Of Paper and Pixels
When I first started Mormon Artist, I was pretty sure the magazine would be primarily a print venture, since that’s what made it a “real” magazine, I thought — seeing it on someone’s coffee table somehow gave it a stamp of legitimacy. The web counterpart was just an afterthought, existing almost entirely to get people to buy a print copy. And I found what I thought was a good way to get there — print-on-demand through MagCloud. It all seemed like it was going to work out perfectly.
And, you know, it has — just not in the way I expected. A month or so after the first issue came out, I realized a few things: (a) nobody was buying the MagCloud edition; (b) to make a real print edition work, I had to have lots of money; (c) I didn’t have lots of money; and (d) everyone was reading it online anyway. So I decided (wisely) to back-burner the print edition and focus completely on the web.
You see, while I love the paper-and-ink nature of a magazine I can hold, there are definite advantages to publishing on the web. I can fix typos easily. It’s easier to reach people in other countries (and it doesn’t cost them anything). People can link to and quote from the content, generating more traffic and hopefully growing more readers in the process. Through comments, conversations that would never have existed in print (other than through letters to the editor) can blossom. And it hardly costs anything in comparison to print.
While I’m sold on keeping Mormon Artist a native web citizen, print still beckons to me. Maybe someday (with “when the economy is better” attached in small print 
) it’ll become a reality. In the meantime, I’m entertaining the idea of printing a best-of book each year through a print-on-demand book publisher like Lulu or Blurb. That way I can have my cake and eat some of it, too. 
Subscribe to RSS
December 19th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I think the best-of book is a great idea! I just worry that my favorite content wouldn’t make the cut….
December 21st, 2008 at 9:15 am
Ben, I hear you, brother.
We’ve had many a discussion about how to navigate the print/web thang. We sell hard copy issues, but so far we’ve made zero profit on them, because it’s so expensive to produce and mail relatively small quantities (in the hundreds). I checked out Mag Cloud when I heard you were using it–I loved the prospect of having some other entity manage subscriptions, but our cost-per-issue would’ve gone up significantly.
We’ve considered limiting web access in an attempt to increase print subscriptions, but I’m not willing to do so. Our purpose is to be read by as many people as possible, and free content is the way to go. On the other hand, we’ve considered doing away with our print editions, but we believe the availability of hard copy brings a legitimacy that web copy cannot, for contributors as well as readers. Plus, curling up in bed with a laptop isn’t the same as curling up in bed with a magazine. And online reading in the bathtub is out of the question.
But as much as I’m attached to our print editions, it’s a tough balancing act to keep them coming, and if we had even one more variable counting against them, we’d probably have to discontinue.
I love your idea of a year-end best-of anthology. Really love it.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 am
One thing about producing a print magazine is that I tend to put a lot more work into making sure everything in the magazine is really worth printing, and making sure everything is pretty.
In essence, putting the magazine out means “The stuff in here was worth the expense we put into producing this magazine, including all the editorial time, the revisions, the art, the paper, the processing, the delivery, the overhead, and everything else.”
I think that’s the reason people prefer to be in print. It means someone else thought the writing was worth spending time and money on.
December 27th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Ben, DON’T USE LULU!!
And Blurb is also questionable because it is so expensive.
There are better, cheaper alternatives for print-on-demand, especially if you have technical layout skill, like you have to have to use MagCloud. Lulu only makes financial sense when you don’t expect to even sell 10 copies, and it pushes your cover price out of the reasonable range. Send me a note if you would like to know alternatives.
But I do have to echo my agreement with the idea that print lends legitimacy. I’m not even sure that this legitimacy will dissipate over time as we become more dependent on the web. The problem is that we need filters, ways of distinguishing between serious, edited content and the more off-the-cuff model that blogs represent.
Which, of course, makes me now wonder: If Mormon Artist is now web-only, does that mean that Ben gets kicked out of the Red Brick Store?
And if not, then do we at Motley Vision just need to produce an annual “best-of” issue to qualify? I think I could get one done in less than a week!
January 5th, 2009 at 9:09 am
It is hard when economics influence our artistic intentions.
I love the computer for it’s ability to draft and archive. It invites change and revision in a painless way.
Still, sign me up to be Wendell Berry’s lead pencil club secretary because I can’t do with out my physical materials. It is likely because I am an artist (all texture and image crazy like that… I just can’t get the light to bounce of my LCD montior the same way). I MUST have sketchbooks for art and writing! new moleskines need for my purse and bedside. My husband wishes he could digitize my life and discard the piles of magazines for that generate artistic inspiration- my alas i can’t work that way.
I love print for it’s finality- a project done, complete, frozen from future edits.
Keep up the good work!