With regret, InPublishing magazine has resigned from the ABC. I would like to explain our reasoning and to reassure you that this means absolutely no diminution in quality whatsoever.
We are a small company serving a very niche audience. Margins have always been tight. In the current recession, our advertising revenues have dropped by about 35% and this is putting severe pressure on us as a business. Many other publishers, large and small, find themselves in similar situations.
Therefore, to survive, we are having to streamline our processes and find savings wherever possible – the one proviso being that we do not affect the quality of the product in any way.
Resigning from the ABC was one area where we felt we could make a saving without compromising the quality of the magazine. I am a fan of the ABC and it is my intention to rejoin when the market picks up and we will continue to operate best practice in the circulation area.
It is imperative that potential advertisers have confidence in our circulation claims. To that end, we are now publishing copies of our distribution and print invoices on our website. Please see: www.inpublishing.co.uk/printanddistribution.aspx This URL will now appear on the ‘comment’ page of each issue, where the ABC logo showed previously. This proves, at the very least, that we are printing and distributing the number of copies we claim. It’s not the ABC, but it is the next best thing. It shows, if nothing else, that we are not using our resignation from the ABC as a smokescreen for reducing our print run.
In the current economic climate, I felt that this was a fair compromise – allowing us to save the cost of the ABC membership and audit fees whilst still providing advertisers with a good degree of reassurance about our circulation claims.
Just to summarise – the only thing that is changing is that we are not paying the ABC to come in and verify our figures. Nothing else changes!
James Evelegh
Editor
InPublishing
http://www.inpublishing.co.uk