Magazines

[Capt Worley PE]

The magazine business must be going schizo because of all the internet competition. For example, I susbscribed to this business magazine for a year, but decided it wasn't worth 15 bucks or whatever it was to resubscibe. Lo and behold, a couple of years later, they send me a subsciption notice telling me what a valuable customer (yeah, right) I was and they wanted to extend me a special offer.

1 year for 5 bucks, 2 years for 8 bucks, 3 years for 10 bucks. Even though I wasn't superthrilled with the magazine, I figure 36 issues for ten bucks is a pretty good deal, so I took it. After a couple of issues I got another notice saying they could extend me a year for an additional ten bucks. Oh, I declined that one.

On the other end of the spectrum, I'd read Newsweek for decades and let my subscription lapse because they had gotten really slanted in their reporting. A couple years back, they sent me a 'valued customer' letter and offered me two years for 20 bucks. I figured 104 issues for 20 bucks was quite a good deal, so I resuscribed.

During that time, they literally cut the page count in each issue by half. So I figured I'd just let it lapse unless I got another supergood deal. Got the bill the other day, and they want 85 dollars a year!!! WTF?!?!?

Needless to say...no Newsweek.

 

[Chucktown PE]

Mrs. Chucktown has a subscription to Southern Living. I like the food section because they have really good recipes, and they often have good ideas for stuff for the house as well.

Every year they try to charge my credit card $39 for a renewal. Every year Mrs. Chucktown complains that we didn't authorize the charge and they give us the subscription for $3. Again I say, WTF?

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Yeah, that automatic renewal service is BS. Popular Mechanics tried to pull that on me when I didn't want a renewal. I must have gotten ten letters saying I'd better pay before they turned it over to a collections agency...yeah, right.

Of course I DID take them up on thir 5 dollar a year deal.

I'll never give my credit card nuber to something I suscribe too.

 

[goodal]

We had a readers digest subscription several years ago and let it lapse. About a year later we got a letter from a collection agency that RD had turned us over to them for $4.53. I didnt know we owed the bill or we probably could have scrounged up the money long before then.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

I have a subscription to Golf Magazine that is on a credit card that I hardly ever use (the only reason I still have it is that it is my longest running line of credit). Once a year, I get a $19.95 charge on that card, then forget to cancel the subscription before I get it again the next year. I do read every magazine, though, so I'm not too worried about it.

 

[Dexman PE]

I have a few miscellaneous subscriptions. None of which cost more than $5 a year, and each are paid with a check.

 

[Melanie11]

My guilty pleasure is People. I pay like $90 a year for it as much as I hate to admit it! :sniff:

I pass it on to my MIL after I'm done so that makes it worth it :happy:

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Holy carp! people is 90 bucks a year?

Highest I ever paid was 68 bucks a year for some British car mag. I think it was Sportscars and Classics.

I think my most expesive one now is 18.95, but I subscribe to a lot of them.

 

[TouchDown]

I read the newspaper. Don't have time for the magazines... My wife get's 3 or 4 (like Ladies Home Journal, Smithsonian, Parents, and another one)...

No one ever reads them and I end up sticking them in the recycle after a few months. Just more for me to lug to the curb.

I used to have Better Homes and Gardens, but just like all magazines, they have like 4 stories and 4 bazillion ads. Magazines irritate me.

I like bacon.

 

[MA_PE]

I get Rolling Stone. I bought some concert tickets and through Live Nation I got a free 1-year subscription to RS. They sent me a renewal notice and it was ~$15 for the year so I went for it. Cover price is $5 an issue and it's bi-weekly.

My wife used to get People. I too think the price is ridiculous, but they haye the readership and it's still a break over the newstand price so they aren't likely to deal with you much.

We used to get the Boston Globe as well as the local newspaper (which also prints all the AP National and International stories). I found that a lot of the daily papers were going to recycle without ever being opened so I cancelled the Globe. Looks like I'm not the only won as the paper has been in financial difficulty for awhile now. I'm surprised it's still alive.

