Growing to a monthly publication

Vol. 2 Issue 11 | June 3, 2008

Often times, you hear of expectant fathers looking forward to their yet unborn son, being a 6’4”, 210 lb. quarterback throwing 96 yard touchdown passes to win the championship. Then, suddenly, his newborn daughter smiles at him, and his dream changes. Now he is dreaming of piano recitals and homecoming dances. And that’s totally OK.

If you can relate to this, you have a slight idea of what April and I are experiencing with this publication. When we came up with this idea and started planning it, we had an idea of what it would become. Our strategy and our plan were well thought out and all the details covered. Our marketing policies and procedures were mapped out and our vision was sound. But the readers and the biker community had another idea. Our advertisers liked a different pattern and the comments we have received over the last 9 months painted a picture that, at that time, our eyes could not see.

Response to our efforts has been good and for that we are thankful. Our readership has been loyal and our advertisers, faithful. Most of all, we appreciate the frankness of those that cared enough about our project to step forward and say “Have you thought about this???”

Well, we thought about it, and we listened to your suggestions. By golly, I think you may have hit on something there!! Yes, we are changing again. We have previously increased our distribution. In January, we changed printers and improved the quality and thickness of the paper we used. We started using more local contributors for stories and information. And beginning with this issue, we start the process of our biggest change yet.

As of this issue, South Georgia Bikerz Magazine will be a monthly publication. We will no longer offer two issues per month. Our single issue for each month will be available at the beginning of each month and will remain free to our readers. Our distribution will continue to be through racks and displays at local retail establishments, including shops, bar/restaurants, store fronts and by our advertisers.

This change will allow us to again increase our distribution and hopefully allow more time for storyline creation and follow-up. With this change, you will begin to see more pages per issue, more articles, more pictures and generally a better quality product. All of the planned changes will not take place at once. We are still a small publication and don’t ever want to bite off more than we can chew. So we will filter in the changes in over a period of time, and see how each individually affects the magazine. I particularly am looking forward to going to a slick, magazine type paper. The pictures will be more vivid and sharp, but the costs are substantial, so bear with us. That one may take a few months.

Although our magazine is offered free, we have been contacted by quite a few readers that would like to have home delivery of our publication. This is another change that we will implement immediately. We do not expect to profit from mailing directly to those interested in having home delivery, but there are some costs associated with mailings, obviously. So, we are offering home delivery of our magazine, mailed directly to your address for the sum of $30.00 per year. We aim only to recoup our costs in mailing the product to your home. Just email your address to us or call us on the phone, and we will add your name to the list.

We do thank our advertisers and our readers for bearing with us. We are growing and changing, and sometimes that process is not easy. We appreciate you patience and cooperation and look forward to providing you with a quality product for years to come.

Lets Ride, Craig and April Pennington