[Lowfer] 'The LownDown' Matters

[lowfer@mailman.qth.net]

It has been a longstanding principle that the membership did not care to have regular paid advertising.  That could always be re-evaluated, of course.  But given the size of our membership (continually around 500) it's hard to interest advertisers in the publication in the first place--and even harder to find a price that would justify the incremental cost of production and yet would still be attractive to advertisers.

How the currently unpaid advertising is handled now is: individual for-sale items sent in by members have first priority; ads by members for commercial products or services are accepted on a limited basis, if furnished in camera-ready form; and notices from vendors who are not members may be accepted (usually on a one-time basis) if their products or services appear to be of interest to members.

We always try to make room for the individual "want ads."  All others are strictly on a space-available basis.  The size of the publication is always an integral multiple of four pages, so if a salesperson created an obligation for us to carry a one-page ad, we'd suddenly have to find material to fill three more pages...or else, drop one page of something already due to appear.

At some point, adding pages trips us up to the next ounce of postage.  And having to be prepared to suddenly shift/add/drop content at the last minute would create a need to pay for production assistance.  So, as you surmise, staffing plays a role in the decision.

As is, with our "staff" consisting of individual volunteers located all around the country, it's a lot simpler to drop in an ad when one is available and there's a page to fill.

I don't know what the situation is with LF Engineering, but they haven't had an ad with us in years.  (Never even let us know when they got a Web site, for that matter.  Another member let me know he'd found them, after which I put a link in a couple of our pages.)

That brings up another matter.  On the LWCA Web site, we don't carry advertising, but that's not a matter of policy.  I'd be glad for paid advertising, if I thought we could get any, because the Web site costs are not paid by member dues!  Suggestions in that regard would be most welcome.

(Directly would be better, rather than through the reflector.  Only about half of the subscribers to this reflector are LWCA members.)

Thanks.

John

-------Original Message-------

To John Davis, et al,

My recent perusal of the LF Engineering site and not knowing their
new/current product mix lead me to thinking about having them advertise
in the LowFER pub., a likely product market. And I did notice the back
page supplies adv (coax and conns.) in the April issue, so why not
others (if only once or twice per year)?

Have they and others been actively solicited? But then possibly limited
staffing precludes a lot of adv matters. Just a thought/hunch.

Still enjoy that crafty little "reader" each month.

Peter
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