[Blindtlk] FW: FW: [CCB-L] Fw: Please Distribute: November-December 2007 Dialogue Is Here!

[T. Joseph Carter]

Eric Calhoun wrote/forwarded:
[...]
> or to subscribe, $42/year, $7/single copy, contact DIALOGUE at 800-860-4224.

Yow!  I was glad to see that Dialogue was still in publication, and I have
a great deal of respect for Carol McCarl, but $42 for my choice of
formats, including email?  I'm afraid that with the cost of RFB&D,
Bookshare, and other subscription services that are actually necessary for
me, I won't be subscribing.  I realize Braille costs a significant amount
to produce and ship, and that cassettes are still pretty expensive.  But
things like mp3 CDs (not offered) and emailed text are much cheaper to
produce.

There's got to be some way to reduce their production costs so that the
blind can actually afford and easily find this resource.  Ideally, they'd
have nearly simultaneous publication on their website and in their
subscription formats, and the online version would be quickly indexed by
search engines to help people who don't know about Dialogue find
information contained within the magazine.


What's ideal might not be practical though.  I don't think they charge $42
per year because they want to, and $7 per Braille issue is pretty
reasonable given the cost of Braille production.  Additionally, online
publication would increase the amount of traffic to their website.
Hosting is cheap some places, but the last time I checked, Salem, Oregon
is not a particularly wired town.  They're also using the same setup they
have had since the days of Teleport, a regional ISP long since sold to
Earthlink.

Anyway, if the list is up for it, I'd like to brainstorm a bit about how
an organization like Blindskills can reduce their costs and provide us
with the valuable information in publications like Dialogue, and yet still
have us be able to afford that information.  Maybe we'll come up with some
good ideas.  =)