Back Issues?
To the Editor:
Although the subject has never been discussed
in the magazine to my knowledge (which is quite
limited), I believe the time to discuss it is now as the
situation continues to worsen. That subject is the
one of back issues and their availability to the
readers.

First off, I’d like to say that I have but three
issues of your magazine, all almost the most recent,
so this is written from a present point of view without
knowledge of your past engagements on the
subject. This is due to the fact that until recently I
didn’t realize your magazine was on the stands at a
local bookstore. Now, I did know that it was available
by subscription (always a questionable process
in my mind), but I didn’t subscribe thinking
that a prospective magazine to collect might be tom
apart in the mail. I do not know how you send out
your magazine, with or without a protective cover,
and I would like to know.

The first thing I noticed after buying an issue
(#23), was that it would be impossible for me to
complete a collection when all of the back issues
were not available. This almost discouraged me
from buying any more, but as the number of pages
increased from thirty for $2.00 to more like fifty in
#25, I bought a couple more (#22 and #25, #24
was sold out when I got to the store.)

I am wondering why you do not offer reprints of
back issues to the readers if the originals are not
available. They would be as the originals if the
quality was the same. There must be a demand for
back issues. Over the years, the number of fantasy
enthusiasts has increased quite a bit and so, proportionately,
the number of readers of your magazine
have increased as well. These additional
readers are most likely interested in the old issues of
“The Dragon” like I am and would be happy to
buy your reprints. Many people need the information
inside their covers to improve their games Or
just to complete a set. It is unfair to deny them the
magazine because they found out about it later
than the rest of the wargamers. Surely, the time
element cannot be too much of a barrier. You
should be able to fit the reprinting schedule between
your regular printing schedule. How long
can it take to print 8,000 issues? A price increase
could result, since you are printing a smaller number
of many different issues. Again, as long as it is
within limits, the increase in price wouldn’t prove
too large a factor in lowering sales.

Of course, all of the above is assumption, as I
am not a publisher, but a reader who hopes his
ideas will be acted upon. I am sorry if I have made
any unfair and/or incorrect analyses. Please make
a wise decision for this affects many of your
readers.

Lee J. Struglia — MO
(The Dragon #28)

Yours is not the first complaint of this type by
any means, so I guess the time to explain this
situation has finally come.

First, when we first started printing THE
DRAGON, we printed 5000 copies each issue. We
didn’t have sufficient warehouse space or capitol to
print any more than that. And we certainly had no
guarantee that they would sell even the first 5000.
As demand and sales have increased, so has our
print run.

Still, though, the consideration of warehouse
space and capitol available is paramount. No publisher,
with a unit cost as high as mine, can afford to
print more copies than he expects to sell within a
couple of months. So, we purposely run out.

The idea of doing reprints is economically unfeasible.
To begin with, you cannot take a magazine
that is two years old and expect to be able to
simply print more of them. For one thing, some ads
will be outdated — the companies might be out of
business, the names changed, game titles out of
print, etc. For another advertising rates are based
on a given circulation or print run, therefore, none
of the advertisers are entitled to extra printings.

Ours is not the only account that our printer
has. If went to him and asked him to “squeeze” in
another job, I may find myself with a hysterical
printer, collapsed in a fit of giggles. As to how long it
takes to print 8000 issues (our print runs are much
bigger than that); a long time. To strip the pages,
make the plates, correct the typos (not necessarily
in that order), insert the art, physically print the
pages, let them dry, assembly and binding, all of
these functions require almost two full weeks. That
is not taking into account all of the typesetting that
must be done each month. You have to remember,
you’re not talking to TIME-LIFE Publishing here,
but rather, a small, growing concern.

All is not lost, though. In this issue you will find
an ad for THE BEST OF THE DRAGON. The best
material from all of the OP TD’s will be included.
— Ed.

More on reprints

Dear Editor:
I had been planning to write this letter for
several months when I saw the “Reprint old <link>
issues” letter in DRAGON #50 and decided to
respond. My problem is the same as David
Perry’s. If I could afford it, I would order every
back issue there is. Personally, I would love to
own every issue of DRAGON and I wouldn’t
mind if they were reasonably priced reprints.

I think there are two types of magazine
back-issue collectors. The first is like me who
wants them for what the articles have to offer,
but still wants them in their original forms
(unlike The Best of The Dragon) to keep them
as sort of souvenirs. The other type is the
person who’s willing to pay outrageous prices
for an original copy because they want not
only the written material, but also want the
magazines as collectables. They want the
“real thing” like anybody who collects things
like stamps and coins. I don’t think the collectors
of the originals would be offended by reprints,
because they collect the originals for
their authenticity.

