Monday, July 24, 2017
If you get results
I was thinking about the economics of the Aberree operation.
The masthead looked like this in every issue:
Subscription $2 a year. Circulation according to NW Ayer was 11k. So the gross income was around $22k plus a little from advertising. The biggest expense would be paper, something like $3000 a year. Postage on the magazines and rental on the downtown shop, $2000 a year. Offset film, plates, and ink, probably another thousand. Replacing equipment, unknown but not zero; Hart wrote about upgrading his press and camera fairly often. Safe bet that they were clearing $15k before taxes. In those years $6k supported a family decently, $15k was enough to buy a new house and new car. So the Harts had a pretty good thing going.
The advertising rate caught my attention. $1 a column inch if you get results, double if you don't.
Wait! Isn't that backwards? Isn't effective advertising worth more? Shouldn't you be charging more for advertising that works?
First of all the publisher wouldn't KNOW if the advertiser was getting results. They didn't use blind boxes or similar methods that flowed through the magazine.
Well, what was Hart doing? He was encouraging the advertisers to be smart, gradienting them toward writing effective ads. He was helping them to improve their own business.
Subscription $2 a year. Circulation according to NW Ayer was 11k. So the gross income was around $22k plus a little from advertising. The biggest expense would be paper, something like $3000 a year. Postage on the magazines and rental on the downtown shop, $2000 a year. Offset film, plates, and ink, probably another thousand. Replacing equipment, unknown but not zero; Hart wrote about upgrading his press and camera fairly often. Safe bet that they were clearing $15k before taxes. In those years $6k supported a family decently, $15k was enough to buy a new house and new car. So the Harts had a pretty good thing going.
The advertising rate caught my attention. $1 a column inch if you get results, double if you don't.
Wait! Isn't that backwards? Isn't effective advertising worth more? Shouldn't you be charging more for advertising that works?
First of all the publisher wouldn't KNOW if the advertiser was getting results. They didn't use blind boxes or similar methods that flowed through the magazine.
Well, what was Hart doing? He was encouraging the advertisers to be smart, gradienting them toward writing effective ads. He was helping them to improve their own business.Labels: Aberree
¶ 2:42 PM
