Introducing Volume 1, Issue 1 of Trail Builder Magazine
I’m excited to announce and share that Volume 1, Issue 1 of Trail Builder Mag is now available for purchase. First of all, thank you for following along and sharing your continual support with us. As with any startup, it’s risky. Add to that the volatility of the print magazine world, and it’s even crazier. While it may seem crazy to launch a print magazine during this time, I couldn’t be more excited. We also worked hard to keep our costs and overhead at a bare minimum.
Trail Builder Mag is not simply my thing but our thing. Meaning we’re doing this together. We’re building this together. You are contributing to articles, both for print and online. You care about trail building. Together we’re creating a platform to share and exchange ideas and content.
One of the challenges in kicking off our first print issue was determining the price of the magazine. How much is too much? How much is too little? Where is the happy medium? With anything, the more magazines we print, the less the printing costs are per issue. Since we don’t have any data yet on sales, I had to pick a print number and start with that. That probably means our printing costs will be higher at the beginning since we’re not yet printing tens of thousands of magazines at a time. We landed on $15.95 for the print issue and $5.95 for the digital download. That is also why I have not set up a subscription plan. Moving forward, there’s wiggle room for pricing for the magazine and shipping.
Did I mention shipping? From the beginning, one of the questions I heard repeatedly was, “Will this be available in Europe? Australia? South America?” Yes. We’ll ship the magazine to wherever someone lives who wants a print issue. As you probably know, shipping internationally is expensive. That means we’re rolling some of those shipping costs into the price of the magazine, in some places a lot more than others. It will also be available for those who want a digital copy of the magazine but at a much lower price.
I am grateful for the companies who jumped in with us to support the magazine with paid ads; Singletrack Cat, Backslope Tools, Tools for Trails, Camelot Tools, and One Track Mind Foundation. The best part is the personal connections with each of these brands. I hung out with most of them in Reno at the International Trails Summit in April. They are all involved in trail building in various capacities.
As I shared in my last article about the release of Volume 1, Issue 1, this first issue is only the beginning. We’ll continue to build infrastructure, refine our processes, and improve the final product. Thank you for being so gracious, as we continually make this better. Click below to pick up your copy of Volume 1, Issue 1 of Trail Builder Mag. Spread the stoke.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Benesh
Sean is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Trail Builder Mag. He is also the Communications Director for the Northwest Trail Alliance in Portland, Oregon. While in grad school, he worked as a mountain biking guide in Southern Arizona. Sean also spends time in the classroom as a digital media instructor at Warner Pacific University.