As for the business standpoint, I don’t see
what’s so hard about deciding which (and
how many of each) back issues to reprint. All
you have to do is include a questionnaire with
the next issue of DRAGON asking which back
issues the purchaser of the magazine would
probably buy if they were available as reasonably
priced reprints. You could also ask who
would be interested in eventually collecting
every back issue they don’t own. This way you
could decide how many of each back issue to
reprint. Furthermore, you could lower postage
costs by mailing all back issues second
class along with the outgoing current issue.

I know that deciding how many of each
issue to print would be a lot more complicated
than this, but at least a questionnaire could
provide a good guideline and give you some
idea of your customers’ desires. All of this
would obviously take a lot of work on the part
of the people at DRAGON, but you stand to
gain completely satisfied customers and a
handsome profit. Finally, I would like to say
that if I didn’t like DRAGON as much as I do, I
wouldn’t be interested in collecting back issues
and wouldn’t have written this letter. I
agree with all your other subscribers: You
publish the best role-playing magazine there
ever was or ever will be.

Chris Doyle
Weston, Mass.
(Dragon #53)
 

This letter from Chris is typical of several
we have received lately, so perhaps the subject
needs to be addressed again. As Kim said
in response to David Perry’s letter in #50, the <link>
considerations of reprinting old issues of
DRAGON magazines are partly ethical and
partly business.

From an ethical standpoint, we will never
reprint an exact duplicate of an out-of-print
issue — that is, one that could not be discerned
from the original. The collectors Chris
mentions have already paid out large sums of
money for old issues, and we’d be fleeing
from a (justified) lynch mob if we tried such a
thing.

While we’re on the subject of collecting, I’d
like to make it clear that while we at Dragon
Publishing are very pleased that our readers
think so much of the magazine that it has
become a collectable item, we in no way endorse
the prices of out-of-print magazines,
any more than Ford sets the current price of a
1932 coupe. It’s a seller’s market, and we don’t
have any to sell you.

Now, on to the business considerations.
While it is true that we could sell back issues if
we had them, I'm afraid the price of reprinted
copies would be more than you would want to
pay for "mere" reprints.  Without getting too
technical, there are a myriad of factors to
consider in publishing a magazine -- rights to
artwork, for example.  We often purchase only
one-time reproduction rights to artwork, especially
cover pieces, and that means we only
have the right to do one print run -- no more.

Advertising is another factor. Our advertisers
not only purchase space in the magazine,
they purchase the space in a particular issue
that will (generally) only be for sale for a certain
length of time. As time goes by, prices
change, availability of products varies, businesses
move, and so forth. You can see what
confusion an advertisement from 1978 appearing
in a magazine offered for sale in 1981
could cause, and of course, there is no way we
could charge an advertiser for publishing
such a thing.

Also, there is the matter of quantity and
what it costs us to make even a small number
of anything. It costs basically the same amount
of money to set up a press to run, whether
you’re going to print 50 copies of something
or 50,000. If it costs $10,000 to set up a press
and you print 50,000, that means each magazine
has to bring in at least 20 cents just to pay
its “share” of that cost. Now consider the
$10,000 bill divided by, for instance, 500: If a
print run were that small, each magazine
would have to sell for $20 just to pay the print
bill alone.

And that’s by no means the only cost associated
with the production of a magazine. For
one thing, the people who work here have to
eat just like anybody else. For another thing,
the cost of mailing a special issue to a customer
is a lot higher than the “cheap” rate for
bulk second-class mailings. Also, the regulations
of the U. S. Postal Service say that we
can’t use our second-class permit more than
once a month, and all the items in any mailing
have to be the same. People who bought reprints
from us by mail order would have their
choice of third class mail (not all that cheap,
and it sometimes takes slightly less than
forever to be delivered) or first class mail,
where the rates are somehow linked to the
price of gold.

I said I wasn’t going to get too technical . . .
well, it boils down to this: To reprint an issue
would require just as much work and money
as printing a new one, but it could not possible
generate the revenue that a new magazine
does, and so it would have to have a much
higher price than a current issue. I’m just
guessing, but the price of a reprinted issue
might have to be as high as $10, assuming we
had the time (which we don’t) to put it together
in the first place.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume
we could reprint an issue for the same price as
the original. Although nominally the “same,”
it would in reality be different from the original
— both by choice, so as not to water down
the value of the original, and by necessity, to
allow for new ads (or maybe no ads) and new
artwork, and so forth. And when we sold all we
printed, the price would start going up as
people began collecting the scarce reprints.
And then we’d start to get letters asking us to
reprint the reprints....

