Herbivore Magazine - Editor's Blog

Wow, I didn’t realize anybody actually read this blog.

Here are some details, though I don’t have it all worked out yet so don’t hold me to this exactly. But here is what I’m thinking. We’re going to go back to printing quarterly editions of the mag and then archive them online for folks in other countries or something like that where it’s too expensive to subscribe. We might make the archive free, I’m not sure yet.

Then we’ll have an online component of the magazine, but I don’t know what that will be. Shorter stuff or maybe more news types of updates and blog stuff. Not sure.

The print issues will be like the little pink one and the travel issue which is shipping out on Monday.

We won’t be doing newsstands because that is a great way to lose a lot of money. We’ll do single issue and subscriptions though, and wholesale to all our favorite vegan stores.

We decided to switch back because, though many folks are reading the online content, many aren’t. And I can’t handle the idea that so much good writing and information isn’t being read. I obviously think this stuff is important and it not being read by as many folks as possible kills me. So we’ll do print versions and probably make the content of those print versions free online after the print versions come out.

We’re going to figure out how to make the print versions as ecologically responsible as we can. The paper is mostly recycled already and we already use soy inks but we’re going to have to do more to offset all the shipping and whatnot. If we have to raise the price of the single issues and the subs to cover this, that is just how it will have to be.

We’re going to do one more online edition, which will be a big holiday-ish type edition to cover November and December and then we’ll start with print issues again in the spring of 2008. We’ll inform folks when their subs are up.

So there you go! What do you think?

The magazine is going back to print. Details to come.

Since there were statements made on Vegan Yum Yum that I feel misrepresent what happened with the book deal, and author felt it was fine to approve them, I need to set the record straight about a few things. We have also gotten some terse emails from people who pre-ordered, which have now all been refunded. We are a two person company, refunding hundreds of people was a huge job and honestly a pain in the ass, made worse by people who think we did something wrong here. These people have no idea what they are talking about. Since Herbivore has said nothing publicly, this sentiment is coming from how the author has characterized the situation, and by the comments she has allowed to be posted on her site. I don’t know where else the rudeness could be coming from since nobody but she and us know what happened, and thus far, we have made no public statements about this.

I’m tired of this. Michelle and I work our asses off trying to do things the right way and we do as much as we can in this movement. We donate our time and money and the stuff we make to pretty much anybody who asks if they are working in the animal rights movement, even when we don’t have the time or money to do it. I am not a whiner, I am not looking for sympathy, but there is no way I will allow our work and dedication to be questioned and sullied by a business deal gone sour when we did everything we said we would. We gave someone a deal that does not exist in the world of “big time” publishing, both in the production values and financially. As self-aggrandizing as this sounds, and I want it to sound, I actually bothered to check with people I know in big time publishing and they confirmed that I am either painfully generous, or a complete moron for verbally agreeing to a book deal this beneficial to the author.

Here is what I promised and had either delivered on or was on schedule to deliver (we were six days away from going to press, and on schedule which means almost all of this was checked off the list):

• A full color book with full-page photos of every recipe taken by and art directed by the author. The dimensions of the book were set up specifically so author’s photos would not be cropped.

• Final approval from the author on layouts, cover photo, cover design, and interior layouts. (Initial proofs had been reviewed and we were making the changes author requested.)

• Input on how we marketed and sold the book.

• Input and final approval on the promotional materials for the book.

• A foreword written by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, as the author wanted.

• Author wanted blurbs to help market the book. I arranged a New York Times best-selling author as well as highly respected heads of national animal rights groups, the publisher of a nationally distributed, award winning feminist magazine, amongst others.

• We’d sell the book on our site and on Amazon (as well as to a bunch of yet to be determined independent bookstores and a bunch of vegan owned businesses we have business relationships with.)

• I agreed to pay author 5 bux per book after costs were covered. This was an estimate based on preliminary quotes from the printer, but having seen the final quote, this was very close. This is many times the rate other publishers pay out. It appeared we were maybe a month away from having the costs of the book covered and we could begin issuing royalty checks on a monthly schedule or more frequently if author preferred. Other publishers don’t pay anything for a year or more and then pay royalties twice a year.

We were on schedule to send this book to press with all of those agreements honored and in place. Author decided to pull this book and take it elsewhere at the last minute. We are out months of work and thousands of dollars. I have no way of recouping any of the money I spent, author can go sell her book elsewhere as we don’t make authors sign contracts.

That is all I have to say about this. I am not going to allow comments to be posted because I have no interest in either author or myself/Herbivore being attacked or defended and I am certainly not looking for a public outpouring of sympathy over this. It became clear to Michelle and I we needed to clarify a few things; I have done that, so this is all we will say publicly about this situation.

