Air Power's revival is now underway. So far we've put out six issues in four months and this one and the next should be out by the end of September. The one main concern I have is whether I can eventually rebuild the domestic subscribership back to our high of 300+ and beyond. With the last double mailing of 19 and 20, things were looking grim. Our domestic subscriber list had dropped to 190, which is less than the 200 minimum needed to do bulk mailing­. Fortunately we cheated and sent some of our hobby shops their issues by bulk mail. We don't like to do that but the difference between mailing two issues bulk rate instead of 3rd class is 27 cents versus 75 cents. At the latter rate the money we have would be exhausted in mailing costs withing four issues. Not a desirable trend. The problem that the lower bulk rate subscribership is twofold. One, we were AWOL for six months right after issue 14, which happened to be the expiration issue of about 40% of our previous subscribers. Our previous delays and the absence reulted in only about 5% of those resubscribing. Also we kinda shot ourselves in the wing by offering a first class mailing option. About 10% of you have availed yourselves of this, which of course means fewer people on the bulk rate list (whoops). Also, we have some 45 Canadians and a number of other foreign subscribers whose mailings are at full surface or airmail rates. In the long run, we lose money on those. Fortunately, the new trend is better. A lot of the old fold are sneaking back after discovering that they have missed several issues. Our resurgence has encouraged many who are hesitant to resubscribe to leap back in, which makes me glad. My hat's off to those who never lost faith to begin with. Unfortunately, I am not seeing much new blood, which means we are not expanding... again, spread the word. I can't yet afford the outrageous advertising costs the game magazines ask. As a gamble, I did spend $400 dollars of advance royalties from "The Speed of Heat" to put flyers in each of the 5,000 games in the first print run. I hope it works. We will see when the game starts shipping. On to other things. I desperately want to see more articles on other games. I don't solicit, so don't ask, just write up what you think is good and submit the suckers. I need reviews and strategy articles on Homet Leader, Thunderbolt and Apache Leader, Wing Leader, The Speed of Heat, Bomber, B-17, any Miniatures rules, etc. Is there anyone else out there other than Jimmy Meldrum who has an interest World War I? Richthofen's War is being beaten to death, but we could talk about Ace of Aces, Knights of the Air, Fight in the Skies, Wings, Blue Max, Aces High, and others. C'mon, expanded coverage equals expanded readership. It will benefit us all! Back to Table of Contents -- Air Power # 21 Back to Air Power List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1992 by J.D. Webster This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com