Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
To the best of my knowledge, distribution was never a problem for Jim Baen's Universe, as it was always intended as an online-only publication.
The initial launch was made possible by 'club members' who paid more (in some cases considerably more) than a standard subscription, in order to receive special benefits. This was never intended to be a long-term method of funding the magazine, and the lack of sufficient ordinary subscriber growth is the stated reason for the closure.
http://www.baens-universe.com/articles/Universe_Closing |
I thought I read it in that article, but it was on the boards. I don't know how to link to the topic, but this was posted by Walt Boyes shortly after the
announcement under the JBU Universe Facts/How Do We Save JBU:
"JBU cannot be saved. Period.
There are a bunch of reasons, but they boil down to the absolute fact that Eric is worth much more to Baen writing novels than editing a magazine. Also, we weren't able to figure out how to get around Baen's agreement with Simon and Schuster for distribution, and that was another one of the deathblows. We also wound up very undercapitalized, which might have been different if Jim had lived. Toni was very supportive throughout this, but this was Jim Baen's baby, and it just didn't live very long.
Several of us are working on developing a new incarnation that is not under the same constraints as JBU. I hope to have a proforma business plan (very rough) done by the end of the month.
..."
There was more to the original post, but I clipped the pertinent info. You do have to be registered to access the boards and as I said, I can't link to just that one topic because of the way the boards work.
I hope that Baen does not mind me reposting that snippet.
Maria