Jim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 3 October 2006
Page 44
The second thing we're going to do—have done, actually, since it began with this issue—is make individual issues as well as individual stories available for sale. We've been planning to do that from the beginning, it's simply taken time to get the software worked out to handle it.
As time goes on, we'll add some curlicues to that, making it easier for customers to upgrade their purchases if they decide to do so. To give an example, a customer who chose to buy just one issue could then take out a full subscription at a discount.
The third thing we're going to do is shift from using PayPal as our exclusive payment method to using a regular merchant handling service, except for micro-purchases like individual issues and stories. Again, that's something we planned some time ago, but it got delayed due to a number of factors—and then got delayed again by Jim's death. But we'll have that up and running as soon as we can.
The fourth thing we're going to do—which we also planned from the outset—is start to make steeply discounted subscriptions available to certain categories of customers. Specifically, the blind and handicapped, students, people in developing countries, and soldiers on active duty. But it will take us until the end of this year to get all the software in place to handle that.
The fifth thing we're going to do, again by the end of the year, is shift from our current "buy a one year package" quasi-subscription to a traditional subscription system, where a person starts with whatever the current issue is and gets one year's worth of issues from that date.
Finally, we'll be producing the first paper anthology of the magazine's stories. The title of it is The Best of Jim Baen's Universe, 2006, and it will appear in July of 2007.
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I won't close by saying so far, so good, since the same thing can be said by anyone falling off a skyscraper and still only halfway to the ground. But what I will say is that, so far, it's good enough to see if we're actually falling—or rising. Whatever else happens, Universe magazine will definitely be around for a while.
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