afford the losses.

I should have added: a "loss leader" in a grocery store is something that draws in the customers, but then they buy other things that makes up for the losses. Apparently Astra expected more than they were getting.

It's a shame every endeavour needs to fit into a capitalism-shaped hole. There are many things that people agree are beneficial but won't be profitable.

Yeah, there are outlets for charitable non-profits, or educational publications, or just plain vanity projects (like The Nation magazine which has never turned a profit). So it's not as though you can't do something unprofitable at all.

They sold a grand total of 17,000 copies and this with original essays by noted writers. You have to sell at much higher volumes for something like this to be sustainable, as those writers and artists don't work for free.

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