QL S.U.B.

QL Super User Bureau was an ambitious project to provide professional support for the QL family of computers in the late 1980s. They took subscriptions on the basis of producing 12 monthly magazines a year.

In reality they only got 4 issues out altogether. Thus they were unable to collect subs in their 2nd year and presumably their only income came from sales of 3rd party products which wasn't enough to keep them going. All the while they were committed to providing support to members which must have drained their resources when they were under pressure to produce a 40 page magazine every month. In the end despite taking colourful full page adverts in QL world and gaining around 700 members they simply ran out of cash.

To imply that one can provide answers to every query that occurs across all possible software and hardware configurations was already a tough ask. That in itself would have justified a £15 sub. But the promise of a large mag every month was the killer. If they had said that the sub included a 'regular' publication then they could have got away with say a quarterly mag of 24 pages, not too onerous. They were nice people but perhaps somewhat naïve. Boss Richard Turner knew his QL stuff and was a good writer but he couldn't hope to cope with such an ambitious project and work load.

Even if they had got their business plan right it's doubtful it could have lasted more than a few years. The QL market simply wasn't big enough.