Posted by Ed Muderlak on January 3, 2008, 6:09 pm, in reply to "Electronic Newsletter"
The L.C.Smith Collectors Assn. would cease to exist if there were no newsletter (as would the PGCA). "Parker Pages", the journal of the PGCA was originally published 6 times a year and was effective to timely inform the membership of current events; now published quarterly, as is "Speaks for Itself", the info is less timely, but the quality of content has improved to be of more lasting interest, viz. the Hause & Hambridge article in the LCS December issue, for example.
There is a quantum difference of a trade assn. newsletter from a collectors assn. quarterly. My view is that Internet newsletters are just so much spam. I have the hard copy of every issue of "Parker Pages" since Vol 1, Issue 1 (Jan/Feb 1994) in my file cabinet. I cannot even imagine downloading this stuff off the internet, not to mention the time, loss of paper quality, image resolution, and other negatives such as that posited by Mr. Kennedy about the small percentage of people the age of the average gun collector who have Internet access.
Just recently I offered some of my collection for sale through an ad in "Parker Pages"--half of those who responded did so by phone and did not have Internet access. I offered to e-mail pictures to some of the non-Internet responders' friend's or relative's e-mail address, but they were adamant that they wanted nothing to do with the new medium.
As a seller of my own books, reprint catalogs, and reprint poster I have garnered a mailing list of about 2,200 people who are interested in my stuff. My feel for this is that direct mail works, printed ads are slightly worth the trouble and expense, and e-mail is doomed to failure. There is nothing more likely to get a prospective customer to part with $$$$--be it buying a book or joining a collectors assn. or re-upping annual dues--than a well-done hard copy of a publication on topic, be it a newsletter or sales flyer.
The thing that has long amazed me about the LCS Assn. is that after going to all the trouble to set up at Sanford, Pintail Point, or Vegas the powers that be never seem to have the forsight to bring a stack of the newsletter to show prospective newbies what they would get for their hard earned money (a problem endemic to the PGCA, but to a lesser degree). It is my observation that collector groups hoard their newsletters like they are solid gold, even though economies of scale reduce incremental printing costs down to paper and ink.
When I did my 40-page "Flying Ducks" Parker catalog, using 4-color presses, 500 copies were costed out at $4,250 and the next 500 cost $300. In this context, a press overrun of "Speaks for Itself" should be seen as a strong recruiting tool, to be passed out freely at gun shows and double gun events. I joined the LCS group at Pintail Point, never having seen a newsletter, but expecting to be pleasently surprised when one came in the mail. As it was, all pages in color was more than I expected.
Had the powers that be told me that for my $25 they would e-mail me...well, there would be one less member. As I read the query, 44 are in favor of getting their newsletter by e-mail, 21 do not want to stop receiving a hard copy in the mail, and 12 were confused. And further that the LCS assn will continue to mail hard copies to those who request it. So I see a problem of "economies of scale" that I mentioned above; a certain segment of the membership signing off on hard copies is only going to save paper and ink and postage, while all other costs remain. I believe that to grow the LCS assn. there should be more rather than less, and the membeship who are not computer literate have yet to be heard from.