66
NOVEMBER 2021
THE LAST WORD
I must admit not closely checking the stats, as once we have finally got to the publishing stage Stat’s all folks! for the month the Editor PC and 3 big screens are shut down for a week or so of peace until it’s time to casually start work on the following Cindy Bennett, Member #4170 edition – well all except December as there is no ies, damn lies and statistics, said Benjamin Journal in January! Disraeli but the stats on Issuu (the publication So back to my first point about the fascinating platform of the BMWMCQ Journal) tell an statistics, and I promise you won’t need to be interesting tale - and are not a lie at all! demographer Bernard Salt to appreciate them. Back first to a bit of history…from mid-2016 this As you will see with the map of the world Journal has been in digital format, and there below, our readers (purple shaded countries) was a fair outcry at the time about losing the are spread far and wide across the earth – with hard copy B&W magazine that came in the mail Australia not surprisingly topping the list at near after being sent away to print and then being 18,000 reads (to 19th October 2021). But having bagged and stuffed and taken to Australia Post over 1,000 readers from the USA (second top (with varying degrees of frustration…) country) is quite incredible I think. Another downside of the printed journal was And this doesn’t even include PDF copy reads..... that it was unknown how many members actually read the publication. Did they collect Top 10 Countries: it from their mail box, sit it in the pile of other 17,971 Unknown* 184 materials so that it got mixed up with recycling? Australia 1,096 Canada 176 Had they moved house and forgot to tell the USA 400 Germany 137 Records Officer? Were they using it as papier NZ mache medium, or worse? A mystery wrapped UK 255 Holland 115 in a plastic bag enigma. Italy 197 Spain 95
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However the 2 years we have been editors have been using the digital format, which makes our jobs way, way cruisier than editors in past times – for which we are eternally grateful to the digital publishing gods! We can now also keep track of the popularity (or otherwise) of each issue (Issuu?) by viewing the statistics.
*I am wondering what the ‘Unknown Country” could be, maybe dissidents in North Korea accessing the Journal furtively under their doona?
