It was launched as free magazine at Saltex in 2011 yet Pro Landscaper has already switched to a paid model charging £4.00 per issue.
When you consider that everything there is to read is also available somewhere else - Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Landscape Juice, Hort Week, blogs - for free, one wonders who will want to subscribe? At £4.00, let's face it, it's not cheap.
Looking closely at the Pro Landscaper business model, I have to say I am confused. Launched as a free magazine its aim was to address the needs, they said, of the landscape industry.
With a printed magazine going to print every month (although November and December were doubled up for some reason) what are the costs?
With five employees there's a conservative £8,000 a month just in salaries.
That equates to a cost, assuming their distribution is 5,380 as they say it is, of £1.48 an issue. Add on postage and distribution, set-up and printing and marketing costs and you are looking at a considerable financial monthly overhead.
Now, Pro Landscaper have launched a network, this conflict of interest will become an issue for them - it will be tougher to make the revenues needed to become profitable on the print side when the network is giving away tools, information and publicity for free? Readers don't need to pay and advertiser can upload publicity for free too.
It just doesn't make sense!
If they feel they can make in excess of £8,000 a month from the network then good luck to them.
There's no doubt the magazine is produced well and with its thick glossy pages will appeal to those who still prefer to feel paper between their fingers but I'm yet to be convinced that in today's digital rich media landscape, that print can cut the kind of numbers they'd hoped.
I wish them luck.
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