This and That about Beyond Magazine

We're getting a bit of traffic from our "How to make a magazine" series. This specifically centers around how to make our magazine, how we're trying to find ways to make ads-free niche media in a market driven world. But since folks are coming here looking specifically for magazine information, I thought I'd mention a couple of resources over the next few days.

We're tightening up our next installment "The Myth of Store Sales" and then we'll be launching Library Joy. We're really excited about that. Get your Library Joy pictures, sketches, and stories ready to share on this very blog.

A few weeks ago, I heard the publisher of Utne speak at a conference in Victoria, BC. He reminded us that as niche publishers our mission was to "tell stories and build community" around the purposes of our magazines. That fits nicely with Beyond's "little magazine about a lot of things" and our no-ads mandate.

And then he went on to remind us that mission-based ventures spend 90% of their time on getting that mission to work. And we can agree with that. We blog, we gather content, we talk to subscribers, we make spreadsheets and do the books. We ask you to join our online newsletter so that we can tell  you how things are going and share the fun.

And all of this is still about making Beyonds, the paper object filled with good things from people around the world. We're reminded of Annie Dillard's quote about a lifeboat against the "wreck of time" and we want to have a good lifeboat even if we are a small one on what seems like an endless sea.

So thanks for coming and hearing about Beyond and all the good people who help make it - from the volunteer working on the blog, to the donor who quietly gives her money that in turn goes to a Beyond artist, and to those who spend time putting stamps on the envelopes while sharing a coffee-infused drink and chatter with us.

We'll keep sharing our stories and gathering that little Beyond community. Thanks for coming to the Beyond blog and being a part of that.