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- Please note, this letter
is years old. I have it on the website for historical reasons,
none of it applies, really, to the present day . . .
-
- SUBSCRIBER LETTER -- THE DEATH OF PRIVATE LINE
-
- From: Tom Farley (916) 777-4420 Voice and Fax privateline@delphi.com
- August 3, 1996 Saturday
- Greetings from Isleton! This lengthy post discusses what
happened to private line, what happens now and what I hope will
happen later. Briefly, the hardcopy version is dead, an e-mail
version is coming soon and subscribers requesting refunds will
be mailed checks or back issues. Another publisher will be solicited
for the hardcopy version. Excuse the bandwidth but I need to
discuss many points. Please repost and re-distribute this message.
- I. What's happened with private line? (The last six months)
- 1. An explanation
- 2. Original letter to subscribers
- II What happens now with private line? (The next two months)
- 1. The e-mail version
- 2. The web site
- 3. Subscriber refunds
- 4. Back issue availability
- 5. Catching up on written correspondence
- 6. Near term time line
- III What will happen with private line? (Three months from
now and beyond)
- 1. Appeal for a publisher
- IV How to contact me
- 1. Telephone hours
- 2. Addresses
- ===============================================================
-
- I What happened to private line? (The last six months)
- 1. An explanation
- private line in hardcopy is dead. An electronic version will
soon appear. What happened? It was too expensive to continue.
I lost over $4,000 on the project. Syntel Vista agreed in February
to continue the magazine under their control. They also agreed
to fulfil all subscriptions or cut checks for those who didn't
like the new private line. It was a gentlemen's agreement with
no money changing hands. I forwarded numerous articles and letters
to help them develop their first issue. But after six months,
dozens of excuses, 10 unreturned phone calls in the last two
weeks alone, and still no new private line, I have decided to
step back in to pick up the pieces.
- Firstly, let me apologize for not keeping you all informed.
I was waiting for Adam and Syntel to come out with the new magazine.
It would have contained all the transition information and thus
there would be no need for a separate mailing. Every contact
with Syntel Vista, by the way, was friendly and I thought in
good faith. We had a cordial, cross promoting relation in the
past and I had no doubt that things would be fine in the future.
There was no indication until two weeks ago that they would abandon
the magazine and all its subscribers and readers, indeed, Syntel
publicly stated in the last issue of Blacklisted!411 that they
were taking over the magazine. Yet nothing has happened.
- For my part, and I am culpable in all of this, I should have
kept track of the process more closely and not been so easily
deceived. In any case, read the letter below for more details.
The problem now is recovery, though I do encourage you to call
them, if you like. Maybe they'll send me back all the material
I sent them if there is enough pressure: (714) 899-8853. Pulling
their line or messing with their Bogen answering machine is mildly
discouraged.
- 2. Original subscriber letter that would have appeared in
the new issue:
- March 1, 1996
- Dear private line subscriber:
- Hello. I regret to inform you that private line Number 10
was the last issue I will produce. I have lost over $4,000 dollars
with the magazine and my finance person informs me that he will
not pay another printing bill. So it ends. At least for me. The
Blacklisted!411 folks will take it over, produce it quarterly,
sell the back issues and honor all requests for subscription
refunds in case you don't like the new product. I will still
be around on the edges, producing and assisting with articles
on an intermittent basis.
- I was never able to turn critical success into commercial
success. My last print run was only 750 copies since I cut off
Fine Print for non-payment. They owe me over a thousand dollars,
haven't paid me at all for eight months and their bill is in
collection. Per unit costs, consequently, have skyrocketed because
of this small print run. Let's run through the numbers.
- The last issue cost $1.73 per magazine to produce. Distribution
costs was from $2.25 to $3.15 an issue. These costs alone came
close to or exceeded the cover price. In addition, I am now averaging
forty percent returns, typical for a nationally distributed magazine.
That means 40 percent of my print run doesn't sell, although
I have to pay, of course, for 100% of the run.
- Costs at this point exceed the cover price. Even raising
the cover price to five or six dollars wouldn't help that much.
Those forty percent returns, by the way, are most often not returned
by the distributor, just shredded. I can't use them for anything.
- Adam at Blacklisted!411 is very enthusiastic about taking
over the magazine. Other people have expressed interest but none
of them have any 'zine experience. I am not eager for anyone
who has not experienced this house of cards industry to take
on private line -- I feel that loosing money
- is all they will get for their effort. True to the hacker
tradition, there is no money involved in this transition, just
the assumption by Adam that he will fulfil existing subscriptions
and honor back issue requests.
- There has been no advertiser interest and I do not see any
way of making the magazine break even without such support. The
only other way is to get bigger print runs done. Printing 20,000
copies, for example, would lower per unit costs to less than
fifty cents. But then you have to deal with distributors who
take 45 to 120 days to pay after you submit your first issue.
