Main Discussion Area > Bow of the Month Contest
Bow of the Month change
Stickhead:
Okay, here's my 2 cents.
Personally, the only way I'm likely to get a BOM hat is to fly to Germany and go to one of Simson's yard sales. But that doesn't stop me from sharing my bows and occasionally entering. I love to get good feedback and suggestions from experts.
To my way of thinking, this site is the best knowledge-sharing tool ever available to this community. We can all access a plethora of information and feedback free of charge. Without PA magazine, who must profit to survive, it goes away. This is why I'm willing to donate my time to moderate the BOM contest -- to do what I can to help keep it alive.
I think that BOM is a great perk for those who help keep things going financially by paying for a subscription. If it helps to bring in a few more subscribers, great. And hey, we're talking about a whopping 6 cents a day, for Pete's sake.
If new subscribers don't like the magazine, they can always discontinue. But I suspect that most will become hooked like me, and look forward to every issue.
...Tom
gfugal:
Didn't realize i would ruffle so many feathers. Like was said, i find that i get most of the benefit from the forums and I'm more than happy with how lucky we have it to be able to participate for free, heck even just being able to read. I was simply just trying to get a clarification, while also putting in my two cents on magazines in general. I've noticed BOM declining as well and was wondering if the magazine subscription wasn't the thing holding it back, i doubt its the fault of anyone supervising it as the issue is people submitting the bow. I get the play to pay principle. And if a subscription is required to enter i might just subscribe down the road for that reason alone. But i also think its wise, like pearl said, to have an open mind. Times are changing, the newspaper is practically going extinct, and i can see magazines following soon after as the younger generations get older. I did not know about the e-mag, so that sounds like a step in the right direction. I'm not offended, but please don't take offense here either.
Calendargirl:
We do require the subscription to enter BOM. But we do have the eMag that is less expensive option. We run "flash sales" or specials on the eMag a couple of time a year. The most recent was just after Father's day. Well it was during Father's day on Facebook but I didn't send a message to all the message board members so I did a special for the message boards.
I have thought about doing a BOM special on the eMag for the next entry. I don't want to overburden people with messages in their inbox we don't send out a ton of "buy this or that" here on the message boards and PA has given the moderators pretty much free reign to handle things and not control too much.
We don't do a lot of flashy ads and try not to barrage the members. We have a sponsor for the arrows section and welcome more sponsors for the other sections but we are careful to not have an ad that interrupts your participation like other sites.
We welcome creative suggestions and solutions. If you all think a 3 day sale on the eMag for those that want to participate, enter, or even share with friends would be beneficial then I will ask Stickhead when the right time would be for the next set of entries and we can do one. I need the feed back on that though and we don't want to flood people with promotions. So feel free to let Stickhead or me know if it is worth it and if it will help those that can't afford a print subscription to participate.
We do appreciate our members and of course our moderators.
gfugal:
Since i don't want to be one to complain without offoring ideas for solutions i thought i would take a stab at it. Although, i'm no business man and i don't know the full technicalities of running this site so i know these need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Metephorically speaking... if the lure isn't getting the bites, then maybe we should employ other bait. Albeit i don't know how successful the magazine is with new subscriptions so it's not my call to say whether it isn't "biting" or not. But regardless, there other options for revenue.
Going along the lines of bow of the month, what if the site hosted a biannual or even quartly auction where members can donate a bow to primitive archer then have them auctioned off the bows? The highest bidded bow could be considered the "winner" and all proceeds from all bows could go to PA as "appreciative payment" for providing such an excellent platform. I mean even if a bow goes for $100 how many years of subscriptions is that? Another idea is possibly including a section on this site for bowyers to sell their bows with a chunck of the proceeds going to PA for being the venue and advertisement. Obviously you would have to keep the forums clean of personal advertisement, but i still think it could be an option. With all the trading and gift giving that already goes on i'm more than sure a few would be willing to participate. But then again i'm no expert and i don't know what's been tried in the past, and in no way am i trying to tell anyone how to do things. Just offering ideas since i was the one to bring up this issue in the first place.
gfugal:
And yes, sales and promotions are wonderful, but don't feel like you have to bend over backwards for the few stubborn heads like me. I also have noticed how "clean" the site is from annoying advertisements and don't find the ones we do have to be interfeering with the experiance. You are all doing great! Just offering feedback is all. Thank you.
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