I think that this site is awsome! But, because I’m not a subscriber I cannot view all this site has to offer.
I do understand why, and I’m not complaining. My reason for not subscibing is, I buy MR at my local grocery store. I live in a small ranching community of about 963 residents. The store manager has stocked MR at my request, and said, if it does not sell He would not stock it. So I feel obligated to buy MR to keep it coming. Well, the other issues of MR have been disappering(being sold). It’s taken a couple of months, but there are other modelers in the area. I don’t know at this time how many, but any is better than none! Wondering if there are others in the same (U)boat as I am?
for a long long time i have not been a subscriber because i ike biying the mag (and others) at a local store . last month my niece came arounsd selling magazine subscriptions to help support school activities and i subscribed to MR and a computer magazine i buy almost every month
what i’m wondering is if MR will recognize my non-direct subscription and allow me into the ‘back rooms’ of the site . i haven’t received my first issue yet so i’m still in ‘wait and see’ mode
ernie
EDIT: LOL i spoke too soon , just for fun i went and looked at my profile and it now says i’m a subscriber , so then i went and checked out the trackplan database , and i can see 'em all
I live in a small rural town. I was surprised that they stocked MR at the local grocery store. The guy would stick 12 issues way in the back on the top shelf and every month there would be 9-10 left. (minus my copy) I started moving them to the front on the middle shelf every time I went in the store. (right where they could be easily seen) They started selling more and more every month. Now they sell out almost every issue and they’ve started carrying all the layouts and special issues along with Trains and Classic Trains. (which are selling very well too.)
So thanks to me, Kalbach went from selling about 25-30 copies/year to 250-300 copies/year.
AND I STILL CAN’T VEIW SUBSCRIBER ONLY CONTENT!!![D)]
Maybe I should relocate them to the back of the top shelf again…[:-^]
What, exactly, do those of you complaining about not seeing “subscriber only” contents when you in fact are not a subscriber expect ?
Do you feel that Kalmbach should put a check button on the profile page, so people can check the option “I really buy every issue at the LHS, so I should be counted as a ‘sort-of’ subscriber and get access to the ‘subscriber only’ stuff - scout’s word of honor” ?
Or that Kalmbach should stop offering “subscriber only” contents as a enticement to subscribe for non-subscribers, and just offer non-subscribers (both people who buy the magazine at their LHS and people who neither subscribe nor buy the magazine in stores, but just access the web site) everything on the web site that subscribers get ?
If you feel a strong need to both support your LHS/help grow the hobby locally, and at the same time feel mental anguish about not having access to the “subscriber only” content on the web site, why don’t you just take out a subscription, put down “c/o My Local Hobby shop @this address” as the shipping address, and then pay your local Hobby Shop owner a suitable fee for storing the magazine for you temporarily when you go to get the magazine ? Then, as an added benefit, you can still “help” your local hobby store owner reorganize his shelves when you go to pick up your magazine …
Or you could contact Kalmbach and suggest that they start selling a “forum full access subscription only (without the magazine)”, if you think your situation is so common that it would be worthwhile for Kalmbach to create a new subscriber category for you and people like you ?
Who knows - they might even be amendable to idea ? Such a subscription would probably in principle be easy enough to
Just went and checked out some of the subscriber only content since the only section I had looked at before was the track plan database. There are some very cool videos there which I just spent 20 minutes watching.
Access to this site is free. The forums are free. The links to the advertising that help support the cost of this site are free. The bright shiney colors are free. The smileys are free. With so much for free, what are you complaining about?
If YOU asked a store to sell MR, or you move the magazines around, or you want to buy from a LHS that is YOUR choice, but still does NOT equate to a subscription. A subscription is a subscription is a subscription.
ANY magazine bases its advertising rates (what REALLY pays for that magazine) on READERSHIP. What most reliably determines readership is the number of subscriptions it has. Subscriptions are cold hard numbers. Sales at magazine stands can be included, but can vary - depending -as has been mentioned- by placement, customer traffic, interest, and discretionary spending at point of sale. That is not a cold hard number but based on average past sales at newsstands and estimated future sales based on past performance.
LHSs and newstands make only about a buck on the mag, so supporting them that way requires them selling alot of magazines.
Subscriber only content is, obviously, only for those who subscribe. If you want access to it, the simple answer is to subscribe, [:-^] 6) If you REALLY DO buy every issue at a newsstand somewhere, then you are paying a higher cost than subscribing would cost you and it magically appears in your mailbox every month.
Being a subscriber allows you computerized access to some of the content published monthly in the paper magazine, such as layouts featured. If you really want access to all the computerized included layouts here, I think its here back to about 2000, subscribing now allo
Yes I did that about a year ago too. Sadly not much has changed in a year…although to be honest I gave up looking awhile ago. Maybe I’ll go look and be amazed…but I seriously doubt it.