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Obstacles

Yeah, we're no-ads. And non-profit. And mostly volunteer run. And full color. And working towards being 100% green. So it often feels a bit like this but if they can do it...

Beyond Magazine: Issue 16: Small

Beyond Issue 16: Small
"the little magazine about a lot of things"
cover art: Marc Johns

Original Frankensteins/the soul of Mary Marvel / sketchbook / the bean & its story / small art revolution / All About: Libraries / runner-up in the 1995 Port Coquitlam Battle of the Bands / "warm and humbled" / cake / honk if you are compelled to do so / Marginalia / analog kids and teenage riots / Great Things Have Happened

Little bits of text and our next cover to whet your appetite. We're busy wrangling commas - whoa there comma, when I says "whoa", I mean whoa! - so we'll have some more for you later.

What is a magazine?

I've been working on this question with a few other folks in light of what is happening digitally and, for Beyond-ers specifically, what has happened to the magazine as an art form. I found this interesting:

Here’s what Husni told me via email when I put the question to him:

The major problem with our industry is we always undercharged for our content. With few exceptions, we made reader feel that they did not have to pay the REAL price for our products. In the U.S. and since the 1950s we adapted the advertising driven model rather than the circulation driven model where people rather than advertisers pay for the magazine. Our audience has become accustomed to the fact that $20 will bring them 52 issues of Time or Newsweek, yet the same $20 will not pay to be connected to the Internet at home. The average American household pays $68 a month to connect to cable television (up from nothing) and you do not hear them complaining.

Simply stated, find a method in which you make your money from the readers and viewers and not from the advertisers. Roy Reiman did it with not one, but 12 different magazines starting from a basement in his house to an empire that was sold to Reader’s Digest for $760 million. Yes, read that again, $760 million. He NEVER sold an ad in any of his magazines. Charging for the content is our future….staying dependent on a third party to survive is going to be like that sugar coated poison pill that sooner or later will kill us.

Copyright 2006, Public Broadcasting Service

This past summer someone told me that we should spend some more time defining what Beyond  is - how we see it as a portable art gallery and a way of removing barriers to art access, how we love being involved in the paper arts and how we want to make Beyond(s) into art objects. It's a hard thing to define in the light of disposable publishing but we'd like to take it on. With a hat tip to Colbert, look for the opening parts of a 7,673 part series on redefining the magazine a la Beyond.

On Monday: The big reveal

Bookmark this page for Monday and we will show you a sneak peek of Issue 16: Small in all of its multi-paged glory.

Book with a face.

Since we were removed from the book with a face several weeks ago, we have been hesitant to return on their new business/non-profit pages. We'll probably put a  page up - something akin to postering around a digital town. But we've always felt a little "Meh." about a company that can do so much data mining with no real outline of where this thing is going and how individuals will be respected.

And we wonder - why someone can't have something on the net that isn't owned by giant corporations where people share their stuff? Is it really that hard? And why do we, as media-savvy as we think we are, so easily give up a version of ourselves to these places? We have a lot of questions. Connection is great. Being able to find like-minded folks in an increasingly fragmented world is really something amazing. But can't someone do it without selling us at the same time? I'd be willing to pay a number of loonies for a place where folks loudly proclaim, "We like you. We'll protect you. We don't want to sell you."

So we'll be there and probably at the Space with a My because we like folks to find us. And soon we'll have groups you can sign up for here to talk about art and alt-media and things near and dear to Beyond-ish hearts. But we do wonder and we'll be keeping an eye or three on things.

CBC News: Facebook users say tracking tool invades privacy

Changing channels: writers' strike.

We've been watching the writers' strike in the United States rather carefully. There is more involved here than a bunch of TV writers trying to get a little more cash for an L.A. lifestyle. As an independent piece of print media, we're very interested in things like media consolidation and the economic arguments of large corporations that run over the creative rights of individuals.

We are regularly visiting United Hollywood and a few other sites. We love writers. Many of us are writers or our friends our writers and many of them have been very kind in helping a small budget publication like Beyond get off the ground. They tend to be not only talented but generous folks and if you can pay them well they usually pass that on, contributing to a good society in many ways.

If you don't know where to begin, try this Stop Big Media post at United Hollywood. And figure out a way to get involved in alternative and independent media in your own country or community. It can be as simple as changing channels.

Utne Independent Press Awards and Beyond.

Beyond magazine has been nominated for Best Design at the Utne Independent Press Awards:

"We began by upending the orderly shelves of our library, corralling some 1,300 magazines, newsletters, journals, alt weeklies, and zines into wobbly stacks. Then we dug in to read articles that we might have missed during the year and to reread our favorites—everything from gritty newsprint publications to polished perfect-bound journals. After much deliberation, debate, and a bit of teeth-gnashing, we whittled it all down to 111 standouts."

These are the things we tell our mothers about. Oh and you of course. But our mothers will cut this out and put it on the fridge.

Buy Differently.

The month of November hosts Buy Nothing Day. I've received a few notices in my inbox reminding me to join up so that I can do nothing. It's an interesting concept and probably a necessary red flag to be waved in front of our bull of consumerism rampaging its way through the globe's china shop.

I'm a big fan of planting flags. But I've never been a big fan of the Buy Nothing Days and Christmases along with their associated campaigns. And you'd think that as the publisher of a no-ads arts magazine, this would be right up my billboard-free alley.

For one thing, it is a bad assumption that when you're on the internet today, you are buying nothing. I hear the same arguments for giving up paper magazines, as if the internet is available to everyone and doesn't have an environmental impact. Consider all the yucky parts and use of electricity as we all promote buying nothing on our plastic keyboards.

I can't quite put my finger on it - it's nothing after all, but there are a few things that make me less than enthusiastic. The places these campaigns originate from are often preachy and vitriolic. A good sermon motivates and inspires. These make me yawn like the hell-and-brimstone spitters of my youth. It is an either/or conversation and I'd like to hear something that pulls folks together. Maybe that's why I'm more fond of things like the Lights Out campaigns which has us seeing what our something - internet, television, appliances - is really doing.   

I also  know a whole lot of people that are very conscious of their purchasing decisions which is part of the pleasure of working with our contributors and volunteers. They don't blame everything on someone or some place else and they work to create beauty and meaning in their own little corners of the world. And some of those things - art, music, writing, etc. - need support They need someone thoughtful to trade a little something for their efforts.

And as the publisher of that no-ads arts magazine, I'd like someone to come up with a Buy Less, but Buy Different day. Take the time to purchase a little piece of art from a small gallery. When you buy something, leave the bag behind. Find out where your food comes frome. Subscribe to, let's say,  a no-ads volunteer run arts magazine . Those small differences that come with the way we trade with other human beings add up to a lot more than nothing.