June 25, 2007

Allied Media Conference -- Day 2 Blog

Posted by Elijah Barrett-Aviles at 3:24AM

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Today I was most excited to be at the Print Caucus discussion. Like I said in my last post, it was hard to see Punk Planet, which had been in print for 13 years, and Clamor, in print for half that time, close their doors in the last year. Many writers and editors from different independent and alternative publications showed up to discuss what's working and what's not in the indy print world: the former publisher of Clamor, Jen Angel, the anti-authoritarian mag Fifth Estate, the editors and staff of Bitch, and smaller newspapers like Michigan's Critical Moment, IMC-Bay Area's Fault Lines, and the New Haven Free Press.

Jen Angel briefly went over how problems distributing the magazine became of the biggest things that led to Clamor's closure: many publications like Clamor relied on one distribution group to distribute their magazines, and when it folded, the magazines were also brought down; Clamor also followed the distribution path of mainstream publications (churn out thousands of copies, expect half or more to be pulped). You can get a full reflection on Clamor's seven years from Jen herself.

She then pointed to Left Turn, another progressive magazine still in print, as an example of distribution model that works (for them): Jordan Flaherty said that Left Turn targets their distro to non-profits, organizers, infoshops, and radical bookstores instead of reaching for big chain bookstores. The non-profits, individuals, infoshops, he said, then send back what they can to Left Turn, and the magazine avoids wasting printed issues. But what about magazines with a broader reader base like Punk Planet, which also reaches into music, fiction, and comics, in addition to politics and activism. Punk Planet made it through 13 years showing up in chain bookstores and smaller bookstores.

There were other threads of the conversations that I pulled out that could be useful to people still pondering the print publication sink or swim issue: Is important to have a paid staff? Bitch has a small paid staff, but Fifth Estate doesn't. Is a nice glossy magazine worth the costs or can you get by on less? The New Haven Press is printed on one piece of double-sided legal sized paper, and will soon be publishing shorter versions of articles with notes that say "go to the Free Press's website for the rest of this story." This sort of 'eco-publishing' saves papers and keeps print media going.

How else do you raise money? Bitch Magazine has brought in some money for publishing by encouraging its readers to throw house parties to raise money for the magazine. Jen Angel said that print projects are often money pits that produce little revenue, but Clamor had other side projects like conferences and reader series that brought in money to support the magazine.

I'm leaning toward the idea of having a smaller scale and simple magazine for a city or community (look to Lumpen magazine in Chicago, or the New York Indypendent) that doesn't shoot for national bookstores, but does do subscriptions. And for these local magazines to re-print those articles on their websites for far away readers. Keep it local, keep it simple, and keep print media going.