 

[OSUguy98]

I subscribed to Popular Woodworking and Model Railroader for awhile... until my wife started bitching about the magazines piling up... "project ideas" and "Things I want to do when I can afford it" tend to take up a lot of space... I asked the folks at Popular Woodworking if there was a "Online Version" only subscription and they wrote back and said that it was a good idea and they'd look into it.... now they offer a year's worth of magazines on a CD... and alot of them date back 7 or 8 years... I've thought about purchasing a few of them...

 

[Supe]

My sister bought me a subscription to Mental Floss. It's free to me, and that's the most I'll ever pay for a magazine subscription.

 

[Chucktown PE]

I used to get the Economist. I really liked it but I didn't have time to read all the material. It was a weekly and I think it ran about $80 or $90 for the year. We also get the local paper. I read through it most days. My wife also gets Parents and some other mom magazine.

 

[Road Guy]

we used to get those offers to trade in your airline miles for magazine subscriptions, cause we never fly we did, but damn they generate a lot of tash quick so we just go without!

 

[MechGuy]

my guilty pleasures are Esquire, GQ and Playboy... really cheap subscriptions, like $12/year so what the heck. I get Men's Health and Bicycling too... keeps me motivated.

EDIT: I used to get the Economist but it was just too much to read weekly. If it were monthly I probably could have kept up with it. Expensive too!

 

[Dexman PE]

I get Playboy and Maxim although I'm ready to cancel maxim. It used to be funny, but it's too much like Cosmo now.

Wife gets a couple magizines, one for yoga and Sunset.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Well, I guess I'm a read-a-holic.

Motor Trend

Automobile

Car and Driver

Road and Track

Hot Rod

Car Craft

Cycle World

Muscle Machines

Sports and Exotics

Classic Cars

Newsweek (letting lapse)

Dwell (letting lapse)

Inc.

National Geographic

Reader's Digest

Edit: Popular Science

Popular mechanics

 

[klk]

My dad was getting us subscriptions to home improvement magazines, and my mother in law got us a subscription to Mother Earth News. I only read one of the magazines that my dad got me, so I finally told him to cancel everything else.

We don't get a newspaper, I just read the free online versions.

 

[EM_PS]

most of my mag's are free ones - CE News, Prof Surveyor, American Surveyor, POB - 1 not so free one, PE mag (NSPE membership which i will let lapse!), and then GQ (something like $18 /yr). Wife subscribes to a lot of mags usually in my name cuz i get offers with so called trade discounts or something :dunno: - they hook you in on that premise then charge full price if you choose to renew, which we rarely do. Then we get the Sunday newspaper only, no way could i keep up w/ a daily one, though I do love to read it.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Well, Newsweek is for sale, if anyone has a few bucks to spare.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/...e-an-era-fades/

Newsweek had operating losses of $28.1 million in 2009, 82.5 percent higher than the previous year’s loss of $15.4 million. Its revenue declined 27.2 percent, to $165.5 million in 2009, from $227.4 million in 2008, hurt by diminished advertising and subscription revenue.

Newsweek’s circulation was 3.14 million in the first half of 2000. By the second half of 2009, that dropped to 1.97 million.

I can, and did, tell them why subscription was dropping back in a letter to them in 2006. Guess they didn't listen. Or didn't care.

Both Time and Newsweek were aggressively redesigned. Time, in 2007, changed its publication date from Monday to Friday and added more analysis. Newsweek, in 2009, more or less ceased original reporting about the week’s events, and instead ran essays from columnists like Fareed Zakaria and opinionated analyses.

This was the final nail in Newsweek's coffin. It went from 112 pages of biased reporting to 56 pages of biased editorializing.

Both magazines increased their prices: Newsweek now sells for $5.95 on the newsstand, and Time for $4.95. However, subscribers pay only about 50 cents a copy for either magazine.

Not true, as my resubscription notice for 85 bucks would attest if I hadn't disgustedly tossed it out).