Publishers Corner
We owe our reading audience a large apology for this season.
Life has been getting in the way of our ability to publish the magazine on a timely basis. As many of you are aware, we were late more than once publishing issues and we skipped the October issue all together. This summer has been a trying time for me personally and I needed to focus my time and effort on my job and my family.
Some readers have asked if we will be back next year and the answer to that is a resounding yes. The magazine may have a different format and the content may change but the one thing that the riders in the area depend on (The Schedule of Motorcycle Events) will not change. We will be back. We will be different but we will be back. I used to think of this as my magazine but over these last few months what I have come to realize is that this is your magazine and I am just fortunate enough to be allowed to publish it.
Over the course of this year we tried including video in the magazine. The response to that was less than overwhelming and we will revisit how much of a part video will play in the magazine next year. To build a 9 minute video requires about 20 hours of effort. That is way too much time to spend for a single article and there are some readers that prefer the pictures. Over the winter we will review how we will use video in the magazine but one thing you can count on is that next year each article will be accompanied by still pictures as we have done in the past.
In spite of the turmoil we had a great time this year. From Cambridge to Minerva and all points in between, we rode with old friends, made some new friends and enjoyed the countryside that we are so lucky to call home.
We need to thank our sponsors for the year. Sportline Power Products placed a season long ad in the banner section of each page. McDermott’s Harley Davidson was kind enough to sponsor the “Schedule of Motorcycle Events” page and The Longhorn Restaurant and Pub in Lake Luzerne placed an ad with us for 5 of the 7 months that we published this year. Without their support, we would not be able to keep the magazine up and running.
There will be some changes to the magazine next year. The theme of the magazine is “I have places to go, people to see and things to do”. In the first year about a third of our articles were on “Places to Go” and focused almost exclusively on local biker friendly bars and taverns. The other two thirds focused on the “Things to Do” or more realistically on “Things We Did”. This year the focus was almost exclusively on “Things We Did”. Next year we are going to actually focus on “Things To Do”. The most visited section of the magazine by far is the Schedule of Motorcycle Events. It is nice to ride, but it is nicer to ride when you have a defined destination. We are going to keep the Schedule of Events as is but we are also going to report on events that are happening in the Adirondacks that would make a great day trip. We will coordinate with the various Chambers of Commerce in the area and get a list of non-motorcycle events that we think would make a great day trip with friends or family. We are also going to include events that local establishments have. We all know that Sporty has something going on almost every weeekend as do other biker friendly bars in the area. By including these events we hope to provide even more information on how to enjoy the Adirondacks on your bike. We are hoping to entice the event organizers to write an article about their event so that we can publish the article a month before the event is scheduled to occur. We really have 2 viewing audiences. One is the riders who participate in the various events that are reflected in the Schedule of Events. The vast majority of those events allow alcohol to be consumed during the course of the event. The other group of readers are the riders who refuse to participate in events in which alcohol is allowed. We as a magazine have not been overly supportive of this segment of our readership and we are hoping that the new direction we are taking the magazine will support them to the same extent that we have supported the brotherhood clubs in the past.
We are going to cut back the number of issues that we publish. In our first year we published from April to October. The April issue that year was rather easy to publish since we focused on introducing the magazine. When we went to publish the April issue this year we discovered that there was not a whole lot to talk about. For that reason the first issue next year will be in May. As we hear of motorcycle events in the late winter and spring, we will send news letters to the membership to keep them advised of the events.
We wish to thank all of the riders in the area that make use of the magazine for their patronage. Our hit counts have increased over last year’s hit counts and our list of subscribers has also grown. There has been an increase in the attendance at all of the major charity rides this year and we would like to think that in some small way we had a part in that. If that is the case then the time and effort we put into the magazine has been worth it.
Karen and I would like to wish all of you a safe and happy holiday season and we look forward to seeing you again next year.
Ed Frulla
Publisher
North Country Rider Magazine