ATTN: Gigi Oh

[GeneChing]

...I wish. Still a few loose ends to close before this issue is down. Then there are major loose ends before the next issue can begin. No rest for the wicked, eh? Send in those nekkid pics.

[norther practitioner]

Oh, I've been meaning to say though, whats up with articles scattered throughout the mag recently, it seems you'll have a 6 page article in like 3 spots, etc. I know a lot of mags will have the ending to articles in the back, but has seemed to jump more lately.

[GeneChing]

Articles get split up for several reasons. One might be that they are on the long side. Another might be that the issue is tight - meaning there is more content - so that the articles are squeezing each other, forcing them to split. There are also issues of lead pages, facing ad pages and our color to B&W ratio.

Irregardless, I think you'll find us to be more linear than most magazines, except maybe some of the smaller ones. Take for example our last issue. We had about a dozen features, and half a dozen short pieces. The other two leading magazines average less than ten features and a dozen columns. We have a lower page count, which allows us to be a dollar less on our newsstand price.

[norther practitioner]

If you say so...

[GeneChing]

In the 2003 Shaolin Special I'm looking at a significant split in the first story (United Nation, Divided Shaolin). There's a back of the mag pick up in the Liu Baoshan, Chen Tongshan and Liang Yiquan stories, all clustered together in the end. the rest are just ad splits, still linear, but ads are placed within the article. Now every magazine does that - that's how magazines work. If you think we should run less ads, we'd have to raise our cover price significantly.

[norther practitioner]

Just re-read it.. it was just seemed more choppy because you could jump from one article to another and not realize it for a little while...lol

[GeneChing]

...that's probably aggravated from the fact the my writing all sounds the same. Sorry about that. I'll try and not break it up so much next time. In fact, I just did the pagination for the next issue and made sure not to break up any articles (except for with ads, which is mandatory for our economic survival ) We also tend to break up the articles evenly between the graphic artists here for more contrast. But with such a strong theme issue, the Shaolin specials always seem to take on a life of their own. Anyway, I'm flattered that I was worth your second read. Thanks for your support!