Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine Gets a Makeover
The Press Gazette reports that Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine was going to be closed down until it was purchased by new publisher, Tim Bullamore, a sub-editor at The Times and an obituary writer for The Daily Telegraph.
He said: “As a journalist I hate to see written publications having to close and I saw an awful lot of promise there. It was being run by really great people who didn’t have a magazine publishing background. They were going to close it and it only had a small number of subscribers and little advertising. We’ve already more than exceeded our targets in advertising for the first year and subscriptions on the way up.”
Jane Austen’s Regency World remains the official magazine of the Jane Austen Centre.
Under the new ownership, the magazine will be getting a makeover:
The new-look September issue of Jane Austen’s Regency World has been changed from A4-stapled to handbook-sized and perfect bound (similar to women’s monthly Glamour) and has had a redesign reducing down the 40 different fonts used in the old magazine to just four.
The new look can be seen at the Jane Austen Centre at Bath’s website.
August 26th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I did not know the magazine was in trouble, and am very glad it has been rescued. I do love receiving it in the mail. I strip it of its plastic sleeve, and streak upstairs to the privacy of my Austen-world to read it. Pity there are so few of us…
August 26th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
“The magazine currently has a circulation of 1,000 – sold in the Jane Austen museum and Jane Austen attractions and on subscription, with 50 per cent of sales in America, 25 per cent in the UK and the remaining 25 per cent to other fans of the writer around the world. Bullamore said he would like to see that doubled in the next year.”
It IS a beautiful magazine and it would be a shame for it to go under, but with only a circulation of 1,000 I wonder that anyone bought it. I subscribed for 3 years until I had to give it up due to the cost. I just now pretended to subscribe and found that at today’s conversion rate the cost is $73.03 for 1 year (6 issues). I realize that when circulation and advertising revenue go up that the price will come down, but that’s the old chicken and egg dilemma. I wish them all success.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I have always wanted to subscribe to this–I bought several issues when I was in Bath a few years back and loved it–but I could never bring myself to spend that much money for the subscription. I do hope that one day a subscription will be more affordable. Maybe they could start publishing it in the US or Canada as well–it would probably be worth it in the long run.
Anyone else find it funny that the magazine was saved from death by an obituary writer?
August 26th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Fourty different fonts?! That statistic makes me weep.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Keira Knightley looks like she’s going to bite someone’s neck.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:03 am
* That should, of course, be “forty”. My bad.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I have subscribed through automatic renewals & am rather surprised to see the higher price–I guess I should check my bank statements more often.
Who on earth are they going to get to advertise in this magazine? Manufacturers of barouches and Gowlands lotion?
The only think I can think of are holiday packages & B&Bs unless they can discover what kind of target demographic we 1000 subscribers are and pitch for luxury goods (I presume luxury goods, for a $73/year sub for 6 issues of a literary mag).
August 30th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I’m another who was unaware JA’s Regency World Magazine was in trouble. Postal charge is another expense.
Amy P; what I do is order an occasional batch of back copies of this mag; perhaps order a couple of back-copies each year so you don’t totally miss out.
Once I ordered two mags and was told I could order a freebie.
Agree, it makes an entertaining read of Jane’s own world and it’s nice to support the Jane Austen Centre.