From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk  Fri Jun 11 13:25:13 1999
Received: by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.9.3/8.9.3) id NAA02651
	for britdisc-outgoing; Fri, 11 Jun 1999 13:24:53 +0100 (BST)
Received: from snowdrop.csv.warwick.ac.uk (snowdrop [137.205.192.31])
	by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA02640
	for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Fri, 11 Jun 1999 13:24:51 +0100 (BST)
Received: from finch-post-10.mail.demon.net (finch-post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.38])
	by snowdrop.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA27638
	for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Fri, 11 Jun 1999 13:24:45 +0100 (BST)
Received: from ultimatum.demon.co.uk ([158.152.203.174])
	by finch-post-10.mail.demon.net with smtp (Exim 2.12 #1)
	id 10sQML-000KZP-0A
	for britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk; Fri, 11 Jun 1999 12:24:33 +0000
Subject: RE: Ultimate Growth
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 99 13:25:43 +0100
x-sender: ultimatum@pop3.demon.co.uk
x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0, March 15, 1997
From: Paul Hurt <paul@ultimatum.demon.co.uk>
To: "BritDisc" <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Message-Id: <E10sQML-000KZP-0A@finch-post-10.mail.demon.net>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk id NAA02645
Sender: owner-britdisc@warwick.ac.uk
Precedence: bulk

>Ultimatum printing costs: (direct from Paul Hurt, the horses mouth)

>Cost of 800 copies: £575
>Therefore cost of 2000 copies: £1437.5 (but let's be kind and say we get a
>discount, making it £1200)
>Cost of managing print run: 3hrs @ £20/hr = £60
>
>Total: £1260
>Per copy: 63p


Whoa there!! The 800 copy price might be "horses mouth", but your estimate for 2000 copies is nothing to do with me! Print production doesn't work like that, due to economies of scale. I'd like to bet 2000 copies would cost nearer 8-900 max.

Next, I don't think we can honestly expect to get 2000 BUA members. I'd guess more like 7-800 max right now, though I could be wrong.

So let's say we were printing 600 copies instead of 800 because 200 people went for a "no-printed-copy" option. The BUF's savings would be pretty insignificant: the print cost would barely change (see above). And the total mailout cost is reduced by 350 quid over the year.

Even at 25 pounds a year, the BUA can't expect to do any better than break even in its first couple of years. So a fiver discount for no-Ultimatum is unrealistic (under the above scenario, they save 350 in costs, but lose 1000 pounds turnover!). So if there was to be a no-Ultimatum option, the BUA could only afford to pass on the true saving, which amounts to a massive £1.75 per subscriber.

What I'm saying is that a "no-Ultimatum" subscription would reduce your membership charge from £25 to just £23.25. How many people think that the bother of downloading and printing out 6 Ultimatums a year is worth saving a whole £1.75 ?

By the way, downloading and printing out Ultimatum doesn't save any trees. In fact, it probably uses *more* paper, because few people can be arsed to print it double-sided. (Anyway, paper used for print comes from sustainable forests grown specifically for the purpose, so tree-saving isn't really an issue.)

I'm all for on-line availability of Ultimatum (it's much appreciated by foreign and casual readers), but it isn't a device that will save the BUA any money (in fact it costs money, because of the additional time involved creating PDFs, uploading them, and updating the web site).

The only way online distribution would save money would be if we didn't print or mail out ANY copies at all, which is a nice idea, but isn't an option.

Paul

---------------------------------
Paul Hurt

Editor, Ultimatum
paul@ultimatum.demon.co.uk
http://www.ultimatum.demon.co.uk