Hi,
I am Hemant Charya. I work for a major publishing house in Mumbai, India.
We intend to make Linuxformat (http://linuxformat.co.uk/) magazine availabe in India, at Indian prices. Linuxformat magazine is very popular in UK . It is accompanied by a DVD (July '06 DVD contains: Polished Mandriva spin-off PCLinuxOS, and rock-solid enterprise-ready CentOS, KOffice 1.5, Oracle 10g XE, games and more
As a publisher we want to learn from the Indian Linux community and potential readers: 1. Whether the Linux users in India like to read an international magazine dedicated to Linux? 2. Would they be interested in subscribing to such a magazine. 3. What would be the most the most attractive cover-price in Indian Rupees? (The internatonal edition of Linuxformat is available in select bookstores of Mumbai. A single issue costs an exorbitant 600+ Rupees).
Your feedback is extremely valuable for us. Only you can help us bring an awesome monthly read purely about Linux and at affordable Indian prices.
The highlights of the July '06 issue of LinuxFormat are below.
* Top kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman explains why binary drivers are evil * Lessons in Linux - In-depth feature on Linux growth in schools and universities * Reviews - Ubuntu 6.06, Oracle 10g Express Edition, Second Life, GnuCash 2.0, Ogre 3D 1.2, books, blog engines...
More can be found at http://linuxformat.co.uk/ .
Regards, Hemant Charya Mumbai
Hi
Yes why not. There is currently only 1 magazine for Indian published linux available in India(as far as I know). Rs.600/- for the international copy of linux format is surely exorbitant. Cost of Indian tech magazines range fro 100-125/- with 2 cds or 1 DVD and 1 CD. Even a slight increase in price upto 150/- would be acceptable.
Thanks
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On 06/06/2006 08:28 PM, Hemant Charya cobbled together some glyphs to say:
I am Hemant Charya. I work for a major publishing house in Mumbai, India.
Hello Hemant, nice to hear from you.
We intend to make Linuxformat (http://linuxformat.co.uk/) magazine availabe in India, at Indian prices. Linuxformat magazine is very popular in UK . It is accompanied by a DVD (July '06 DVD contains: Polished Mandriva spin-off PCLinuxOS, and rock-solid enterprise-ready CentOS, KOffice 1.5, Oracle 10g XE, games and more
Well, that's very good news. I would love to have LinuxFormat (or any other high-quality GNU/Linux magazine published in India).
As a publisher we want to learn from the Indian Linux community and potential readers:
- Whether the Linux users in India like to read an international
magazine dedicated to Linux?
Yes, of course. There is a great market for a high-quality magazine dedicated to (GNU/)Linux in India.
- Would they be interested in subscribing to such a magazine.
Yes, why not. I for one used to read the other Linux magazine available in India. I stopped reading it after an year because of their poor quality of articles and over-all content and of course their (the publishing house's) lack of knowledge about GNU/Linux. The magazine that's available in India lacks quality material. So I for one would really appreciate a magazine that has good content and is managed by knowledgeable people.
- What would be the most the most attractive cover-price in Indian
Rupees? (The internatonal edition of Linuxformat is available in select bookstores of Mumbai. A single issue costs an exorbitant 600+ Rupees).
INR 100 would be fine for most people, I guess. Personally I am ready to pay upto INR 150 if the quality is excellent.
Regards, BG
- -- Baishampayan Ghose b.ghose@ubuntu.com Ubuntu -- Linux for Human Beings http://www.ubuntu.com/
1024D/86361B74 BB2C E244 15AD 05C5 523A 90E7 4249 3494 8636 1B74
On 06/06/06 20:28 +0530, Hemant Charya wrote:
Hi,
I am Hemant Charya. I work for a major publishing house in Mumbai, India.
We intend to make Linuxformat (http://linuxformat.co.uk/) magazine availabe in India, at Indian prices. Linuxformat magazine is very popular in UK . It is accompanied by a DVD (July '06 DVD contains: Polished Mandriva spin-off PCLinuxOS, and rock-solid enterprise-ready CentOS, KOffice 1.5, Oracle 10g XE, games and more
As a publisher we want to learn from the Indian Linux community and potential readers:
- Whether the Linux users in India like to read an international
magazine dedicated to Linux?
I would be interested, if the content warranted it. Please note that this implies actual work, as opposed to marketing releases. Product reviews have to be in depth, rather than the glorified press releases which pass for reviews in most magazines.
- Would they be interested in subscribing to such a magazine.
I would. If your content is good enough, I can do without the DVD. Think DDJ, rather than PC Quest.
- What would be the most the most attractive cover-price in Indian
Rupees? (The internatonal edition of Linuxformat is available in select bookstores of Mumbai. A single issue costs an exorbitant 600+ Rupees).
My ideal price would be ~ 100 INR or so, for content and few ads (less than 10% of space, and all advertising in a single area. See Nature for an example of how the ads are put in a separate section.)
Keep in mind that the magazine budget competes with a book budget, so your content needs to outweigh the benefits of the book.
Devdas Bhagat
Hi Hemant,
Please put a tag of commercial in subject line whenever you do commercial posting on the list.
