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U p F r o n t
By Karl Keating
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This Rock
Volume 6, Number 12
 December 1995 
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WITH this issue we conclude six years of publication. In some ways it has seemed like only six months, but as deadlines approach (and pass by and recede in the distance) it more often has seemed like six decades.
As some of our readers know, This Rock did not have its origin as a magazine but as a newsletter, and the newsletter in turn had its origin as columns in a newspaper. Let me give a little history for those of you who were not "present at the creation."
About ten years ago I found myself writing long essays for a nationally-circulated Catholic tabloid. The topic was Fundamentalism and its charges against the Church. What I had expected to cover in three installments ended up taking thirty.
By the time I was done, not only did I have a draft of Catholicism and Fundamentalism, but I had a market. I came to realize that people were interested in the issues addressed in the series, and it seemed natural to follow the series with a monthly newsletter.
I already had an organization, at least on paper, so the organization's name became the name of the newsletter. Catholic Answers began publication in August 1986 as a four-pager; later it went to eight pages, and there it stayed until the newsletter ceased publication at the end of 1989. Its place was taken by This Rock.
The magazine began with 32 pages and with paper inferior to the stock we now use. In October 1993 we switched to the paper you see here, and the following January we jumped to 48 pages.
Also jumping, each year since we began This Rock, has been the price of paper, the largest single expense for most magazines. (Our paper costs would have jumped even if we had stayed with the original stock. The paper we use now is only marginally more expensive than the old paper, but it holds ink much better, and our readers seem to prefer it. There no longer is "cheap" paper above the grade of newsprint--prices for all types of magazine paper have zoomed.)
In 1995 paper prices increased by about half, and in prior years there had been smaller but still annoying increases. Also rising has been postage. Although we use the least expensive mailing rate (non-profit third class), the relative advantage over higher rates has declined as the Postal Service has restructured its fees. Third class mail rates have climbed much faster than, say, first class rates.
All this has put the squeeze on us. In fact, This Rock has been losing money for a long time. Paper and postage are going up again. We can't forever borrow from one part of our apostolate to subsidize another, and we can't implement necessary improvements in the magazine until the ink on its financial statements is consistently black.
That's explains what sharp eyes already will have noticed: Our subscription rate increased with the last issue. After holding steady at $24.00 for six years, it has gone to $29.95. As a quick mental calculation might suggest, this modest change doesn't cover all the cost increases (when we went from 32 to 48 pages, our cost for paper jumped fifty percent overnight). If we were to cover all the costs, we would have to charge $34.95, but the intermediate rate gives us breathing room. It gives us a chance to expand circulation. That would mean a lower production cost per copy, not to mention a greater outreach for the apostolate. With more readers we might be able to keep the rate at $29.95.
But to boost the number of readers and to stave off a further increase in the subscription rate, we need your help. We need additional subscribers immediately. If we double our numbers, we can keep the subscription price where it is for quite a while. Yet we need to double our numbers without paying a fortune to do so. That's where you come in.
Please consider, as a Lenten sacrifice, giving two gift subscriptions to This Rock. We ask that you select as beneficiaries of your largesse Catholics you suspect will welcome the magazine and who probably will keep up their subscriptions on their own after the first year. (You can make a "statement" by giving a gift subscription to the most annoying anti-Catholic you know, but he's not likely to re-up at renewal time.)
Not every current subscriber is in a position to enter two gift subscriptions--or even one--and that's why we're asking you to purchase two of them--if half of our readers do that, we'll double in circulation. (If they all do it, we'll triple in circulation!)
Please don't say to yourself, "Let Rob do it." Rob already has--why not take a cue from him? Rob Powell, a long-time subscriber, has been giving free subscriptions to people who contact him over the Internet. He's given dozens of them so far, a few every week, and we're immensely grateful for his kindness. We're not asking you to match him, but we are asking that you give two gift subscriptions by using the postcard bound in this issue.
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