
Hacker Monthly: best of the Internet, printed out, and it’s turning a profit - duck
http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/02/hacker-monthly-its-the-best-of-the-internet-printed-out-and-its-turning-a-profit/
======
patio11
Please keep the success of HNM in mind the next time you hear "Pfft, who pays
for information you could find free on the Internet." HN readers just like you
also do all sorts of weird things like paying money for software, paying money
for services, paying money for media, etc etc.

Also might be salutary to remember if sentiment runs, say, 10-1 against doing
an idea: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1261499>

Congrats on the success, by the way.

~~~
revorad
Patrick, at the risk of sounding ungrateful to all your help, I'd like to
point out that HNM's success is also a good counterpoint to the advice you
give again and again - "Don't make stuff for 20-something Cauc(asian) dudes.
It has no hope of making money." In this particular instance, it appears to
make more than software for schoolmarms.

_By selling the dudes' own words back to them, nonetheless!_

The more advice I read, the more I'm convinced that if you're in the business
of making new things that haven't been done before, ignore all advice. Just
fucking do it.

~~~
patio11
I don't recall saying you can't make money selling to the usual suspects.
Clearly you can -- that is why they're the usual suspects. I just don't think
it is a particularly wise move when more attractive markets abound.

I don't think that comparing BCC to HNM provides meaningful signal on that
question. (Philosophically, by the way, when somebody mentions that X makes
more than me my first thought is "Ooh, congrats!" and I don't usually bother
with a second thought.)

~~~
revorad
My comparison was crude. I know there are finer nuances, such as BCC income
probably being much more passive than HNM.

 _I just don't think it is a particularly wise move when more attractive
markets abound._

The irony of that coming from the maker of bingo software is not lost on me
:-P

In any case, I'm sorry if I misunderstood and misrepresented your advice.

EDIT: It occurred to me that my snide remark regarding the irony could also do
with a disclaimer. I'm implying that you yourself chose BCC over other
attractive markets. However, I know you did that at a time it made sense to
you given your circumstances. You have since moved towards more attractive
markets (AR). This example clearly highlights the problem with advice. Unless
it is seen in the context of the adviser's whole spectrum of experience, it
can be really misleading and confusing.

------
petercooper
Interesting to see the split of 95:5 digital/print. Not a total shocker but
it's an excellent data point. I wonder what the break down of people using
mobi/Kindle, PDF, and EPUB is.

It's also a good demonstration of the value of having paying subscribers
rather than running advertising alone. While I don't know Lim's numbers, I've
advertised in HM before and saw the early ratecards and suspect the amount
isn't even a drop in the ocean compared to the subscriber fees. This is why
Lim is earning more than twice what I am on 50k free subscribers ;-) A big
"D'oh!" on my part..

~~~
pja
If you have paying subscribers I'm willing to bet that it's also a lot easier
to get demographic data from them (after all, they're willing to pay good
money for your efforts), which then makes it (IIRC) much easier to sell higher
value targeted advertising. Although possibly the HackerNews demographic is
pretty obvious regardless :)

(Almost every news site you go to that relies on ad income will try and get
regular visitors to do some kind of survey every year or so for this reason.)

------
f4stjack
Y'know what this magazine reminded me of? The glory days of 2600: Hacker
Quarterly. Sure, it is still active but... I feel they kinda lost the touch
with what we care today.

I got my bundle in Christmas and liked it immensely. Sure, it is aggregated
information and you can find it on the internet for free but... sometimes you
need to have some articles on print for ease of access and you have to admit
finding an old article in HN involves a little bit of pain...

Great job!

------
timharding
Is there a plan to profit share with authors at some point?

Will the editor simply continue to rule out those that ask for payment for
their work?

Presumably there's some reasonable profit that the editor must take out for
himself to sustain and grow the magazine and there are reasonable costs beyond
that. What after that?

I fully understand that authors opt-in. I understand that authors have varied
reasons for opting-in. Just curious to see if there's a business model that
feeds back into the community.

------
neilk
I refused to license something to Lim and it had nothing to do with wanting to
be paid.

I just felt weird taking a comment in a conversation and turning it into a
standalone piece, isolated from the context. Not sure how I feel about it now.

I also thought that the audience for his publication was going to be smaller
and less interesting than the audience on HN itself anyway. Clearly I was very
wrong. Sorry for doubting.

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verelo
I think this is a great idea but i really do find the price ($88 + shipping of
$42 to Canada) a bit high. I'm sure a lot of effort goes into this so i'm not
saying its not worth it, i'm just not prepared to pay this much given that
there are many other magazines out there (with less direct inspiration, so i
can only assume they are harder to generate) that are a lot cheaper.

Having said this, well done...im very glad its working out and turning a
profit.

~~~
Kartificial
I was about to subscribe, the 88$ is reasonable for a nice printed copy. But
for the Netherlands (i know, overseas) the shipping is 84$ which really
discouraged me.

Great initiative though :)

------
shawnc
Happy to see he gets permission to reprint each first. That's good.

This seems like a great idea and I'm happy to see it's working well. I thin
curation is something everyone wants in some regard. And the interesting tibit
is, Hacker News is already 'User Curated' so half the work is being done for
Lim already.

------
Kilimanjaro
They should put it on the App Store as a monthly magazine using iBooks Author.
Believe me when I say it is really easy to do and the user experience is worth
every penny.

I know Lim can do it himself in his sleep but if a helping hand is needed just
let me know.

------
enneff
I was skeptical of Hacker Monthly when it was first announced. I haven't been
following it, but on seeing this article I was so impressed I subscribed to
the print edition right away. A great excuse to spend less time on HN. :-)

~~~
cgs
Same here. Don't forget, it's a tax writeoff if you're self-employed :)

------
kandalf
It's cool to note that any student can get a digital subscription for free
(something that I take advantage of).

