“Print is dead.” So declared Harold Ramis’ character in Ghostbusters thirty years ago. It’s safe to say that he exaggerated.
The Freeman, which FEE has published since we acquired it in 1954, is now primarily an online publication (https://fee.org/the_freeman). Articles from The Freeman are currently viewed by about 160,000 users per month.
At the same time, our costs for printed matter have been dropping, while the physical magazine remains very popular with thousands of people, many of whom order extra copies to pass along to friends and family.
That dynamic, of the physical Freeman passing from hand to hand, has been extremely powerful over the decades in spreading awareness of FEE and the freedom philosophy to an expanding circle of acquaintance.
If you are an advocate for liberty today, it’s a good bet that it all started for you when somebody you knew—either a peer or an older mentor—gave you a magazine or a book, or invited you to a meeting or a talk. Once the fire was lit, you sought out as much educational material as you could find, but the initial spark came from an “influencer,” someone you perceived as both friendly and credible.
At FEE, we have found significant unmet demand among our network of students, professors, supporters and people in the movement to receive copies of The Freeman in bulk. They are eager to try to play this influencer role, by giving The Freeman to people they know: their extra-curricular groups, students, friends and colleagues. However, this bulk demand is generally for a few issues per year, not the ten that we currently publish.
To seize this opportunity, in 2015 we will be re-positioning the physical magazine as a quarterly. This will enable us to make it a showcase of the most successful articles from the daily online publication and for an occasional special issue focused on a particular area of interest. It will remain a high-quality production, designed to compete for the attention of the data-deluged millennial generation, with full color inside and eye-catching graphics.
We estimate initial demand at 15,000 copies per quarter, with good potential for growth from there. At that initial volume, we will be saving money versus our costs of monthly publication in 2014, while more than tripling our circulation.
However, this is not an exercise in cost-saving, but in cost-effectiveness. We believe that the physical Freeman remains an ideal way for advocates of liberty to share their ideas with newcomers, a way to supplement sharing on social media that leaves a more lasting impression. By matching our print frequency with the seasonal patterns of our network, we can vastly expand our reach—that expanding circle of acquaintance—at no increase in expense.
Last year, FEE’s President Lawrence W. Reed wrote an article encouraging Freeman readers to become active in this process: https://fee.org/the_freeman/detail/wanted-missionaries-not-monks.
As Larry’s note explains in such compelling fashion, we hope that you enjoy reading The Freeman, but please be mindful that it’s not intended just for personal consumption by those who love liberty. Whether it’s the ideas you’ve learned from your reading or it’s the physical copy itself, please pass them on. And if you are willing to find ways to pass along five or more copies per quarter, beginning with the Spring 2015 issue, please contact us at [email protected].
