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From: perry@well.UUCP (Perry S. Kivolowitz)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: serious problem facing independent developers
Message-ID: <335@well.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Dec-85 00:49:59 EST
Article-I.D.: well.335
Posted: Wed Dec 11 00:49:59 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Dec-85 07:32:08 EST
Organization: Whole Earth Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 59
Keywords: observations and suggestions

In conversations  between  Eric Lavitsky  and myself we've come upon something
which troubles  us a great deal. We  are,  as are  many  of  you,  independent
developers.  That means from  the  minute we get  home from work, till we drop
off to sleep we work on products for the AMIGA that we hope will sell.

Up till now we  have  been  preoccupied with getting what we want to sell into
working, releasable  shape.   Well,   now we are in a position (that of having
nearly completed    products)  where   we've begun to think about how it is we
are going to sell our wares.

Gee, how about an  ad in AMIGA World! That'd be great but there are two really
negative factors.

(1)	AMIGA World ads are very expensive. Nearly $1000 for a one time 1/4 or
	1/6 page.

(2)	The lead times are unusually long. Today, the 11th is the deadline for
	the March/April issue. That means  if we  wanted to spend the money we
	couldn't get in until May (half a year away!).

While lead times for ads are generally long, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't  6
months longer than average?

As for cost, there are those who'd say ``If you can't afford n dollars how can
you afford to support etc...''  This  is  a  resonable point  to only a  small
extent. I can afford to typeset and copy manuals. Print disk labels and dupli-
cate disks. I can afford to call customer's back after my  work  day ends. But
the cost of AMIGA World ads coupled with the lead time is crushing!

Suggestions:

To Commodore----

Lean on AMIGA World to:

	Lower prices OR provide smaller, lower cost ads such as classifieds or
	1/8 pagers.

	Provide  some vehicle for us  smaller developer types to get are wares
	known. Perhaps mention in  a newsletter or subsidies on advertising to
	reviewed products.

To Independent Developers Everywhere:

	Perhaps what is needed is an independent  developer's cooperative?  We
	could band together to share the cost of large ads in expensive widely
	read mags.

	The cooperative  need  not imply that we are in ``business'' together.
	It's just that  through  numbers we can break into the market in a way
	that we couldn't otherwise.


Let's at least get some dialog going  here  as  to  how we might approach this
problem  which  affects  us  all  (AMIGA  developers  and  users)  directly or 
indirectly.


				Perry (sittin on two products) Kivolowitz