Tag: PDF

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Juiced.GS in 2013, wall calendar, and digital back issues

2013 wall calendar

Juiced.GS invites readers to enjoy another year of the longest-running Apple II print publication, with subscriptions now being offered for the magazine’s 18th consecutive year.

“Every issue of Juiced.GS presents me as editor with a wonderful dilemma: choosing which stories will fit into our pages,” says Ken Gagne. “There is so much happening in the Apple II world, from hardware and software to media and events, that we’re never left with blank pages. The only way to cover it all is to continue publishing for another year.”

The 2013 volume’s four issues are available for $19 for United States subscribers, and $27 for international. New this year is a $24 price tier for subscribers in Canada and Mexico, as well as a “lifetime” subscription that creates a recurring, annual payment to Juiced.GS, automatically renewing your subscription for as long as Juiced.GS exists. (Lifetime subscriptions are an experimental feature that will be removed from the store in late September 2012.)

Juiced.GS 2013 calendarRetrocomputing enthusiasts who want more reasons to celebrate the new year can also order a 2013 wall calendar featuring photos and screenshots from the pages of Juiced.GS, many of them seen here in full color for the first time. Its 12 months also feature over a hundred dates of significance to Apple II users, including but not limited to Apple Computer Inc.’s founding to the discontinuation of the Apple IIe; the birthdays of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ryan Suenaga; the launch dates of podcasts Open Apple, 1 MHz, and RetroMacCast; and geek dates such as π Day, International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and the premiere of the new Star Trek movie. Calendars cost $15, which includes shipping.

Juiced.GS: The Early Years BundleFinally, for Juiced.GS readers who are as interested in the history of the machine as they are the future, the first 24 issues of Juiced.GS are back in print for the first time in over a decade. These six volumes are available in hardcopy and digital editions, as individual volumes ($16 shipped / $12 downloaded) or a bundle ($84 shipped within the USA / $99 shipped internationally / $64 downloaded).

“Juiced.GS balances looking back at the legacy of the Apple II while covering and anticipating the next major milestone,” says Ken Gagne. “With products that span nearly two decades, Juiced.GS is perfectly positioned to continue serving the community for years to come.”

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Concentrate on your e-reader

The wonderful thing about standards is there are so many to choose from.

Apple iPadBefore and after publishing our first Juiced.GS Concentrate, we investigated also making these products available in the formats used by the iPad, Kindle, and other e-book reading devices. Our tests have suggested that the ePub format is best for plain text and not complex layouts or graphics, and that getting Juiced.GS to be both readable and recognizable as an ePub file would require an investment of time and effort that would detract from the print edition. This means you will not be finding or purchasing Juiced.GS in the iTunes or Amazon online stores anytime soon. (You can, however, subscribe to this blog with your Kindle.)

Fortunately, most e-book readers are quite accommodating of Concentrate in its native PDF format. As satisfied customer Wayne Arthurton wrote, “My goal is to put as much of my reference information on the iPad as possible. With that in mind, Concentrate is great.” As I don’t own any e-readers, I asked Ewen Wannop to provide some instructions for getting your purchased Concentrates onto an iOS device. Here’s the short version:

  1. Install iBooks on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.
  2. In iTunes, select “Add to Library” from the File menu, then select the PDFs.

Ewen also offers these more detailed directions:

  1. The iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, must be running OS 3.2 or later.
  2. Install the free iBooks app from the iTunes Store.
  3. Open iTunes, select the “Books” item from the Library menu on the left, and drag-and-drop the Concentrate PDFs onto the window on the right.
  4. Alternatively, use “Add to Library” from the File menu, and select the PDFs in the usual way.
  5. Sync your device. While the device is connected, you can manage which of the books or PDFs are synced; by default, all new files will be synced.
  6. Open the iBooks app on your device and select the book to read.
  7. Double-tap to zoom the columns for easy reading.

For the Kindle, please consult Amazon.com’s online help regarding “Transferring, Downloading, and Sending Files to Kindle“.

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Concentrating on Concentrate

Magazine revenue

Last month, Gamebits made a big announcement: the availability of Juiced.GS in PDF format in a product separate from the quarterly print edition. The Concentrate line marks the first time ever that Juiced.GS content has been available as a commercial digital product. There were several motivations behind this launch, but I’ll start by eliminating two: money and necessity.

Other print publications have perforce moved online to follow their readers, their advertisers, or both. Juiced.GS has neither of these concerns. Our subscriber base is currently the largest it’s been in six years, representing a clear demand for a traditional print periodical.

As for advertisers, most magazines’ revenue sources break down like this:

Magazine revenue

By contrast and without exaggeration, Juiced.GS‘s P&L spreadsheet indicates these revenue sources:

Juiced.GS revenue

This dependency on subscriptions is akin to being a privately owned company: we can do what we need to to satisfy our customers, instead of following the dictates and interests of outside investors. It’s a wonderful freedom that has allowed Juiced.GS to achieve a longevity unprecedented in the Apple II’s history.

So we don’t have to move to a digital format — but do we want to?

Of course we do! There are obvious benefits to a PDF that we’re excited to offer our readers. And the more formats and features we offer, the more capable we are of getting Juiced.GS into hobbyists’ hands, where they can use that information to keep the Apple II alive. But there are also reasons for Juiced.GS remain in hardcopy. The challenge is to offer both editions without threatening each other.

At KansasFest, Rob Kenyon remarked that Juiced.GS Concentrate was a perfect solution. “It complements but does not compete with your flagship product,” he said. He’s right. Since the hardcopy Juiced.GS reports on what’s hot, regardless of the theme, the two product lines are not substitutes for each other. Concentrate saves readers time and money by eliminating the need to purchase and refer to multiple issues or volumes to find just the articles they want, while anyone who wants to receive a quarterly periodical with the latest news, reviews, and interviews from the Apple II world will find it in each issue of Juiced.GS.

The first three volumes of Concentrate are just the beginning. We’ve already updated the initial batch of PDFs in response to reader suggestions, making them easier to navigate, and are looking to add more titles to our catalog. After buying the “Back to BASICs” volume, Wayne Arthurton shared his appreciation that the Applesoft code could be easily copied and pasted into his own programs — a quality that could explain why this Concentrate is selling better than others. Knowing whether these products are being used as convenient leisure reading or as technical references helps us decide what themes to compile into future Concentrates.

Ironically, none of the customers (potential or otherwise) who have asked for a PDF edition of Juiced.GS have responded to this product announcement, either with feedback or purchase; all our initial comments and sales have come from the same readers who have asked us to remain in print. Whether Concentrate serves current readers or expands to new markets is secondary to it being found useful.

If you have any questions or suggestions for the future of either edition of Juiced.GS, please let us know!