The future of the magazine

[Brian]

Good afternoon folks. Apologies for posting today instead of Friday as I'd promised. I had to leave town suddenly on urgent business and have just returned now.

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for their patience. I've had the time needed now to evaluate many different factors concerning the magazine and have arrived at a decision. Given my printing, design, and postage costs I can see no way to go forward with the magazine anymore. I've invested a lot of my time and personal money into it, and I'm just not willing to subsidize the shortfalls anymore.

Raising the price of the magazine to a more realistic fee (from my side, I know that it was not realistic from yours) saw new subs drop off by a whopping 97%, so it became pretty obvious to me what a magazine is worth in the eyes of the buying public. Trying to save money by using an alternate method of airmail post delayed deliveries as well as causing numerous lost packages. The magazine is expensive to produce, print, post and manage and there's no way that I can cut costs or raise prices to try and make things work. I've pretty much burned myself out trying to and don't see anyway to carry on.

Trends over the last two years have taught me that dealers are much more willing to advertise here on the website than in the print magazine. The cost is lower and the results are immediate. However, I can't produce a print magazine from revenues on website banner ads.

I've run the data and have compiled a list of the remaining issues in everyone's subscription. Over the next two weeks, I will be working on refunding and/or filling orders for new customers that haven't received their orders yet. After that, I will begin issuing refunds to you all, in order of country of residence and then surname. You will receive an e-mail from PayPal informing you of a oayment waiting for me. You will need to accept this, otherwise it will be reclaimed after two weeks. If you wish to reject it for any reason, then please mail me once you receive this mail and inform me of your wish. I will then cancel the payment. This is a monumental task as I have about 4,600 people to contact and it is a completely manual process. Please refrain from mailing or PM'ing me with regards to your status as I will not be able to answer everyone on an individual basis. I will get to you all, but the process could take up to two months to complete. If you ordered from a 3rd party, then please do not contact me. Contact the party that you purchased from and ask them to contact me instead.

Later on this evening or possibly tomorrow I will be adding a bit more to this thread, but I'm quite tired from my business trip and will be taking a rest for a few hours. I'd like to ask everyone to please do not copy this thread to any other forums. If people are interested in seeing it, then they can come here and read it directly.

Thank you for your support over the years. I've enjoyed getting to know many of you and wish you all the best.

[Regenmeneer]

Brian,

I respect your decision, and want to thank you for what you have done for the hobby over the past years.

I hope you will let us know if there will be a digital magazine?

Regenmeneer

[Nancy M.]

Thank you Brian,
I for one, am very sad to see the magazine go under. I do understand and sympathize with your reasons for not publishing the magazine any longer. It is also good to hear that you will be sending everyone a refund on there subscriptions, and not leave everyone hanging with a bad taste in there mouth. I do hope that you will produce an online magazine for all to enjoy, with a subscription rate.

[Brutuscz]

One question I'm sure many of us have. Is there any way to substitute back issues for the issues we are owed? I would rather have 4 back issues than a refund. It's a shame to see this magazine disappear. It was definitely an excellent resource for a koi kichi. Thanks for the hard work Brian!!

[MikeM]

It was a fine accomplishment. I look forward to whatever new koi endeavor you undertake in the future.

[VHPond]

If we ordered thru Koiphen? do we still have to contact them or will you be doing the refunding Brian??
thanyou!!

[aquitori]

Brian, "Cool Runnin's" means "Peace be the Journey"...

[Nancy M.]

[quote=Brian;60051] Over the next two weeks, I will be working on refunding and/or filling orders for new customers that haven't received their orders yet. After that, I will begin issuing refunds to you all, in order of country of residence and then surname. You will receive an e-mail from PayPal informing you of a oayment waiting for me. You will need to accept this, otherwise it will be reclaimed after two weeks. If you wish to reject it for any reason, then please mail me once you receive this mail and inform me of your wish. I will then cancel the payment.
.
quote]

Brian
How will the refund process work, for those of us who DO NOT have paypal accounts?

[GazKoi]

Hi Brain,

I for one will be sorry to see it go but support your decision and would like to thank you for all your hard work that you have done not just on the mags but the site as well.

I wish you the very best in whatever you decide to go with

[junglegeorge12]

Will the forum and fine articles on the website continue?

Thank you for being forward and honest with us thru this.