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[Publisher] Reader's Digest

Fallen

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Radio Five Live (English news station) has announced that Reader's Digest has gone into administration (Dental surgeries will have to look elsewhere for reading gear for their tables!). Seriously, if it's true another avenue for authors bites the dust. Although I won't miss the endless promotion for their Digest lucky numbers, erm, thing that they do.

Does anyone know anything more concrete?
 

alleycat

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The US parent company is coming out of bankruptcy (or has, I'm not sure). I don't know what this means to the UK company, but that is generally a good sign.

I'm not sure what the long-term future is for RD, but it seems that most of their subscribers and supermarket readers are an older age group. It may be that the days of RD, at least in its present form, are numbered. I think many magazines are going to have to develop a new paradigm if they're to survive; I've seen one by a relatively new special interest magazine develop a new concept that seems to be working.
 

Fallen

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Alleycat, I've got to admit I'm not one of their readers and i wonder how many of Absolute write members have submitted (I don't even know if RD have their own authors or they accept sol'/unsol's material...). I think they do books (I've seen a few my mothering-in-law's bookshelf). The only time I do come across them is in the dentists and I don't buy anything that has associations to pain. Lol. Maybe that's where the hiccup is...?

Shakesbear, thank you for the link, hun.
 

Shakesbear

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You are welcome.

I have vague memories of awful compact editions of books - short versions of classics and three in one volume. blech!

Fallen I am so with you on not buying anything that has associations with pain.
 

Maryn

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They do only reprints of material published elsewhere, except for short humor, IIRC. Their books are heavily abridged bestsellers and have no resale value whatsoever. (Here, you literally cannot give them away. Libraries and thrift stores refuse them.)

I agree that their base readership has aged and is now crumbling away as subscribers die. If it were my magazine, I might keep the basic concept but change the tenor, incorporating materials which the older reader might still enjoy but which are aimed at their children or even grandchildren. It could still be somewhat wholesome and folksy, but more hip at the same time.

Maryn, ready to run it (as if!)
 

alleycat

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(Here, you literally cannot give them away. Libraries and thrift stores refuse them.)
I can visualize an animated cartoon. A little old lady, or little old man, finishes the latest Reader's Digest condensed book (after eating a lunch of condensed soup with a glass of condensed milk). She decides to give the book away. She takes it to a school. The headmaster shows the old lady a poster with the heading, Great Literature, and pictures of some of the well-known classics, then shakes her head at the old lady. The woman takes it to the library. They laugh at her. Soon everyone in what was a quiet library is laughing their heads off. She takes it to the thrift shop. They toss it out into the trash before the old lady even leaves the parking lot. The lady picks it out of the trash. She tries over and over to give the book away, but every time she ends up stuck with the book. The final scene is the old lady in her tiny old house, happily taking pages from the book to put on the fire to keep her warm.

I have an overactive imagination, don't I? ;-)
 

Maryn

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I kind of liked that, actually. I want to add one scene, the old lady attempting to make gruel from them, tasting it, and rejecting it, before the burning.

One good use I've seen, on a home improvement show, was to take four big stacks of the condensed books and place them in a frame before drilling a 1.5-inch hole through the center of each, front to back. Repeat until you have about 12 vertical feet of drilled books. On the final four books, drill from the back and don't pierce the front cover.

The person doing the craft even mentioned Readers Digest Condensed Books and out of date encyclopedias.

Thread one book on each of four table legs 1 3/8" in diameter. Apply glue to its cover's surface. Thread another on at a slight angle, apply glue, etc.

Eventually you have four spiraling table legs which are quite secure, ending with a book whose cover is not drilled through. Top with heavy glass for a sturdy desk. It was really pretty cool-looking.

Maryn, who saw sawed-off hardcovers at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania--so warm and cozy until she saw the bindings were only 3 inches deep.
 

alleycat

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Oh, my, you've made me think of another cartoon. 101 Uses for a RD Condensed Book.
 

Shakesbear

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:ROFL: I so like the idea of the RD books that no one wants being used as table legs! The little old lady reminds me of my granny!
 

ChristineR

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Man, my grandparents had those condensed books also. Hard to believe people actually read them. I saw no evidence that my grandparents read them--they just sat on the shelves.

I once heard that RD actually paid people to publish a long story so that they could write the short story to go with it. I think this was probably not true.

In a related story, when my dad retired he had a library full of law books. He had all this stuff on CD, so he didn't really need the books and he didn't have space for them in his home office anyhow. He sold them all...to an interior decorator!
 

alleycat

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My local public library used to have a running book sale (generally books that people had donated to the Friends of the Library, but sometimes a few library books). There were always a stack of Nora Roberts hardbacks and similar books. They generally looked as good as one from a bookstore (maybe read once), but hardly anyone wanted them and they were only $2 ($1 on special sales days).

Sorry for derailing your thread, Fallen, but I'm sure you've come to expect that on AW. ;-)
 

Jason

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Life Rich Publishing (an Imprint of Readers Digest)

I did a search through the index and did not find anything so asking here - anyone heard of Life Rich? I’m a subscriber to Reader’s Digest printed edition and do read some of their articles online. So when I got an email about this Imprint figured it tied into my email address with them and my reading of both their articles and a lot of other literature online. It seems legit, but they do ask for more info like your phone number, name and email (again). Filled out with an email I use just for that purpose and a fake phone number to get this PDF:

https://www.liferichpublishing.com/...ublishing_Guide/LifeRich-Publishing-Guide.pdf

Legit? Be cautious? Worth exploring further? I’m not ready to publish any projects yet but would like to know if others have any experiences.
 

Jason

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Ah, well good thing I used a trash email/phone # to get the PDF - apologies for not thinking to dig into the source details for the rest of the website. Good call and thanks! :)
 

cool pop

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Might be best to start a new thread on the current stuff because it gets confusing when old posts are opened. I thought this was a new post and commented without noticing the date of the first post. I just saw the dates of the current posts. I deleted my comments because they weren't relevant since the original thread is so old.
 

AW Admin

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Might be best to start a new thread on the current stuff because it gets confusing when old posts are opened. I thought this was a new post and commented without noticing the date of the first post. I just saw the dates of the current posts. I deleted my comments because they weren't relevant since the original thread is so old.

That isn't the way Bewares has ever worked; part of the point is to be able to see the entire history of a publisher, editor, agent or service provider.

We merge new posts in Bewares with old threads; creating a new thread for an extant provider or publisher creates more work for CaoPaux, the mod.

It's always a good idea to check the age of thread you're posting in, in any forum.
 
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