Curt/all... thank you for your very kind words and support of me/the hobby here.
My apologies too to the members of this board and the admins/owner for this being my first post (yuck... self-serving. Truly my apologies!) But alas, there are so many wonderful online communities and so little volunteer time to see/visit them all. FWIW, please don't be shy to PM or em me to visit threads you think I can be of useful perspective one. I gladly will do what I can/when I can, my friends.
I would just like to reassure folks FWIW that I am going into this venture (the journal) much like I have on past projects (posters, books)... it really surprises folks to learn how little money authors earn...and how much money we have to float and then wait a long time (years) for it all to come back... hopefully
Bob (Fenner) and I for example spent just under $130K to produce Reef Invertebrates... have nearly sold out of three printings... took two years to write it and thousands of $ on photography, and we each earned... $5K. I'm not kidding
The poor authors of Microcosm books (Eric B, et al) have made even less in some cases.
Heehee... we may write and produce these books for pride in accomplishment... fame, glory, chicks (yeah, right...in this hobby), beer even! But money is not the lure.
OK, OK... so sob story aside. I clearly do not want to lose money. And I would not be self-funding these projects if I did. The books, posters and now the mag come slowly. That's what is needed for folks like us to financially be able to do work like this. I'm pretty sure I can break even in the next 2 years... and I am hoping indeed to earn money. In fact, may master plan is to earn enough money for publishing it that I can do this journal work instead of so much other writing for overseas mags (they pay better than US mags unfortunately). It is also my policy to pay my authors better than they are getting most other places.
So what I'm asking friends/fellow hobbyists is that if you find the journal worthy... please support it. Its the sort of support that keeps folks like me or favorite authors in the business of giving so much time to the hobby for comparatively little return.
As for value of the journal in literal construct, please consider that $45 less 4X shipping for the quarterly issues that add up to over 400 pages of text with very little (you'll see!) advertising amounts to a good reef book you'd buy for high $30s of 400-ish pages. I think you will agree its on par.
As for value of content (education, entertainment... timely news/info), that you will have to judge for yourself. And you don't even need to buy a copy. Once the dust settles, I'll be getting free copies of this journal to libraries, hobby clubs, etc just like past posters/books.
I'm much obliged for your patience in reading this far too :p (heehee... now you see why there is little advertising in the journal - I write too much! No room
)
in shared admiration of the sea,
Anthony Calfo
