Audience

The Korean syllabary from The Chinese repository, vol. 2, 1834 [FCDO Journals]The primary audience of the journal was merchants and not missionaries. In 1836 most of its 200 subscribers in China were merchants. There were only seven Protestant missionaries in China at this time and just over 300 British and American men so, proportionally, the journal reached two-thirds of the British and American population.

Conversely, most of the subscribers in South and South East Asia were missionaries. One fifth of the journals produced were sent to the US as free subscriptions to public institutions, journals and individuals, being aimed at Christians in the United States (and Europe) who were funding missionary work.

According to figures published in volume five, volumes one and two of the periodical had an initial run of 400 copies but were reissued in a second edition. Volume three doubled production to 800 copies and cut costs by half, whilst volumes four and five raised the production to 1,000 copies. According to the figures, there were still 500 copies left of volume four at the time of writing so it was less successful than volume three despite the higher number of copies produced. From 1844 it was reported to have made a loss of several hundreds of dollars a year.

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