SOBRAN'S -- THE REAL NEWS OF THE MONTH
Fall 2007
(pages 1, 3)
Adieu
Dear Loyal Reader,
The idea for my newsletter came when I was still at
NATIONAL REVIEW (NR) magazine. Beginning with my time at
NR, then with my national exposure with CBS Radio
"Spectrum" and later as a syndicated columnist, readers
would write to me asking for more. I left NATIONAL REVIEW
in 1993. A few months later, my friend Howard Phillips
decided to give me the 1994 annual Andrew Jackson
Champion of Liberty Award from The Conservative Caucus.
It was there that I reconnected with conservative
activist and entrepreneur Fran Griffin, whom Howard had
asked to organize the event.
Then and now, Fran seems always to be organizing
something. She had set up a very successful news
conference for me and Phil Nicolaides to launch the
Coalition to Avert a Mideast Holocaust, a small but
worthwhile effort to oppose the Gulf War in 1990. Because
of her conservative beliefs and her instinctive Roman
Catholic views on just about everything, I asked her if
she would be a business partner with me in starting my
own newsletter. She agreed, but I am sure she had little
idea of what she was letting herself in for.
Howard Walsh of Keep the Faith, an organization that
provides recordings and videos of Catholic luminaries,
offered his studio to me to record an audio tape to use
as a premium for new subscribers. I quickly penned the
45-minute essay "How Tyranny Came to America" and
recorded it. Howard Walsh helped us with a mailing to the
300 people who had attended The Conservative Caucus
dinner plus some other names. He also came up with the
idea of having "Charter Subscribers," benefactors who
would contribute $1,000 to support SOBRAN'S.
Finally we were ready and in September 1994 we
published our first issue. Professional editor Ronn Neff,
a libertarian Catholic, was enlisted as our proofreader.
Our first issue was September 1994. Our press run was
slightly under 500 copies. With word of mouth and a few
more mailings, we soon hit 1,000 and then 1,500
subscribers.
By the following year, we had enough Charter
Subscribers to hold our first annual benefactors' party.
Without that idea of Mr. Walsh's, the newsletter could
never have continued as long as it has.
As the years went on, I began to see how difficult
it is to sustain a newsletter and make it grow. With
climbing postage rates and printing costs as well as
administrative costs to keep track of the lists, process
the orders, and handle the phone calls, it was more
involved than I had ever imagined. However, there were
some benefits to me through the Vere Company, the
corporation that Fran Griffin and I formed as the legal
entity for SOBRAN'S. The various part-time staff members
have always gone out of their way to assist me. I am
thinking particularly of Susan Roberson, who has worked
for SOBRAN'S (and a couple of Fran's other enterprises)
since the beginning.
To Fran's credit, she was able to reduce costs down
to the bare bone, enlisting the St. Martin de Porres Lay
Dominican Community's print shop in New Hope, Kentucky,
to handle the list management, printing, and mailing of
the monthly newsletter. She organized diverse promotional
efforts to get new subscribers.
I never realized how much effort it takes to have an
ongoing newsletter. In my simplistic initial concept, I
envisioned that subscribers would pay about $50 each. If
I got enough of those, I could pay costs and have a nice
nest egg for myself. I did not foresee how difficult it
is to convince a lot of people to subscribe -- and then
renew -- not to mention marketing expenses and endless
administrative work for Fran and her part-time staff
members. To help us to grow, marketing had to be ongoing
and constant. But we always operated on a shoestring and
marketing is expensive.
THE WANDERER, for which I wrote a weekly column,
allowed me to put a little promo at the end of each one.
But my loyal partner, Fran, was hard-pressed to come up
with the money to do proper marketing.
Over the past five years or so, the newsletter
became a labor of love in that it was barely keeping
afloat. What I thought could provide me an income in my
golden years, was now becoming a worry -- especially to
Fran Griffin, who is the real reason that it kept going.
She engaged in a number of fundraising appeals and
somehow was able to make ends meet.
I felt that I had to pursue other writing projects
to pay my rent. I then learned that, along with our
Charter (benefactor) Subscribers, the print shop of the
Lay Dominicans in New Hope, Kentucky, was the real reason
that the newsletter could go on. They allowed us very
generous terms as long as we kept making some regular
payments.
Last year we did an extensive subscription campaign
that netted about 300 new subscribers. Earlier this year,
I asked you to help, and Fran and I both outlined the
monies needed to keep the printed version going. With
fewer than 1,000 subscribers now, I was pleased when Fran
told me that the campaign was going well and that about
$25,000 had come in. That is a large amount considering
the number of subscribers. However, it is still short of
the goal necessary to pay off the debts and have enough
to keep going without getting further in debt.
It has become increasingly evident that the
newsletter is too costly to continue -- especially when
it is so inexpensive to send my columns out by e-mail. I
know that some people don't use e-mail or prefer holding
the newsletter in their hands to reading it on a computer
screen. The answer to that -- although I admit it is not
the best remedy -- is get the articles by e-mail or on
the Web and print them out to read.
Also, at sobran.com, the articles are more
attractively formatted and easy to print.
I told Fran this past week that considering my
health and financial concerns, it has become increasingly
difficult for me to be as productive as in the past.
Fran had a remedy. She proposed that the Fitzgerald
Griffin Foundation (FGF) be the depository for all of my
writings. FGF could sponsor my columns and articles for
distribution by e-mail and the Web. FGF could organize
and publish a series of collections of my writings. She
points out that it is easier to raise money through a
non-profit foundation than it is through a for-profit
corporation.
Thus a few days ago, I assigned the copyrights for
all of my past and present articles to FGF (excluding my
ALIAS SHAKESPEARE book and my unpublished books KING
LINCOLN and I SHAKESPEARE). FGF will be giving me
writer's fees and royalties for articles and collections
they are planning. Several benefactors have already
pledged to make donations to FGF to enable me to have
ongoing writer's fees for my work, and to help FGF
assemble collections of my articles.
With this vehicle for an ongoing promotion and
distribution of my works, the time has come to close one
chapter and begin another. This will be the last edition
of SOBRAN'S but not the last of Joe Sobran's writing.
This is a very sad moment for me. I have received so
much encouragement, support, and cheer from my many loyal
readers over the years. I wish I could keep SOBRAN'S
going, but the finances and my health are compelling me
to put an end to this fine little journal and begin a new
phase of my life.
I need your prayers as I face declining health,
energy, and finances. And I hope you will support the
Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation with a tax-deductible gift
to help them to promote my writing.
Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart.
All my best,
Joe Sobran
P.S. All subscribers are entitled to immediately switch
to the FGF E-Package and have the balance of their print
subscription fulfilled by THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE,
LATIN MASS, CHRONICLES, or CULTURE WARS magazines. For
more information, call 800-513-5053 or write
FGF@vacoxmail.com.
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Read this article on-line at
"http://www.sobran.com/articles/leads/2007-fall-lead.shtml".
To subscribe to the FGF E-Package, see
http://www.shotsfired.us/foundation.html for details and
samples or call 800-513-5053 or write FGF@vacoxmail.com.
Copyright (c) 2007 by Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation,
All rights reserved.