I’ve only just stopped drooling. The latest edition of Geist magazine has landed on the doorstep and I love it. Check out the Geist website. Geist is my favourite literary magazine of ideas and culture. Every issue spends a long time in my hands. And recently, the mag has been arriving with a short note from the editor. This is no regular note. This issue it starts “Welcome (again) to the other side of this piece of paper …”
A couple of issues ago the note went on to explain and apologize for the lateness of the issue. The personal note is very much like a blog post and the humanity of the Geist team is plainly evident.
The note this issue continues with an invitation for readers to think of Geist during the gift-giving season. The Geist Gift Pack included with the issue also includes an opportunity for the gift-giver to receive an archival print from the mag. Here’s the pitch:
“The idea of giving you a gift in exchange for you giving a gift came about after our accountant, whose name is Mindy, demonstrated on a spreadsheet what we had long suspected: that the cost of gaining a new reader for Geist by the conventional methods of direct mail had reached the astronomical proportion of two and even three times the price of a subscription. At the same time, the cost of acquiring gift subscriptions had remained at the level of only a few bucks each.”
Every subscription also draws three times its value in advertising and subsidy revenue. This whole pitch is effective for me because I like when companies explain the cost of their products, the business model; it makes me a better-informed consumer. One of the things I find frustrating is people who think $30-40 hardcover books are too expensive. Someone in publishing should explain the economic factors that contribute to that cost. Maybe I will … but not today.
So do you love new ideas and new writing made in Canada? Do you enjoy a quirky look at the world? Do you live in Canada? Have you always wanted a Geist subscription?
I want to support Geist, and I want to give you a subscription to the magazine.
I’m offering 2 subscriptions. If you would like to be Geisted, send me an email, monique@somisguided.com with the subject line “Geist Me”.