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About Being Late!Recently, some people complained that Protoculture Addicts was always late and that it was published God knows when. I beg to differ. I admit that we have a problem of chronic small delays, but those delays are rarely dramatic. Yes, PA #71 was extremely late, because of an exceptional cumulation of various problems, but such delays are the exception not the norm. And we are working on solving that problem definitively. The fact that PA#73 -- which was plagued by a similar cumulation of problems -- is on time (a couple of days late at worse) is the proof. First, I would like to remind everyone that we are (for now) a bimonthly magazine (which means published every TWO months -- and we do our darn best to release an issue roughly every sixty days). Such a long time in-between issues and the fact that many stores order just a minimum number of copies resulting that some issues might never make it to the shelves, probably give the impression that we are not regular. Second, I also want to remind people that the magazine is produced by a very small staff. All in all, the main in-house staff plus the close collaborators amount only to an handful of people, while most magazines are produced by a staff of a dozen people with dozens of collaborators. That we are able to, most of the time, maintain our rough bimonthly schedule has something of a miracle... The fact is that we are very dedicated to our job! Lets now rely on statistics: in the last four years (20 issues) only TWO issues (10%) have been very late (more than a month: #71 was 30 days late and #59 was 39 days late). Four issues (20%) were also late (#55, 57, 64, and 69 were about three weeks late). All the other issues (70%) were either only slightly delayed (6 issues, or 30%, were less then two weeks late: #60-62, 65-67) or on time (8 issues, or 40%, were earlier or delayed just by a couple of days: #54, 56, 58, 63, 68, 70, 72-73). That's a pretty good track record for a magazine that is supposed to be always late! But we did improved a lot since the previous years. However, even if we have just one issue each year that is late, it is often enough to cause us to release only five issues instead of six in that year. All those issues were late because they contained a bigger than usual spotlight (more pages, more color or more research), we were working on another project at the same time (like the Anime Guide which came out just before PA#64) or because we were victim of a cascade of problems (health problems -- come to think of it, most late issues were in the flu season -- computer problems, or whatever fate puts on our road to cause delay). We do our best, but sometimes it is rather difficult to deal with those various problems (in the case of PA#71, it included computer glitches, printer whims, advertisements that came late, a distributor screw-up, etc.) while making sure that everything else run smoothly (running after new advertisers, running after advertisers whose payments are late, deciding the contents of future issues, updating the web page, filing & shipping orders, etc.) or planning major improvement in the magazine (like glossy paper, more color, etc.) or the web page, AND still be sharp on schedule each time! Also, even if we are just a couple of weeks late each time, those small delays cumulate and, at the end of the year, we still have published only five issues instead of six. Even worse, if you look at the production schedule we posted at the beginning of the year (and don't look at the updates we posted regularly after that), each issue seems like two months late! But, of course, a production schedule is something that always evolves, and that's why we update it after each issue to take account of those small, unavoidable, delays. People (readers, distributors, advertisers) must understand that and adapt themselves to this evolving schedule. That's the way things are. Of course, we must encounter more than our production schedule, and more than a sixty days deadline: we must also fit into the advertisers and distributors schedules (where solicited items have an expiration date!). I can certainly understand their point of view: any small delay is an annoyance. I could even understand an advertiser who takes the fact that we are supposedly late as an excuse to cancel its advertising contract (particularly if they start their own magazine where they can put tons of advertising). It is also impossible to meet a fixed deadline determined three months before, when your previous issue was late on its evolving schedule (unless, of course, we could produce an issue in two weeks)! Despite the huge delays on PA#71 and several problems, PA#72 shipped within sixty-three days and PA#73 will ship within sixty-four days. Nevertheless, in both case, we busted the deadline of our main distributor (many thanks for his leniency!). We can only do our best and hope to satisfy even the harsher and unrealistic critics. Personnally, at the end of my bimonthly schedule, if I have release my issue within sixty days (more or less a week), I am quite satisfied. In the past years, we have been working hard to keep our schedule -- as it is demonstrated by the statistics of the last four years. We are now working even harder to bring you, on time, the best guide to anime culture. So, please, bear with us because the magazine will definitely improve in many aspects... And don't believe those who say that Protoculture Addicts is always late! [CJP] Update To make it even clearer, it have added below the statistics mentionned earlier. They are displayed in a graphical way, so they are easier to understand. I have also included statistics for earlier and more recent issues:
So, yes, the magazine was often late, but most of the time the delay was not very significant. Considering the fact that I was handling the production (layout, shipping, administration, etc.) mostly by myself, any delay of less than a month was, by my standard, quite acceptable. And it rarely happened that we were about or more than a month late (7 times in 8 years, or in 40 issues, that's only about 18%). That's far from the complain I often heard on the internet that we were ALWAYS MONTHS late. It is in fact a myth. If we look at the yearly average, the delays were never more than two weeks on average. Our best years were 1999 and 2003, with average delays of respectively only 3 and 6 days. And on both of those years we released our 6 issues. Most fans probably never noticed that we were late and, in any cases, the issue was always worth the wait... You'll probably notice that PA#81 is the issue showing the biggest delay. By the time I started working on this issue, I had already decided to put the magazine on a summer hiatus in order to review its possible future. To be able to pay the rent and groceries, I had to take another job. I finished the layout of PA#81 while working almost full-time at an electronic retail store... That's why it took more than twice the usual time to produce. The overall average delay of ten days reminds me that I used to say that, despite the fact that we were bimonthly, the magazine was taking two months and two weeks to produce! I was joking, but, in fact, it couldn't have been closer to the truth! Anyway, all that to say that we were late, yes, but it was never that bad. And now, all this will be in the past. With Anime News Network joining in to produce the magazine, it won't be late anymore. [CJP] New Update
I must say that the magazine regularity improved a lot in 2005. There is still some work to do to make the magazine perfectly on time for each issue, but we are working on it. The most delayed issues were PA#82 (because of the time it took to restart the magazine with our new partner at Anime News Network) and PA#88 (only because we decided to skip a few issues in order to work on improving the layout as it was clear that it would be impossible to both keep the schedule and re-design the magazine). In order to finalize the improvements and do some promotion, the next issue will also be delayed and PA#89 is coming out only in November, but after that, for 2007, we will resume our bimonthly schedule starting with issue #90 in January and we will keep to that schedule. Of course, there are two point of view when come to evaluate the schedule of a magazine. First, there is the distribution point of view. If you announce to the distributors that the magazine will be released on a certain date, they expect it to be available on that date. In regard to this aspect, the magazine was released three (3) weeks late on average (in comparison with the announced date of release). From the readers point of view, they expect to receive the magazine about every two months and on that aspect we were pretty good, as (if we don't consider the hiatus preceeding issues #82 & 88) we were on average only two (2) weeks late (which remind me again about my joke that it always take two months and two weeks to make an issue -- but we did improved our timeliness if we consider that this year each issue had more pages than the previous year). And I promise we'll do even better next year. [CJP] |
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