If you’d like to email me and tell me I’m an asshole or that you support us in this, it’s editor@herbivoremagazine.com

I’m going to be in Atlanta at Cosmos Vegan Shoppe! I’ll be reading from the new issue of Herbivore and hanging out. It’s going to be really fun and I’m excited to check out Cosmos. Come see me! And as I read, watch how shaky my hands are cuz public speaking terrifies me!

I’m going to be presenting a talk with Rory Friedman, co-author of the book Skinny Bitch, in Durham, North Carolina this Friday. Woo! My presentation has hippie jokes in it, you should come. The talk is on how far vegan fashion and food has come and will be funny and informative. I hope. The presentation will kick off the “Becoming The Change Conference.”

There will be a host of great speakers, one of which is Will Potter, who seems to be following me around the country. Weirdo.

Do come by if you’re in the dirty South and we shall, as they say, kick it.

Come to this event! Will Potter of Green Is The New Red fame and Peter Young of…..Peter Young fame…..will be speaking in Portland on Thursday, October 4th at the Clinton Street Theater at 7 pm.

From the press release:
Portland, OR—Are animal rights activists the “number one domestic terrorist threat”? According to the FBI, they are, even though their actions have never harmed a human being. A convicted animal rights “terrorist” and an independent journalist will discuss what this “War on Terrorism” means for activists, and all of our civil liberties, at a public forum October 4th, 2007.

The panel will feature Peter Young and Will Potter. Young was one of the first people convicted of “animal enterprise terrorism” for releasing thousands of mink from fur farms in the Midwest. Young was arrested in 2005 after 7 years of being wanted by the FBI: his co-defendant and friend, Justin Samuel, had cooperated with the government and implicated him in the fur farm raids. He served two years in federal prison.

Will Potter is an award-winning independent journalist based in Washington, DC, who focuses on how lawmakers and corporations have labeled animal rights and environmental activists as “eco-terrorists”. Potter has written for publications including The Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News and Legal Affairs, and has testified before the U.S. Congress about his reporting. He is the creator of GreenIsTheNewRed.com, where he blogs about the “Green Scare” and history repeating itself.

WHAT: “Animal Rights Terrorists?,” a panel discussion about animal rights activism and First Amendment rights
WHO: Peter Young and Will Potter
WHEN: Thursday, October 4th at 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St, Portland, OR 97202
COST: There will be a suggested donation of $5 with all proceeds going to the Activist Legal Fund. The event is open to the public.
EVENT SPONSORS: Food Fight! Grocery, Herbivore Magazine, Scapegoat Tattoo, SweetPea Baking, Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness

For more information:
Activist Legal Fund: www.activistlegalfund.org
Will Potter: www.greenisthenewred.com
Peter Young: www. supportpeter.com

Food Fight Grocery and Scapegoat Tattoo birthday throwdown
September 2nd, 1 PM in the parking lot (4179 SE Dvision)

If you think vegans don’t know how to party, you don’t know these vegans.

Join Food Fight as they celebrate their 4th birthday and Scapegoat turns 2. And how do Portland vegans celebrate? Karaoke, a bungee run, the yearly gross-out eating contest (that gets grosser every year), a vegan hot dog cart, vegan softserve courtesy of Blossoming Lotus, feats of strength, and live music by local favorites The Prids and Fogatron. Does this sound like they’re trying to have the birthday party they never had as kids? Perhaps. Will the gross-out eating contest top last years with a textural apocalypse and avalanche of disgusting fake meats? Most assuredly. Plus, there will be a major announcement that will change the course of veganism forever.

General festivities at 1 PM, music begins at 5 PM.

Yesterday was the birthday of the Big Mac. It turned 40 years old. Which I think gives it another ten years or so before it’s dead because we all know you don’t live long eating that crap.

I used to have a job giving tours at the computer museum in Boston. There was a McDonalds downstairs right between us and where the Boston Tea Party ship (and annoying reenactments) were. They used to throw the fake tea overboard but the fake tea was attached by ropes so it looked like special effects from an Ed Wood film. To quote John Edwards in regards to all matters domestic and patriotic, we can do better.

I used to eat at that McDonalds once a week or so. I was still a year away from going vegetarian at that point, but even then I knew McDonalds was a terrible place to get food. I’d be walking around monitoring one of the galleries or giving a tour thinking about where I was going to eat and invariably my brain would say “McDonalds!” Most days I’d give that cartoon bubble thought above my head the smackdown, but once a week or so I’d give in. I even felt sick before I got there and I knew I’d be dragging ass the rest of the day with all that grease and fat in my stomach. (I would add “death” to that list of things in my stomach, but at the time those thoughts were still in the murky unknown part of my brain trying to reach the surface.)