It would also be cool if he sold a box set of 2011's issues - or even better a
bound compilation.

------
HiroshiSan
Congrats to Lim for his success, I remember my question being featured in
issue #1 although I was never mentioned as the poster of the question, not a
big deal but hahaha little fame is nice.

------
ebcase
I love Hacker Monthly — I just subscribed a few weeks ago so I could read it
via Kindle, and am making my way through its back-issues (to which subscribers
get access).

------
smsm42
There's probably a lot of opportunities in news aggregation on multiple level.
My RSS feeds list on Google Reader is way longer than I can manage to read. If
I had a clone (i.e. somebody who knows exactly what I find interesting) I'd
definitely have him do that and tell me just the interesting stuff. Absent
that, paying somebody to do a good approximation of it would be reasonable, if
it's not too expensive.

------
pellias
Now, how viable is it to do a reddit monthly ?

~~~
sireat
This would be a humongous undertaking. In fact, a better idea would do one for
one of the big subreddits.

The N/S on reddit is much higher than HN thus your task would be much harder.

I really like the idea of HNM, the need for quality editorial guidance in the
age of information overload is something that has been discussed many times,
starting with Alvin Toeffler.

------
andrewphelps
You guys, if enough people vote up this post it will be printed in Hacker
Monthly. #meta

------
bobbles
Can anyone explain something for me.. I'm interested in subscribing to the
print edition. Does subscribing mean I also receive the back-catalog to issue
#1 in print also? (This is what I'd like).

Thanks

~~~
joejohnson
Yes, subscribers receive access to all issues, including the back catalogs.

~~~
tagawa
Really, for print edition? Surely that's not viable long-term.

~~~
bobbles
Yeah.. this is what I'm still unsure of.. what I'd like is to order the print
subscription, and then receive all of the back issues to #1, and start
receiving the new issues each month.

Im located in australia, so I dont know how this would work. (The $88
subscription price already increases to $174, just for postage to AUS)

~~~
enneff
I subscribed to the print edition from Australia. You get digital-only access
to the back catalog. The exchange rate makes it around AUD$165, which is less
than $14 an issue.

------
nigelsampson
Congratulations on the success, I'd love to subscribe to the print version,
but the delivery costs to New Zealand are 95% of the subscription cost.

------
zackzackzack
This might be the present I ask for on my upcoming birthday. Yep, I know what
I want.

------
gruseom
This is just astonishing. Many congratulations!

------
fady
wow! i love reading posts like this. kudos lim for doing this, and i love the
graphics used too.

------
joering2
ok duck, since there are some profits involved, just wondering here when/if HN
can go against you and ask you to cease your activity. I am not sure so maybe
someone here can answer, but isnt it that HN website owns some sort of
copyrights to their website's content even if it was created by other (users)

~~~
polyfractal
The only thing they could make a claim about is trademark infringement of
"Hacker News". Everything else is content from various authors around the web,
which have freely given their permission to allow reprints.

All in all, a pretty awesome success story!

~~~
MichaelApproved
Hacker News doesn't seem to be trademarked, I see no claim for that anywhere
on the site. Even if it were trademarked, the vast amount of sites already
using the term Hacker News could cause the trademark to be invalidated since,
in order to keep a trademark valid, you must actively defend it from being
infringed upon.

~~~
joering2
most sites that use HN content does not generate profits, at least not so
obviously.

now, don't get me wrong -- huge kudos to author for pulling this off but me
and sure other users here had the similar idea long time ago: a nice, polished
thick and colorful catalog full of the 1st page articles even with printed
Hackernes comments. The major thing that stopped me, for example, was the
thought that if this will get a traction and will bring some profits, most
likely HN will come after me to either option A (95% probability) shut this
down, or option B (5%) - to work out some sort of a deal.

Major reason why HN, Facebook, Youtube, etc etc does not care about someone
infringing is because there is no business behind what they do. So most likely
they can only "spread the word" which is a good thing. Now, when it comes to
generating some profits off of someone else thats a different story.

once again to underline this: huge kudos for great idea and awesome execution!

~~~
MichaelApproved
But which law would HN use to compel you to shutdown your project?

-Not trademark because there is none here.

-Not copyright because you can't copyright facts. You might get them on the structure of the facts (this bit of info is first, that bit is second and this is third) but with a site like HN, there is no fixed structure, except that at one time this link was in the top X. I believe that's a fact more than structure.

-Comments! Now that's the weak link. If you don't get permission from each commenter, you're likely infringing. HN cant shut you down but they can incourage others to and it only takes one commenter to make your life difficult in this type of publication.

IANAL but this is my understanding. If anyone knows different, please correct
me where I'm wrong.

~~~
joering2
I'm not sure, as I am not an attorney. The basis would be that without Hacker
News website, there would be no Hacker News Monthly. It doesn't take a rocket
science to imagine that running busy site like HN takes someones time AND
money. HNM editor clearly profits off of it, just leaving all the costs to HN
and squeezing essence out of it, making reasonable bucks for himself (again:
kudos to the author; had I had time and balls to pull this of.... I'm just
pointing out what would stop me from putting my time/effort into it)

I guess time will show (if HNM will keep traction) if HN will somehow, anyhow
react.

------
lionhearted
Lim Cheng Soon is a super great guy too. Friendly, down-to-earth, family
values, massive work ethic, helpful, appreciation for beauty and aesthetics,
good friend, just really stellar dude. Anyone passing through Malaysia should
drop him a line to link up. One of the nicest people I've met in the last
couple years.