If they pay at all. I do not see any way for a company to make
any money on this unless they are willing to bleed money for
a long time. And I've bled all I can.
- I question, of course, whether the Syntel Vista folks can
come up with anything like what I produced every two months.
I think, though, that you should wait to see what happens. Several
articles in the next issue originated with me or with private
line readers. In particular, there is an explanatory piece on
encryption which is the simplest, most concise piece of writing
on this difficult subject I've seen. Written especially for private
line, I am presently adding graphics to it and I think you will
be pleased. There is also a great hacker article and a reader
report on an east coast cable station. Please have faith and
hang in there for the new private line, which should be out around
April. As for me, I am taking a year off to do art related things.
Thank you for all your support and I will see you on the net!
- Tom Farley
- ================================================================
- II. What happens now with private line? (The next two months)
- I will do an e-mail version for a year. Send me your e-mail
address NOW if you want to get it. You can request it in the
subject line or in the body of the message, either way. Send
the request to privateline@delphi.com. This version will, I hope,
give private line readers and subscribers something to read in
lieu of the hardcopy version until I can find another publisher.
The publication schedule isn't fixed since I'm working out the
details. It will be free while I control it and it will probably
go out when I get 100k or so of stuff developed. That could be
every week or every few weeks. I expect it will take two to six
weeks to get an e- mail delivery system up and going. The mail
responder will probably be through Damien Thorn's digicity.net,
where TelecomWriting.com resides. I'll let you know. The e-mail
version will be quite a different beast than the old magazine.
- There will be quite a few letters, a lot of reproduced articles
(from obscure sources) and little in-depth research until I do
a month of housekeeping and take care of subscriber letters and
refunds. I'll be scrambling, as well, to get re-oriented with
the hacker/telecom scene in the upcoming months. Anything original
you can submit will be greatly appreciated. Coming articles include
one on encryption and a fairly comprehensive look at the Federal
Bureau of Prisons' Inmate Telephone System. But I'll need some
time to get back going. Give me a little slack on responding
to your e-mail and I will appreciate it.
- It's my hope that someone will come along in the next year
who can do a hardcopy version of private line, in which case
I will probably step back once again. I simply don't have the
time or the money anymore to really further the project. A an
electronic version is fine but their has to be hardcopy equivalent,
something that is indexed and consecutively paged.
- 3. The coming web site
- The possibilities are endless and I get tired just thinking
about it. It may be just textually based or it may include every
illustration and piece of line art that ever appeared in the
old magazine. Let me know if you want your site linked to it
and I will try to accommodate you. I'll prioritize on the e-mail
version of private line first but you should check in with TelecomWriting.com
now and then to see what's going on.
- 4. Refunds
- Send me a note by snail mail. Tell me how much you think
I owe you for the balance of your subscription and I will send
you a check the first week of September. Or let me pay you off
in back issues. How does that work? I'll send you five back issues
of your choice to clear your account. That includes numbers one
through four which have been out of print. I would prefer, of
course, that you not send in any request and instead put up with
the e-mail version or simply let me slide. Please, please, please?
- This is important: you have until September 6th to get your
refund or back order request in. I'm cutting off people at that
point so I can move forward. Essentially, I'll total up the amount
of money I owe at that time and then I'll get a loan to pay it
off. I'll also be totaling up the number of back issue requests
I need to make up or mail. The second week of September, then,
will see both checks and copies mailed off. Remember, send me
a note in the mail -- I need it for my records and I'll just
loose e-mail requests in all this commotion.
- 5. Back Issue Availability
- Issues five through ten are still in good supply. Issues
one through four are sold out but I will be making up more copies
this month to satisfy subscriber requests. This is your best
time to get the back issues while I am working on them, however,
I will probably mail your order in the second
- week of September when I do the subscriber mailing. Issues
are five dollars apiece, checks to private line.
- 6. Catching Up on Written Correspondence
- Endless apologies once again! I am two months behind with
the snail mail and I will be working hard to get on top of this
problem in the next month. You're not being ignored, you're just
being, uh, well, okay, okay, you are being ignored for now. But
not much longer.
- 6. Near Term Timeline (Importante!)
- August 5-9, 1996: A copy of this post gets mailed to every
subscriber of private line.
- September 6, 1996: Deadline for subscribers to request subscription
refunds or backorders.
- September 7-14 1996: Mailing week for refund checks and back
issues.
- ================================================================
- III What will happen with private line? (Three months from
now and beyond)
-
- 1. Appeal for a publisher
- Nuff said? No more friendly agreements, though, because I
can't go through this process again. I'll need a contract and
some money. Next month will see an outflow of another $1500 to
$2000 dollars to cash out subscribers. They're owed, of course,
so I'm not complaining and I have to do what's right. But someone
taking over the hardcopy version could go a long way to making
me happy by putting some money on the table. You have my numbers.
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