Editor's Report

By Larry Hodges

I just returned from the Barnes & Noble in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and there it was – the 2005 July/August USA Table Tennis Magazine on the newsstand, the first time ever! It was in the middle of all the tennis magazines. Unfortunately, all you could really see was "USA Ta" since the rest was obscured by the neighboring magazine.

A total of 432 copies were distributed on 152 newsstands – see below. If sales are adequate, we hope to expand this.

• 52 Borders

• 43 Hastings Books & Records

• 39 Barnes & Nobles

• 13 Shinders

• 2 B. Daltons

• 2 Newsbreaks

• 1 Readers World

It’s been a while since I've done an editor’s report, so here’s a rundown of the past year.

Covers – to help improve the “look” of the magazine – especially for the newsstand – we brought in designer Tom Nguyen to do the covers, starting with the Nov/Dec 2004 issue. He’s done an excellent job.

Amazon.com – we’re on sale there!

Plastic bags – due to problems with torn covers, we started mailing the issue out in plastic bags a year ago.

Ad revenue continues to expand. Ad revenue per issue is now about $13,000/issue, about the same as the annual revenue (six issues per year, then and now) when I was first hired in Dec., 1991. Interested in advertising? See www.usatt.org/magazine/ad_rates.html.

New features this year include the regular crossword puzzle an expanded coaching section. We’ve been running table tennis cartoons by Marek Zochowski for several years; last year we began running ones from www.cartoonjazz.com as well. Visit their web site if you are interested in table tennis club t-shirts, screensavers or wall art – part of the proceeds go to USATT.

And a special thank you to super photographers Gerry Chua, Sungill Kim, Diego Schaaf, and all the others who I apologize for not listing!