The first issue of EIU (Electornics Industry Update) is now available. Published by Black Dot Publishing, it compelments their Electronics Components World and Electronics Production World websites.
The magazine is published using Yudu, and is a mix of articles and news. Whilst I’m always happy to see new titles in our industry, I’d admit I’m not a fan of Black Dot’s “pay to play” model. With the website and magazine refusing to take content from many of the most important semiconductor and electronic components companies because these companies won’t pay for “editorial” coverage, the publications are incomplete, ignoring a huge swathe of our industry.
Despite my reservations, Black Dot appears to be doing just fine. So am I wrong? Is it OK to insist on payment for editorial coverage? And what do engineers think about publications that only give half the picture?
Hi Mike,
Interesting piece. More than a little inaccurate, but interesting. First off, Black Dot Publishing ceaased trading seven years ago when I stopped doing print publications – in which, incidentally, you guys used to pay charges to get PR’s published. The business name is ElectronicWorld Publishing and has been for 7 years.
The second point is that any PR i think is really interesting I publish on our site, regardless of whether the client is paying or not. Like most magazines we favour our advertisers – none of your clients advertise with us!
So, for agencies whose clients don’t advertise, we do give agencies the option of “buying a subscription” for their customers which ensures all their releases are run. Instead of charging about €100 per release as is normal in print publishing, we charge €50 per client per month to run all the relevant releases. Just because an agency doesn’t pay a subscription, doesn’t mean we don’t run their releases. An average of 4-6 releases each week are run that aren’t paid for.
Most agencies seem happy to accept this charge. Those that have clients advertising get the charge waived. If we didn’t charge this, we wouldn’t have the electronicscomponentsworld.com site.
Basically – you get paid for writing the PR’s. Your clients get the benefit of having their information published. I have to pay staff to post releases, manage mailing lists, attent exhibitions, pay for our email service, pay web hosting charges and web development. Yet you criticise when I charge for a professional service.