Yup. Eight years of LotFP.
Let's see...
October 1998: Issue #1 was completed and sent to the printers.
October 1999: Issue #4 was released the month before. It was SUPPOSED to be a monthly thing there, but instead #5 didn't come out until February 2000.
October 2000: After #6 was released over the summer (too many pages, too many printed, too small a font) I was fired from my job after taking the day off from to receive the mags when they were shipped from the printer. I found a new job at the end of this month but work on LotFP was stalled. #7 would be released in the spring of 2001. I made first contact with my wife in November 2000 when she joined the LotFP discussion list.
October 2001: The LotFP Weekly concept was born. I re-started the numbering because of the change of format (dummy me) and released the first two issues in this month. If I remember correctly, the "weekly" part of it did stay on schedule for a good number of months.
October 2002: LotFP "Weeklies" #40 and 41 are released. Paid subscribership was at its peak in the summer/fall of this year, with around 110 paid subscribers.
October 2003: The format had shifted to the monthly digests (and fixed the numbering), and four issues of that were released between May-September.. I had done a ton of work on the ProgPower program that year so I count that as a "month" of release even if it didn't have the LotFP logo on it. This month was supposed to be when the 5th Anniversary Issue was released. I had a major case of the "I don't give a fuck anymore"s so it wasn't out until January 2004.
October 2004: I was in Florida waiting for the Finnish government to let me come live in their country. I was doing a bit of website stuff at this point, but LotFP was dead as a print entity.
October 2005: Scum had been out a couple months and I really wasn't doing much of anything LotFP related. I think the site was dead as a doornail as well.
October 2006: Over the summer I'd decided to DO SOMETHING again and I have a bit of fire. No, it's not 80 full sized pages of 5.5 and 6 point fonts, but the death star is indeed operational. A couple dozen pages four or five times a year sounds completely sustainable at this point. I do feel better about LotFP now that I have since launching LotFP Weekly. And I'm living in Finland now!
Paid orders for #67: 72 people from 9 countries. 16 of those are new orders since #66 was released, the rest are old subscribers going back a few years. Yeah, service is slow but every issue of every subscription will be filled.
A modest number to be sure, but considering I've released two issues in the past 21 months, I'm happy with it.
Future plans: Get #67 off to the proofreader by the end of next week. It will be available locally then before the month is out so the cover date isn't a lie but most subscribers likely won't see it til the first week of November. After that, keep on keepin' on, I guess. I plan to blow a fuckload of money for whatever issue October 2008 will be. All glossy, color cover, for the sole purpose of saying I did that once. Then back to whatever format is making sense to me until October 2018 when it will be time for another glossy issue.
So, yeah. Eight years.
Let's see...
October 1998: Issue #1 was completed and sent to the printers.
October 1999: Issue #4 was released the month before. It was SUPPOSED to be a monthly thing there, but instead #5 didn't come out until February 2000.
October 2000: After #6 was released over the summer (too many pages, too many printed, too small a font) I was fired from my job after taking the day off from to receive the mags when they were shipped from the printer. I found a new job at the end of this month but work on LotFP was stalled. #7 would be released in the spring of 2001. I made first contact with my wife in November 2000 when she joined the LotFP discussion list.
October 2001: The LotFP Weekly concept was born. I re-started the numbering because of the change of format (dummy me) and released the first two issues in this month. If I remember correctly, the "weekly" part of it did stay on schedule for a good number of months.
October 2002: LotFP "Weeklies" #40 and 41 are released. Paid subscribership was at its peak in the summer/fall of this year, with around 110 paid subscribers.
October 2003: The format had shifted to the monthly digests (and fixed the numbering), and four issues of that were released between May-September.. I had done a ton of work on the ProgPower program that year so I count that as a "month" of release even if it didn't have the LotFP logo on it. This month was supposed to be when the 5th Anniversary Issue was released. I had a major case of the "I don't give a fuck anymore"s so it wasn't out until January 2004.
October 2004: I was in Florida waiting for the Finnish government to let me come live in their country. I was doing a bit of website stuff at this point, but LotFP was dead as a print entity.
October 2005: Scum had been out a couple months and I really wasn't doing much of anything LotFP related. I think the site was dead as a doornail as well.
October 2006: Over the summer I'd decided to DO SOMETHING again and I have a bit of fire. No, it's not 80 full sized pages of 5.5 and 6 point fonts, but the death star is indeed operational. A couple dozen pages four or five times a year sounds completely sustainable at this point. I do feel better about LotFP now that I have since launching LotFP Weekly. And I'm living in Finland now!
Paid orders for #67: 72 people from 9 countries. 16 of those are new orders since #66 was released, the rest are old subscribers going back a few years. Yeah, service is slow but every issue of every subscription will be filled.
A modest number to be sure, but considering I've released two issues in the past 21 months, I'm happy with it.Future plans: Get #67 off to the proofreader by the end of next week. It will be available locally then before the month is out so the cover date isn't a lie but most subscribers likely won't see it til the first week of November. After that, keep on keepin' on, I guess. I plan to blow a fuckload of money for whatever issue October 2008 will be. All glossy, color cover, for the sole purpose of saying I did that once. Then back to whatever format is making sense to me until October 2018 when it will be time for another glossy issue.
So, yeah. Eight years.
