island ridge hounds wrote:bev. i really didn't know this was a sales pitch and if i might add a very good one.
Let me see if I understand this correctly. Are you saying that my comments are actually a sales pitch? If so, for what?
i kinda like the name of the magazine the rabbit hunter. didn't you guys have the chance to take this over at one time back a few years ago.
Who is "you guys" and "what thing" did they have the chance to take over?
i don't know all the particulars but i do remember having the american beagler before cause it had the arha hunt results and scheduled hunts in it. i could be wrong its been a while.
This I can partially answer in somewhat of a chronological order. What happened is fact. Why it happened is purely my speculation.
1. Everett Morgan owned the ARHA and the Rabbit Hunter Magazine which printed the ARHA activities. The registry money pretty much supported the magazine.
2. Everett wanted to retire. He sold the ARHA and The Rabbit Hunter to Gerald Bailey.
3. Gerald Bailey owned and operated both for approximately 2 years after which time he sold the ARHA to Del Morgan, owner of the National Kennel Club (NKC). He kept ownership of The Rabbit Hunter Magazine. This would have been maybe early 2001.
For the first time, the registry and the magazine were owned by separately.
4. Del Morgan and Gerald Bailey couldn't come to terms on a reasonable fee to print all of the ARHA activities. Gerald shot him a price, Del said "no can do." My speculation is that unless you can do layout yourself, you will have to pay through the nose for a graphic designer, which will drive the cost of the magazine up greatly. When one no longer has registry income to support the magazine...that's what happens.
ARHA and The Rabbit Hunter were at an impasse. Months were going by with no results being printed in any magazine. In April or so of 2001, I started this message board to keep communications open to the beaglers. After a while I offered (for a dollar per month) to print a little monthly newsletter of ARHA hunt results - just a xerox paper copied type thing -- folded and stapled, to put a stamp on it and mail to those who wanted to keep abreast of the ARHA news until they found a magazine or came to an agreement with TRH. The twelve-dollar checks started flooding in.
Word got out that I was going to do this and Del Morgan called me in July of 2001. He asked if I could print ALL of the ARHA stuff. I'm a graphics person so I told him "Yes. I mean I know how." He asked how much, I shot him a price, and a deal was struck. He wanted The American Beagler to be exclusive to ARHA and I refused. I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket because if I ever lost ARHA's printing for any reason I would be left holding the bag. If I was going to do this, I would cover ALL of beagling.
So, my little mimeographed newsletter never came to be. In September of 2001 I launched the first issue of The American Beagler, 80 pages with 4-color glossy covers. I had 243 subscribers. Two months later I had more subscribers than Better Beagling. In March 2002, I was made an offer by Del Morgan and Terry Walker to buy The American Beagler. I'd already quit my regular job and was 5 months invested into the magazine so I declined. The Rabbit Hunter wasn't doing so well so they bought it instead, in approximately May of 2002, then took the ARHA printing away from The American Beagler less than a year after I started it.
Good thing I had other eggs.
Not doing 40+ pages of ARHA layout freed me up to use more color in the magazine and give more attention to the sport internationally, and across formats. I still had AKC, CKC, UKC, and some PKC reporting, and some very good field writers. Two years later I had more subscribers than Better Beagling and SPO Magazine combined. It was a good rag because there was something in there for everyone. In 2003 I bought SPO Magazine from Charlie Fronheiser because he wanted to retire. I merged them into The American Beagler and retained the eSPOmagazine.com website and message board. Those folks have enough activity going on to merit their own site.
The American Beagler never saw a day in the red. The beaglers and the advertisers were great. It was a good "second income." (Anybody who thinks a person can get rich printing a little magazine is in for a big surprise, lol). Unfortunately I found myself in a divorce situation and could not live on a "second income," I now needed a primary income, so I tearfully sold The American Beagler, signed a 3-year non-compete clause (which expired last year) and went back to work in the corporate world.
5. The Ridenhours now own The American Beagler. I retained ownership of this board, the North American Beagle (stud book), and eSPOmagazine.com.
6. Terry Walker of C & H Publishing still owns The Rabbit Hunter and it still has exclusive rights to print ARHA activities.
7. Bob and Pearl Baker of Better Beagling retired and sold their magazine to Ralph and Sarah Harrington of New York. I think this is the Harrington's second year of publishing it.
8. Hounds & Hunting still has the largest subscriber base of beagle magazines and they are still owned by the Slikes -- same people who have had it since the 40's.
I don't see myself in a position to ever publish anything on a monthly basis again, so
island ridge hounds, I don't exactly know why you addressed me with a mention of a sales pitch. *shrugs* It was an easy point. I was just aghast that nobody did a write-up of the LARGEST BEAGLING EVENT IN THE WORLD...that's all.
