Entertainment For Lively Minds
I don't subscribe
Posted by Bruised Mike on 5 November 2009 - 6:49pm.
and feel like a pariah on this site for not doing so. My chum Tim is a Newsagent and he has to struggle with a nearby Sainsburys who sell papers and mags as well as the likes of you. It is galling to mention that he is also a big fan of your magzine!
We will be at the Union Chapel on Monday (near your offices I assume) and if I see Ms Mossman there I will tell her that I think subscriptions should be banned and that we should Support Out Local Newsagent. What do you think of that Mr Hepworth?
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Methinks...
...you doth protest too much.
Word
are only doing as any business would in trying to protect their margins by encouraging people to subscribe.
I doubt there is anything personal against newsagents, but it's probably more a case that if Word had 0 subscribers and all sales were through newsagents they would probably struggle to survive.
its only buisness..
if you like the magazine , buy the magazine, however you want to buy it... from a corner shop, sainsburys, HMV, whatever.... dont feel bad...who is making you feel like a pariah? Is it "the man"? Well "the man" dont hold no sway with me brother....your a community dude and looking after your working comrades...don't sweat it....it ain't no thing!
Chicken and egg...
I subscribe. Why? Because the two newsagents I pass on my way to the bus stop every morning have closed in the last 10 years. And I live near the Union Chapel, so it's not exactly some backwater. It's also why I don't buy a daily paper any more - I'd have to go out of my way to get it, and an extra 10 minutes on my journey to work every morning ain't gonna happen...
I subscribe because it's cheaper...
and it isn't my responsibility to keep newsagents in business.
Erm...
is it intentional that us non-subscribers can see the digital edition? It's a lovely gesture but aren't you going to go out of business?
I subscribe because
when I asked my local newsagent to keep a copy of the mag for me, 50% of the time it didn't get to him & consequently it never got to me.
I'd then have to drive 6 miles out if my way to get a copy.
I also subscribe because I know The Word is consistently readable and worth my dough.
Other mags are available & may vary in quality.
I subscribe because..
I don't get out much. Spend too much time on here.
I subscribe
because it means I won't miss one. And I once had a paper round and the newsagent was a bully.*
* true fact but not really a reason
I subscribe because..
..as previously noted, newsagents, supermarkets and the like in Portsmouth seem not to have heard of The Word.
I should get round to subscribing to Viz. I've bought every issue for the last 25 years; I should realise that it's not an impulse purchase and that, yes, I really am that juvenile. It's not a phase.
you're a dentist, ain't you lenny?
Tell me that you leave the back issues of Viz in the waiting room...oh and then tell me where your practise is!
I did have Viz in the waiting room for a while.
They either got nicked or complained about.
Don't know what's up with British newsagents...
because my local newspaper kiosk here in semi-central Madrid stocks it. Never bought it there however because ... I suscribe.
I subscribe because
that nice Jerry Perkins sent in the bailiffs to impound my collection of Christmas records and will not release them until my renewal direct debit goes through.
.
.
Good point, Twang
Good point, Twang
I don't suscribe any more
... because it's ridiculously expensive to subscribe from overseas. It's 70 quid a year for us poor Orstralians. So (almost) every month, for less than half the subscription cost, I buy from the newsagent. Admittedly issues arrive an average 3 months after publication date, but there are far fewer of HM's supply ships sailing down to Oz these days, so I shouldn't grumble.
What does irk me though is the primacy given online to Spotify. I mean surely it means something that Spootifa means nothing to anyone outside of its limited operational area! Stop putting it on the home page! Endless Spitify songlosts are of less interest and lesser utility to us than our daily spam!
Really?
Maybe that's just the Antipodes. Here in the US it's cheaper to subscribe and it's a lot more convenient to subscribe. I got fed up having to drive to a bookshop or the newstand in the megamall (there are no newsagents that I can find in southern California) once a month, especially as there was no guarantee my magazines had arrived, so sometimes I had to make two trips.
So by eliminating those trips, I'm doing my bit for the environment by reducing my carbon footprint.
I wrote a long post
then decided not to post it!
I subscribe because it is
I subscribe because it is cheaper, I feel no loyalty to local newsagents etc just as I buy all my CDs from amazon rather than, say, Record Collector.
Tricky one, this.
It's part of my job to defend independent local businesses, like newsagents and corner shops, from the inevitable creep of the commercial juggernauts, whether they are Tesco and Sainsbury or Associated Newspapers and Bauer.
What's galling for the stores is that while publishers try their hardest to cut out the retail chain with subs offers, they also desperately need those couple of facings on every newsagent's shelf to keep their magazine in the public eye and 'drive trial'. That's why the argument that subscribing saves waste doesn't wash - they still need the same number of copies out on the street if they want to increase circulation.
Magazines are sale or return so the newsagent won't suffer if you stop buying from him - unless you also go elsewhere for your ciggies and mars bars - but it's a strange partnership where one of the parties deserately needs the other to display its goods, while also trying very hard to stop them getting regular repeat sales, which would be a fair return, I think.
I work for a publisher, by the way. And I don't subscribe.