Quoting Hemant Charya hemantcharya@gmail.com:
Hi,
I am Hemant Charya. I work for a major publishing house in Mumbai, India.
We intend to make Linuxformat magazine availabe in India, at Indian prices. Linuxformat magazine is very popular in UK . It is accompanied by a DVD (July '06 DVD contains: Polished Mandriva spin-off PCLinuxOS, and rock-solid enterprise-ready CentOS, KOffice 1.5, Oracle 10g XE, games and more
As a publisher we want to learn from the Indian Linux community and potential readers:
- Whether the Linux users in India like to read an international
magazine dedicated to Linux?
Should be full of tech articles then of ads.
- Would they be interested in subscribing to such a magazine.
You need to taste the water to find if its drinkable :)
- What would be the most the most attractive cover-price in Indian
Rupees? (The internatonal edition of Linuxformat is available in select bookstores of Mumbai. A single issue costs an exorbitant 600+ Rupees).
Check out the competition, everyone is having similar proposition at Rs. 80-100 with DVD and stuff (make sure your DVDs work unlike the current competition)
Your feedback is extremely valuable for us. Only you can help us bring an awesome monthly read purely about Linux and at affordable Indian prices.
Affordable India price would be offcourse Rs. 0 :)
The highlights of the July '06 issue of LinuxFormat are below.
- Top kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman explains why binary
drivers are evil * Lessons in Linux - In-depth feature on Linux growth in schools and universities
- Reviews - Ubuntu 6.06, Oracle 10g Express Edition, Second Life,
GnuCash 2.0, Ogre 3D 1.2, books, blog engines...
Thanks & Regards, Mitul Limbani, Founder & CEO, Enterux Solutions, The Enterprise Linux Company (TM), www.enterux.com
On Tuesday 06 June 2006 14:58, Hemant Charya wrote:
As a publisher we want to learn from the Indian Linux community and potential readers:
- Whether the Linux users in India like to read an international
magazine dedicated to Linux? 2. Would they be interested in subscribing to such a magazine. 3. What would be the most the most attractive cover-price in Indian Rupees? (The internatonal edition of Linuxformat is available in select bookstores of Mumbai. A single issue costs an exorbitant 600+ Rupees).
1. Yes I would very much like to read such a magazine not because its an international magazine but because hopefully the quality of this is better than most magazines that we see currently in India.
2. Yes.
3. I guess Rs.100-150/- should be reasonable. You should print several editions for different pricing and different goodies.
Your feedback is extremely valuable for us. Only you can help us bring an awesome monthly read purely about Linux and at affordable Indian prices.
Umm...I would like it if this magazine not only covers linux but also other technologies from Windows / UNIX and other worlds. But primary focus should be on linux. But thats just my opinion.
As a publisher we want to learn from the Indian Linux community and potential readers:
- Whether the Linux users in India like to read an international
magazine dedicated to Linux?
Yep.Sure. But it should retain its internatinal flavour, coz somehow everything that launches in India related to linux is dumbed down. A good mix of beginner stuff and advanced stuff is very important. And if i can suggest something on the content.. I think focussuing on stuff thats already popular, like firefox,gimp etc. will be a good thing for starters. Like articles on XUL for starters.
2. Would they be interested in subscribing to such a magazine.
I for one would be. But then everything depends on the content. I dont care abt the CDs DVDs.. Good content I buy. DVDs can be a good option initially for attracting customers. But after a settling in period, options for subscribing to the mag without a CD or DVD if it makes a significant difference in terms of price can be really useful.
3. What would be the most the most attractive cover-price in Indian
Rupees? (The internatonal edition of Linuxformat is available in select bookstores of Mumbai. A single issue costs an exorbitant 600+ Rupees).
I have seen the price debate on the list. And IMHO 100 bucks for mag with decent quality isnt too much. but 130 or 150 would make me think a bit more.
-- Puneet
On 6/14/06, Puneet Lakhina puneet.lakhina@gmail.com wrote:
Yep.Sure. But it should retain its internatinal flavour, coz somehow everything that launches in India related to linux is dumbed down. A good mix of beginner stuff and advanced stuff is very important. And if i can suggest something on the content.. I think focussuing on stuff thats already popular, like firefox,gimp etc. will be a good thing for starters. Like articles on XUL for starters.
agreen 100%. I hate it when things get Indianized. Its soo pathetic. The novelty value reduces to null. I mean look at the entertaintment channels. They ruin all programs by "Indianizing" ( Hindi dubbing ) them. They sound so - well - pathetic.
On Wed, Jun 14, 2006 at 11:23:11AM +0530, Puneet Lakhina wrote:
I have seen the price debate on the list. And IMHO 100 bucks for mag with decent quality isnt too much. but 130 or 150 would make me think a bit more.
This debate reminds me of the time I used to borrow money from my dad to occasionaly afford the 'Elektor' magazine over the local cheaper 'EFY'. EFY is the same group that publishes LFY. I would snoop around the raddiwala's shop looking for second hand Elektor issues. Luckily their copycat pcb kits were available at shops in Lam. Rd.
Regards,
Rony.
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