Welcome back explorers!
Wow! It’s been a year since we started this adventure and it is still going strong. I can honestly say I’m pretty amazed at the reception the Frontier Explorer has received. As we hit our one year anniversary, I want to take a moment and look back over the last year.
Issue 5 is coming out just 11 months after the release of issue 1. We compressed our release schedule slightly in the first year to get onto the schedule we wanted, namely an issue every January, April, July, and October. Continue to look for new issues around the middle of those months in the future.
Interest in the magazine seems to be growing. Each issue sees an increase in the number of people downloading the magazine, a strong testament to the growing size of our readership. I just want to say thank you for reading and thank you for spreading the word. We had a big surge on issue 1 due to a shout out from our friends over at the Star Frontiersman Magazine that we haven’t quite recreated yet but we are close, and getting closer with each issue. This issue may well be the tipping point.
If I had to guess, looking at the numbers, I’d say we now have about 600 “regular” readers that have downloaded every issue and several hundred more that have downloaded more than one and may come back for more in the future. That may not seem like a lot but I’ll be the first to admit that it is many more than I honestly expected to have at this point when we started this project a year ago. The total downloads to date for issue 4 is sitting at about 850 copies as of the end of June. The totals for the earlier issues are even larger (over 2500 for issue 1!) but they’ve been out longer.
Over the past year we’ve had great contributions from several of the community members: art, stories, creature write-ups, optional rules, and locations that have helped to expand and fill the pages of the magazine. The submissions we’ve received have been great and we’d love to see more. These community submissions are truly the core of the magazine. If you’ve got something you’d like to share, feel free to submit it on the magazine’s website and we’ll get it published.
This issue is a smorgasbord of random articles we had laying around in the submission queue, including a short fiction piece that is completely outside the Star Frontiers setting. Many of the other articles, which pertain to gaming tips and tricks, are also applicable to any game setting or system you use. This trend away from Star Frontiers focused material is something that I hope to see continue as we get more community submissions.
So sit back, get comfortable, and explore another article packed issue. And when you’re done, come over to the Frontier Explorer website and tell us what you think in the forums and rate us and write a review on DriveThruRPG. But as always,
Keep exploring!
- Tom Stephens
Senior Editor
