Saturday, April 28, 2012

Volume Five... On Sale NOW!





(Note: if you subscribe to our newsletter, feel free to skip this blog as it's pretty much the same info you've already read.)

Our Spring issue is on the way, and we’ve completely rebuilt our format. Don’t worry: we haven’t killed our writers or changed our editorial vision in any way. We’ve simply hooked up with a new distributor who is concentrated on marketing The Ephemeris to the big box book chains, along with increasing our internet presence (Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com) while still catering to independent booksellers and tobacconists. In the next few weeks, you’ll be able to walk into virtually any bookstore in the USA and purchase our book. (If you don’t see it on the shelves, ask your retailer to order a copy for you. Most any bookseller worth their salt can have it delivered to their store within 48 hours.)

For our European readers, don’t think we haven’t forgotten you. We were also courting an international distributor with headquarters in England and Australia. Unfortunately, the deal fell through when they started making ridiculous demands concerning packaging, editorial direction, advertising, etc. You see, we feel that The Ephemeris should cost the same low price all over the world ($10.99 list, 9.99 through our site). But our potential Euro distributor wanted to charge £9.99 everywhere outside of the USA- about $16.16 at the time of this writing. Their reasoning? “Because the market will bear it.”

Hogwash! The main reason we wanted a European presence was to save on shipping charges from the US. But with the jacked up cover price, it would have still been cheaper for international customers to order from our US based warehouse. Maybe next year...

On to the magazine, er, bookazine. (Yes, that’s what our distributor calls our publication. I still prefer the term sleaze rag.) Whatever you call it, it puts our previous four editions to shame. It’s almost twice the size of our older digest format, and at 110 pages it contains about 25% more content than the last few issues. The printing and binding are a 100% improvement over the efforts of our indie mom & pop printers that we struggled with since 2010. Gone are the misglued spines, the saddle stitched, miscut pages, the misprinted covers, etc. The Snuff Taker’s Ephemeris is going to be printed at one of the best printing presses in North America, the same folks who bring you the latest Clive Cussler and Stephen King books every week. I don’t want to jinx us too badly here, but in short, this book should meet your very stringent demands. (Hopefully!)

You may have noticed that our cover price has increased slightly. We had absolutely no control over it. The minimum list price that we were allotted was 10.99. This is what you can expect to pay at your local bookstore or through Amazon. HOWEVER, for as long as feasibly possible, we will sell The Ephemeris for 9.99 at our website, www.STephemeris.com . Our shipping costs will more than likely increase as well, owing to the larger size and weight of the new format, but we will hold off on raising the rates (again) as long as we possibly can. 


New Lower Price!
 

Now that you’ve heard the bad news, here’s the good: we’ve lowered the price of our digital editions. That’s right; in order to stay as competitive as possible in the burgeoning e-book trade, we’ve dropped the price of our e-zine to 50% off the cover price of our print edition. At a mere 4.99 a copy, there’s no better way for first-time readers to check us out and find out what all the fuss is about. Our long time readers will appreciate the extra pocket change they get to hold onto, as well. 




Dent and ding back issue sale! 40% off!



As we near the end of our back issue supply for Volumes One and Three (our only remaining print back issues- - but don’t forget, our E-Zines are always in stock!) we’re coming to the more, uh, “weathered” copies. Most of these are Newsstand returns, meaning they’ve made the journey from the printer to the warehouse, then to the retailer, then back to us: chances are, they’ve picked up a few dents and dings along the way. But nothing too major, a minor scuff here or there or a slightly miscut edge or spine.

So, we decided to hold a sale for the next few days (as long as supplies last) and offer our remaining stock for 42% off cover price: a measly 4.99 a book!  Yes, we’re losing money on this deal. Yes, we’re crazy. And yes, we hope that with this low introductory offer, you’ll maybe buy a couple of copies and send them off to a friend who isn’t aware of just how magnificent a bookazine The Snuff Taker’s Ephemeris is.

So, to sum it all up:
 
1. Volume Five ships first week of May. Feel free to place your order now and we’ll ship it as soon as we get our supply.

2. All of our back issues are on sale. Get them while you still can.

3. Thank you for being the best readership we could ever hope for!


H&H