Why did it stop?

The magazine was initially self-funded by Tim Hugall. Further issues were made possible by subscriptions and preorders. 

A multitude of factors played into it coming to an end. The first hurdle was the increase in postage costs imposed by the Royal Mail in April 2022. The majority of our subscribers were locked into a cheaper postage rate agreed prior to this rate increase. This meant that our core customer base was actually costing us money. Then around the launch of Issue 6 (July 2022) we started to see a steady decline in sales numbers for an unknown reason. Issue 1 sold approximately 1500 copies. Issue 6 has still to this day yet to sell its print run of 500 copies.

The situation was more bleak following the release of Issue 7, which only sold 350 copies. 

The final nail in the coffin was our preorder round for Issue 8, which drew in less than 100 orders. Ordinarily that initial email was the key to receiving the financial backing needed to pursue the next issue. Such low numbers signalled that it was time to stop. Many of our core customers (around 150 people) were subscribed to not only Issue 8, but Issue 9 and 10 as well. Producing Issue 8 with the magazine’s remaining funds would have put those customer’s money at risk and we didn’t want to end up in a situation where we could not give them their money back should Issue 8 sell poorly.

As a result of all this, Tim made the sole decision to end the magazine, after refunding all of the remaining customers and closing all the accounts associated with the magazine, there was pretty much nothing left of the initial investment. A loss of £7000.