The Magazine of Lightweight Hiking and Backcountry Travel

Print vs. Online: What's the difference?

BackpackingLight.com ("online") and Backpacking Light Magazine ("print") are two different products with minimal overlap in editorial content. The online magazine focuses on providing education and information about lightweight backpacking techniques and gear; the print magazine focuses on providing a more tactile and emotive experience about lightweight backpacking style, philosophy, and applications.

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PRINT

ONLINE
Delivery MailWeb
Frequency of New Content1 QuarterlyWeekly
Members-Only Email News2 --Yes
Member Discounts3 --Yes
Pre-Purchasing Priveleges4 --Yes
Members Only (M)
Online Content Access5		 --Yes
Print Magazine Supplements Online6 Yes --
Digital Version of Print Magazine
Available Online7		 Yes Yes
Price $24.998 Purchase Now! $24.99 Purchase Now!
Can't decide? Get both! PRINT + ONLINE $49.98 $39.98/Year SAVE 20% Purchase Now!

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Comparison Table Notes:

1 The print magazine is published quarterly and mailed around January 25, April 25, July 25, and October 25. New articles at BackpackingLight.com are published weekly, generally every Tuesday night.

2 The Members-only email newsletter is used to inform online subscribers about new products, pre-purchase opportunities, coupons and discounts, new product previews, store sales, and other Members-only priveleges.

3 Member discounts apply to all gear in the BackpackingLight.com Gear Shop, and range from 5% to 35%.

4 Prepurchasing priveleges are offered only to BackpackingLight.com premium members (online subscribers) on selected, high-demand new products.

5 Most articles and reviews at BackpackingLight.com are restricted to online subscribers. A small selection of free articles are made available from time to time for public review.

6 Print subscribers may access exclusive online supplements to print magazine articles.

7 A complete digital (online) version of the print magazine is made available to both print and online subscribers.

8 Print magazine subscriptions are available to online subscribers for $14.99.

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Print vs. Online: Philosophy and Style

“What are the real differences between the online and print magazines, and how will these differences affect me as a lightweight backpacking enthusiast?”

Overview of the Online Magazine

The online magazine BackpackingLight.com was founded on the premise that consumers could become highly educated with technical information that would allow them to (1) make better gear buying decisions, and (2) be safe and comfortable with ultralight backpacking techniques. We intend to continue those online roots and make education the driver behind its editorial strategy.

And so, the first objective of the online magazine is an ambitious one: to provide meaningful education for its subscribers about gear and technique.

The second objective exists to take advantage of the online medium. Unlike print, online publications can be multi-media, interactive, more timely, and without space limitations. Consequently, audio and video content, interactive features, news reporting, time-sensitive content that changes frequently, and data-intensive content will be delivered through the online subscription channel.

Summary of Content in the Online Magazine*

The online magazine focuses on providing education and information about lightweight backpacking techniques and gear.

* This is not a comprehensive list, but rather, the characteristic types of content that are “generally” found in the online magazine and not “generally” found in the print magazine.

In addition, there will be the case from time to time where submissions for the print magazine are of exceptional quality but there is no page space in the print magazine to publish them in a timely manner. In this situation, there may be articles that fit better into the print format (see below), but will be published online in lieu of not publishing them at all.

Overview of the Print Magazine

The print magazine Backpacking Light Magazine was founded on the premise that readers wanted a more readable, less technical, and more tactile experience that invoked the more emotive responses available in a hard copy format (color photographs, well-written stories and prose) than in an online format. In addition, because the potential distribution of information through a print magazine channel can reach a much wider audience of beginning and intermediate hikers than an online channel (due primarily to newsstand, bookstore, and specialty retailer distribution), the print magazine is well-suited for publishing information about the style, philosophy, and general techniques of ultralight backpacking. Finally, because the print magazine is designed to be an archival quality publication, its content will be comprised primarily of features that are less time sensitive (such as news and reviews).

Summary of Content in the Print Magazine*

The print magazine focuses on providing a more tactile and emotive experience about lightweight backpacking style, philosophy, and applications.

* This is not a comprehensive list, but rather, the characteristic types of content that are “generally” found in the print magazine and not “generally” found in the online magazine.

Common Content in Print and Online Magazines

Although individual gear reviews will generally be published only online, selected (e.g., four per year, or one per print issue) review summaries (in-depth performance comparisons of related gear) and gear guides (in-depth statistical comparisons of related gear) will be available in both online (full review summary) and print (annotated review summary) formats.

The advantage of a print version is off-line portability, better at-a-glance visual presentation, and consolidation of the salient features of the review category for those that do not subscribe to the online magazine. The advantage of the online version is more in-depth gear guides with interactive features for product comparison and selection, the availability of detailed individual product reviews, and the full text of the review summary.

So, while some content will be reproduced in both print and online formats, that amount is small, strategically selected and edited to optimize the strengths of both mediums for those that subscribe to both online and print magazines, and valuable enough as standalone products for subscribers to only one or the other.

Read more about Backpacking Light's philosophy about their online vs. print magazines in a recent commentary.

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