J'ai fondé EUROHISTORY en août 1997, alors que j'étais analyste financier chez Goldman Sachs. C'était une tentative de me rappeler que, même si je travaillais dans une industrie extrêmement rentable, mon cœur était tourné vers l'étude de l'histoire en général, et de la royauté en particulier.
Ce fut une expérience très enrichissante et satisfaisante. EUROHISTORY est devenue ma vie ; elle m’a permis de me faire des amis dans le monde entier ; elle a bâti une communauté ; elle a créé des liens entre les gens de toute la planète…
Cette entreprise a commencé, comme l’a dit John Kelleher, « comme un one-man-show ».
Aujourd’hui, EUROHISTORY est loin d’être un « one man show ». C’est une communauté de personnes passionnées par l’étude de la royauté, en particulier des membres de la famille royale européenne. Nos contributeurs incluent la plupart des auteurs les plus renommés et les plus respectés d’aujourd’hui. Nous faisons notre travail parce que nous aimons étudier la royauté. Bien souvent, nous le faisons sans chercher à être rémunérés. Ilana Miller, Katrina Warne, Mary Houck, Seth B. Leonard, Justin Vovk, Lisa Davidson, Charles B. Stewart Jr., Katie Tice, Darren Shelton, David McIntosh, Ricardo Mateos Sainz de Medrano, Ian Shapiro, feu Bill Lalor et feu Theo Aronson… et tant d’autres ont contribué, au cours des 22 dernières années, par leur talent et leurs efforts à faire du magazine et de nos livres les publications sérieuses qu’ils sont !
Je suis profondément redevable à chacun d’entre vous, ainsi qu’à tous ceux qui se sont abonnés à notre magazine depuis sa création en août 1997. Je suis également profondément redevable à nos fidèles lecteurs et acheteurs de livres. Sans votre soutien continu, malgré mes nombreuses lacunes et mes fréquents dépassements de délais, nous ne serions pas là où nous en sommes aujourd’hui.
L’année dernière a été particulièrement difficile pour nous sur le plan personnel…
Our son Nicholas was in and out of mental health clinics after attempting suicide nine times. Each stay in a psychiatric institution lasted at the very least 2 weeks. At one point he was hospitalized for 5 months. For us, his parents and family, it was devastating. Weekends were spent visiting him where he was hospitalized, attending therapy sessions, dealing with his continued anger. Then, last summer Nicky ran away from a therapeutic facility where he had been living since January. For several days we had no idea of his whereabouts. It was a nightmare. Eventually he reached out to us through his birth mother, who had helped him leave the facility where he was hospitalized. We were deeply disturbed as she is a drug addict. Not a good living setup for him. We have not seen much of him since then. I hope and pray that he is safe, but there isn’t anything else that Dave and I can do…
Our son Zac was also institutionalized from August 2017 to December 2018. He got in trouble for various reasons and the court mandated that he undergo a period away from us, a time when he needed to focus on getting better. He lived in a facility near Palm Springs, where we visited him at least once a month. Finally, last December we were able to fly down there and bring him home. He is now attending college and doing great!
During his absence, his fiancée and their son moved in with us. Dave and I found ourselves “hand-on” grandparents, as we were absolutely delighted to be in a position to help her as much as she wished with our grandson Ezra, who is simply the sunshine of our lives.
On top of it all, as if life wasn’t complicated enough, last year MAJESTY stopped selling books. This was a huge loss of business for us, as was the closing of Hoogstraten English Bookstore (we are delighted that they at least continued selling our books through their excellent website). Visit their website at http:www.hoogstraten.nl
Our magazine has never made a notable profit. The business model wasn’t;t designed for that to be the case. We don’t sell advertisement because I want full independence. Hence, our entire budget comes from subscriptions and sales of past issues. For years this was enough. Our readership has remained constant and loyal.
In order to raise the magazine’s aesthetic level, I decided to give the printing contract to the same company that prints our books. They are highly respected and their work is fantastic. I hoped that by having book-binding on the magazine, we would increase readership. At the beginning of the change we witnessed a spike in subscribers. And then it leveled off. We gained readers, but not enough the huge increase in printing and shipping costs. The end result was that the new printing format for EUROHISTORY left me with an approximate yearly loss of over $8000.00 – the first years I could reset to my own funds to make up the loss. However, with personal expenses increasing (medical, college, baby), and the loss of MAJESTY as a selling venue. On top of it all, posts rates have continued to increase. The financial storm turned into a deadly hurricane!
The end result was that EUROHISTORY stopped publication…
I had an option…stop the magazine altogether. Several contributors suggested that I stop. Others suggested that I skip a year. Still, the larger number recommended that I persevere. I’m not a quitter; never have been, never will be. Stubborn as a mule I suppose!
Hence, after a lot of thought and discussions with my husband Dave, we decided that EUROHISTORY would continue. We would print all the issues for 2018. We would return to our local printer in Berkeley and produce the magazine in the old format, which always left us a small profit.
The first issue is in our hands now, ISSUE CXVII – Volume 21.1, Spring 2018. We are getting envelopes readied and will begin dispatching the magazine to subscribers this weekend. I am delighted with the finished product!
Meanwhile, we have sent to the printer ISSUE CXVII – Volume 21.2, Summer 2018. The printer will have it ready this next week. I am now working on ISSUE CXIX – Volume 21.3, Fall 2018, which we are sending to the printer this coming week. Issues CXVIII and CXIX will mail together the first week of April, soon followed by ISSUE CXX – Volume 21.4, Winter 2018. Inside this last issue, which will mail before mid-April, subscribers will receive their renewal notices!
I sincerely hope that most of our subscribers will renew. We are currently read in over 40 countries. We want to retain you, but we also need new ones…encourage your royalty-loving friends to join us, stay along with us…we may have a bumpy road some times, but oh has it been a wonderful journey to study and learn about royals!
As always, deepest thanks!
Arturo Beéche, Publisher
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire