WRP - Membership Services

Hobby Shop Sales and Promotion for your Publication

White River Productions provides a variety of services for railroad historical societies including publishing, retail sales, membership services and mailing. This page presents our standard procedures for distributing magazines to hobby shops and our other promotional activities that benefit our historical society clients.

Hobby Shop Sales
    One of the primary avenues to reach potential society members is at their local hobby shop. Though there has in recent years been a decline in the number of hobby shops, there is still a significant number of people that can be reached with your publication on the hobby shop magazine rack. There are several keys to membership growth, and hobby shop sales is a significant one. We don't have hard data on the number of memberships gained via the hobby shop distribution network in place at WRP, but we know the combination of a high-quality publication, hobby shop sales, and other promotional activities results in significant growth.
    WRP has developed a unique approach to hobby shop sales. Every month WRP sends Railroads Illustrated to hundreds of shops. Most historical society publications are quarterly, and very few shops will agree to carry a significant number of magazines because they fear getting stuck with inventory. Most shop owners will readily agree to carry a very small quantity, like one or two copies, but it isn't economically feasible to mail one or two copies to hundreds of small shops - the time involved and postage costs make it cost-prohibitive. WRP has developed proprietary software that allows us to combine a number of magazines for delivery on the monthly Railroads Illustrated schedule, thus by bundling your publication with Railroads Illustrated, we can sell low quantities to hundreds of shops, netting important exposure at the local level, without incurring postal charges impossible to overcome.
    The simplest method is for WRP to simply print extra magazines above your required press run, and market, pack and ship, and collect revenues from the hobby shops. The extra magazines are printed at WRP's expense. More complicated (from an accounting viewpoint) but still feasible, is for the historical society to pay for the entire press run, and WRP returns a percentage of each sale to the historical. From a financial viewpoint there is almost no difference, and on smaller quantities it's in the society' best interest to have WRP pay for the extra copies printed. The point where it becomes financially better for the historical society is heavily dependent on the price of the magazine, its shipping weight, and several other factors. For most societies with prices for a single copy in the $9 to $10 range, the point where the two methods meet is just under 1,000 copies sold to hobby shops.
    Probably the most significant factor in reaching the most potential members through hobby shops is being able to sell small quantities to shops that are well beyond the geographic region the railroad of interest served. We've consistently found we can sell small quantities to shop owners all over the country, regardless of how close a given road is to them. We sell copies of the Ore Extra (covering the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range) in Florida and California - both hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the Missabe.

Promotion

    White River Productions is involved in a number of promotional activities that are included in our magazine production at no additional cost to our magazine clients. The most visible is the monthly ads we run in the popular railroad press, including advertising in Railroads Illustrated, Railfan & Railroad, Scale Rails (NMRA's magazine), Railroad Model Craftsman, and Passenger Train Journal. This advertising campaign is aimed at specifically promoting historical societies, increasing awareness of their existence, while also providing information on how to contact each specific society.
    In Railroads Illustrated and Passenger Train Journal, we run Reader Service Cards in every issue. These cards are punch-out cards that a reader can fill out and send in with payment to join your organization. The historical societies are rotated through the available card slots (there are three or four card slots available per issue) with no preference - the small societies get a card as often as larger societies. The Reader Service Cards have proven to be an effective method to find new members.
    White River Productions also attends trade shows at regular intervals. Shows like Winterrail, Trainfest, the National Train Show, and others are another avenue where new members can be found. The WRP booth carries sample magazines for potential members to view, as well as membership brochures.
    For questions regarding hobby shop sales and promotional activities for your society, contact Kevin EuDaly by phone at 877-787-2467 or by email at or keudaly@whiteriverproductions.com.