But somehow, there was still an appeal. Even knowing I was going to regret it didn’t keep me from going. Knowing I was going to feel crappy for the rest of the day didn’t keep me away. Such was the draw. Such was the magnetism.

It’s weird thinking back about those times. I wasn’t ignorant, I’d been around pretty radical political communities (though mostly as a spectator) for years through punk rock, but a light just wasn’t going on in my head. Even though I knew it was a terrible place to patronize, I still went. What is that mechanism in our heads that keeps us from doing the right thing?

Thinking back about who I was then, in many ways, it’s hard to recognize myself. At least in regards to eating. That was probably the last McDonalds I’ve been in as I went vegetarian not long after leaving that job. A year and change after that I moved to Chicago and probably went into a Burger King 3 or 4 times to get the “Veggie Whopper” which isn’t really a menu item, you have to ask. (This was before the BK veggie burger which I don’t think I’ve had). It’s a Whopper just without the meat. Why pay for a bun with cheese and mayo and lettuce and pickles? I can’t remember now. Not long after, I went vegan and for years would occassionally hit Subway or Taco Bell but it has been years since I’ve been in either of those places.

In the August online edition of our little megazinester Nicole Maron writes about her own battles with this weird allure of fast food, and doing wrong knowingly, and breaking that cycle. She spoke about it far more eloquently than I, for some reason I thought you’d like to know about secret items on the BK cash register that aren’t on the actual menu. I recommend you check out her story, it is honest and hit close to home with me. Perhaps it will to you too.

So yeah, happy birthday Big Mac. You’ve hurried countless people along towards chronic illness and death, you’ve been the transport for billions of hacked apart animals that lived short awful lives and died brutally. And McDonalds commercials are really annoying and pandering.

I couldn’t make your birthday party, but I’ll be there with bells on at your funeral.

The grocery we go to most is right behind our house. It is a nice place and they have mountains of organic produce. Many mornings on the way out the door to the store/office I go by there first to get some fruit.

It wasn’t long ago I didn’t think twice about where my food came from, in terms of location. I’d just grab what I wanted, make sure it was vegan, and off I’d go. The grocery behind my house changed that forever. They have signs above all the produce that says where it was grown.

It wasn’t long ago I didn’t think much about the environment and just took the positive environmental impact of being vegan as my pass on this issue. “Well,” my thinking would go, “I’m vegan and that alone is good for the environment so that is my activism in that area.” This was my boilerplate text on the issue for years. We do other things that I think are environmentally responsible; we grow food in our yard, we ride bikes, we drive as little as possible, we live close to where we work so we don’t have to commute by car, that kind of thing. But most of that only became important to me after I noticed those signs at the grocery store.

Once I noticed the signs, my response was immediate. It wasn’t total, but it was immediate. I noticed of the 6 or 8 types of apples for sale, several were from New Zealand, several were from Chile, and several were from right up the road in Washington state. Sadly, the ones I really liked weren’t from right up the road. But I started buying the ones from Washington anyway, most of the time. I started buying peaches from close by instead of bananas from “Imported.” (There are myriad problems with bananas and how they are produced, by the way. Look up the history of the United Fruit Company and the military coups involved if you’d like to never feel good about bananas again.)

As often as possible, I’d grab food from close(r) by. Staring at the bananas, and really wanting one, I’d think about the boats, planes, trucks, and labor involved in getting it on the shelf in front of me. Most often, I’d reach for a local apple instead. We still eat bananas and citrus and other non-local stuff, but the shift we’ve made because of those little signs is pretty big. Also, because of those signs, our garden is pretty big. Our lettuce in the summer is transported 12 feet, by foot. The laborer doesn’t get paid, but he/she eats well!

I don’t know if your grocery store has little signs like these, but I think the little stickers on the fruit itself has to say where it came from. Perhaps you’ll find it interesting to look at those stickers and think of the boats and planes and trucks and labor. I used to just pick em off, roll em up, and flick em like boogers.

A place called “Lolo” just opened near our house, it’s a tapas restaurant. I speak with Lolo over at VeganYumYum on the regular as we’re publishing her cookbook here by the end of the year and are in the beginning stages of a very miniature NE tour in October. More on that later. So you can understand I was a bit confused seeing that she opened a restaurant right around the corner from my house and didn’t even mention it to me, and somehow did it without even moving here! How does she do it? I looked at the menu and there’s like NOTHING vegan on the whole thing! I was mad! Then I figured out that this wasn’t actually HER restaurant cuz I can see they use garlic and I know she doesn’t like garlic. But wow huh?! What are the chances!? Same name!

Anyhoo, who opens a Tapas restaurant in the most vegen friendly city in the megasphere and doesn’t offer any vegan options!?!?!? What is wrong with people?!!?

Pssst! I heard Portland was getting a vegan mini-mall. Don’t tell anybody. Chad will be mad at me.