D.A Kochman commented: "Color printing is expensive, and due to this (snip) the AOS have increased the amount of membership the organization needs to continue operations. Also to offset the cost of color printing, more and more space inside of the magazine has become devoted to advertisements."
This statement, although frequently offered as an excuse (not just by the AOS) is misleading. Colour printing is expensive, but the price of colour printing has fallen by about 25-30% over the last 5 years. This has more than offset the 10% increase in the price of paper over the same time. Each year I am responsible for the production of several (non-orchid) magazines. 5 years ago we could not afford full colour; about 15-20% of the mag was in black-and white. Two years ago we went full-colour for the first time and paid the printers about 5% less than the previous year. This year we negotiated a further 8% reduction in printing costs, again for a full-colour production. And this was for a low print-run ... 1500 copies. If you were printing tens of thousands, you'd be able to negotiate a much bigger reduction in price. If you were to supply the printers with fully-digital machine-ready originals, you could reduce your print costs by 50% or more. The reasons ? (a) Introduction of digital technology has resulted in major savings, both in manpower and materials. (b) Large numbers of new print companies starting up, with not enough work to go round. They're hungry. (c) Globalisation. If your local company charges too much, get the job done elsewhere, eg Malaysia or China. Yes, I know individual situations vary from one place to another, and from one publication to another, but there is no escaping the fact that the worldwide trend over the last half-decade has been a steady, significant reduction in print costs. If your society has not taken advantage of this, then you should be directing some pertinant questions at whoever is in charge of publications. Peter O'Byrne Singapore _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids
