Subscriptions to Kalmbach Magazines have the advantage of a lower price and more issues on only one of the magazines.
Newsstand has the advantage of buying just the right issue of one of the several Kalmbach magazines.
It would be great to have all the issues of TRAINS or MODEL RAILROADER, but how much space does that require if one gets a decade or more? Something else might have to be removed to make room.
What if instead of all the previous print issues sitting on a shelf, there were digital copies of all the magazines?
It is great to have print copies of all the magazines, but one still needs power to view them indoors where it is usually shadowy or dark.
Are there digital subscriptions to entire issues of TRAINS or Classic Toy Trains or Model Railroader?
How about year end compilations of each magazine on a CD or DVD?
I like print copies, but I can not stand wrinkled, torn, and wet pages due to accidents.
It would be nice to get digital back issues in the mail or by parcel carrier.
Andrew
Watch my videos on-line at https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewNeilFalconer
Many of us have the print versions of several years of one magazine or another at home. Frequently, a question or topic comes up in these forums that you are certain was covered in the magazine at some point in the past, but I know of no index (other than the one is each issue) that would suggest the place to look for specific information in past issues.
It would seem to me that a searchable index covering many years on DVD would be a commercially viable product. I know I would be easy sale for one.
Andrew Falconer wrote: Subscriptions to Kalmbach Magazines have the advantage of a lower price and more issues on only one of the magazines.Newsstand has the advantage of buying just the right issue of one of the several Kalmbach magazines.It would be great to have all the issues of TRAINS or MODEL RAILROADER, but how much space does that require if one gets a decade or more? Something else might have to be removed to make room.What if instead of all the previous print issues sitting on a shelf, there were digital copies of all the magazines?It is great to have print copies of all the magazines, but one still needs power to view them indoors where it is usually shadowy or dark.Are there digital subscriptions to entire issues of TRAINS or Classic Toy Trains or Model Railroader?How about year end compilations of each magazine on a CD or DVD?I like print copies, but I can not stand wrinkled, torn, and wet pages due to accidents.It would be nice to get digital back issues in the mail or by parcel carrier.Andrew
Subscriptions to most magazines, not just Kalmbach, can be offered at a lower price than the newsstand for a couple reasons:
1. The profit from the newsstand/hobby shop is not in the figure.
2. Presold subscriptions have the advantage of telling the publisher they have a given number of each magazine sold at least a year in advance.
As to the digital vs. print question, this is a place technology needs to catch up to where we are today. Kalmbach sells the print versions of the current issue of the magazines and makes money selling back issues of them, so they're not likely to make a digital version available, even at the end of the year. The main problem being that anyone can buy the digital copy and easily reproduce it for friends. Since any copy protection software is usually short lived as hackers figure out how to override it rather quickly, the income for the publisher would be lost.
I agree that digital publications take up much less space to store than the printed copies, until the copy protection issue can be addressed, it's just not going to be profitable for a publisher to do that. I almost laughed that one of the new electronic items that will hit the market soon is an electronic pad to allow you to read digital books (ebooks) without a computer. My first reaction was, "how Star Trek."
Some T&H Societies publish their periodicals digitally and offer them on line for free, but as I said, any for-profit publisher couldn't do this with the current technology.
Dakguy201 wrote: Many of us have the print versions of several years of one magazine or another at home. Frequently, a question or topic comes up in these forums that you are certain was covered in the magazine at some point in the past, but I know of no index (other than the one is each issue) that would suggest the place to look for specific information in past issues. It would seem to me that a searchable index covering many years on DVD would be a commercially viable product. I know I would be easy sale for one.
You mean something like this?
http://index.mrmag.com/
You may need to be a subscriber to access this, but it seems to be what you're looking for.
TomDiehl wrote: As to the digital vs. print question, this is a place technology needs to catch up to where we are today. Kalmbach sells the print versions of the current issue of the magazines and makes money selling back issues of them, so they're not likely to make a digital version available, even at the end of the year. The main problem being that anyone can buy the digital copy and easily reproduce it for friends. Since any copy protection software is usually short lived as hackers figure out how to override it rather quickly, the income for the publisher would be lost.I agree that digital publications take up much less space to store than the printed copies, until the copy protection issue can be addressed, it's just not going to be profitable for a publisher to do that. I almost laughed that one of the new electronic items that will hit the market soon is an electronic pad to allow you to read digital books (ebooks) without a computer. My first reaction was, "how Star Trek."Some T&H Societies publish their periodicals digitally and offer them on line for free, but as I said, any for-profit publisher couldn't do this with the current technology.
And in that vein I am wondering when the "Green" movement will make it's way to Kalmbach and they will begin creating the ditigal online or DVD magazine versions for those who want the option of digital and thus to also help reduce the amount of paper that is used with the production of each issue. Of course that might also reduce a few box car loads of paper rolls too on the rails...oh well....keep buying up those magazines at the newstands and with subscriptions too, it helps keep the railroads in business too!
Oh, and Mother Earth New's has been offering their magazine on archive CD's in PDF file format for years, I think they make some money because there are still in business.
Ryan BoudreauxThe Piedmont Division Modeling The Southern Railway, Norfolk & Western & Norfolk Southern in HO during the merger eraCajun Chef Ryan
Have fun with your trains
The digital idea is actually a pretty good one. I am currently taking online courses, and my course material is now a downloadable e-book. This is a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) file that is password protected and licensed only to the person that downloads it, and contains a signature that is downloaded to the computer. If the person tries to send it to someone else they can't open it because it looks for the signature file and then sends the information back to the server requesting a login verification again.
The other thing too is for me the printed copy is also difficult to read. I have severe dyplobia (double vision) and reduced vision so that the printed copy is next to impossible for me to read. The text is about the size of an ant footprint, and the paper is glossy. I spend more time focusing a magnifying glass on the copy trying to get the words in view and avoiding the glare on the page.
Sadly my Trains subscription is going to waste as I pile up the unread copies. If they were available in an online format, I would gladly subscribe to that because I can then blow the copy up to a decent size for reading.
John