— JJ
(Dragon #53)
 

Reprints revisited

Dear Editor:
In issue #53 (Out on a Limb), concerning
the subject of magazine reprints, Chris Doyle
comments on two types of collectors, those
who want to keep issues for souvenirs and
those who want original copies. There is
another type of collector, though: those who,
like me, want only the articles themselves and
could care less about fancy artwork (although
this magazine has some of the best artwork
I’ve ever seen). I therefore would like to propose
a different method for reprints: Handle it
like the DRAGONTALES anthology. Print a
magazine with all the Sorcerer’s Scroll articles,
or a book of monsters from the Dragon’s
Bestiary, including for example, all the monsters
from one year, and print it each year. I
personally would love to see all the NPC
classes under one cover.

A single book/magazine for each special
feature you normally print would let people
choose exactly what they want reprints of, not
entire issues but articles from many issues. I
hope this is feasible, because I am dying to
see the old NPC classes and monsters which
appeared in the first DRAGON magazines.
 

Howard Chu
Bloomfield Hills, Mich
(Dragon #59)
 

Howard’s letter was received in late December,
at just about the time our second
volume of reprinted articles was getting to the
store shelves. It’s no coincidence that the
Best of DRAGON™ Vol. II collection includes,
among other things, many of the old Sorceror’s
Scroll columns and most of the NPC
classes from the olden days. As for single-volume
presentations, such as a Dragon’s
Bestiary collection: We have no such plans at
this time, but if we keep getting friendly persuasion
from people like Howard, maybe our
plans will change.

— KM
(Dragon #59)
 

Copy service
Dear Editor,
I?m a bit confused. In answer to George
Embley?s question (issue #101) as to whether or
not he could get a copy of the astral article in
issue #67, you said no, unless it was published in
a future Best of DRAGON.

However, in issue #83 you said it was possible
to order copies of articles not reprinted in the
Best of DRAGON series or not still available as
back issues. I checked the list of issues available
in #101, and issue #67 wasn?t listed as available.
Why couldn?t Mr. Embley order the article from
DRAGON Magazine, simply paying the price
stated in issue #83? Or is this service no longer
available?
    Chad P. Culotta
    Shreveport, La.
    (Dragon #103)

I did speak a little hastily in issue #101. I
thought the photocopying service offered by TSR
had been discontinued (it has been a long time
since issue #83), but I was only partially right
about that. Penny Petticord, the Coordinator of
the RPGA™ Network, informs me that the service
is still available — but only to members of the
RPGA Network.

If you’re a member, you can order photocopies
of any article from an out-of-print issue of
DRAGON Magazine, as long as the article does
NOT fall into one of these categories: 1) It has
been reprinted in a Best of DRAGON® Magazine
anthology; 2) It was written by Gary Gygax;
3) It is a work of fiction; or 4) It is an article that
does not specifically pertain to a TSR® game.
The reason for restriction 1 should be obvious:
Why would you want to pay for one article when
you can buy it, plus lots of others, for the same or
less money? The reason for restrictions 2 through
4 is that the authors of those articles have retained
ownership of the copyright to their materials,
and as such we are not authorized to
distribute copies. For the same reason, we cannot
and will not honor requests to photocopy art.

The cost of the service depends on what you
want: $4.00 for a module from the center of the
magazine, $2.50 for any single article, or $1.00
for any single new monster or magic item —
regardless of how many pages the module, article,
or monster takes up. The postage and
handling charge is $2.00 for an order of $15.00 or
less, plus $1.00 for each $10.00 (or portion
thereof beyond that: $3.00 for an order of $15.50
through $25.00, $4.00 for an order of $25.50
through $35, and so on. (Don’t worry if you
ordered some copies recently under the previous
pricing structure; those prices will be honored
until after this magazine is distributed.)

Requests should be sent to RPGA™ Network,
P.O. Box 509, Lake Geneva WI 53147, along
with a check or money order payable to the
RPGA Network. You must be an RPGA member
to qualify, and must include your membership
number in your order. Any requests from nonmembers
will be returned. Penny tries to fill
requests within 6 weeks of the time they are
received, but don’t panic if it runs a little longer
than that.

Why is the service only available to RPGA
members? Because we don’t have enough time or
people to handle requests from the entire readership
of the magazine. Because Penny is the only
person who deals with the requests, and also
happens to be the head of the RPGA Network
organization. And because RPGA members
deserve some special treatment in return for their
membership fees. If you’d like to find out about
more ways in which RPGA members get special
treatment, write to the above address for membership
information. — KM