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We have overhauled our entire operation! See the full report below, the quickfast is:
Our overhaul means a subscription to Herbivore will get you far more content than ever before, split between print and online subscriber-only content. We are printing two issues a year and doing a monthly online edition that has exclusive content including new media like films, podcasts, music downloads from veggie artists, art, recipes, subscriber only online forums, and much much more. So we went from being a print only publication with 4 editions a year to a print and online publication with 14 editions a year (2 print, 12 online.)
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Hello dear readers! We’re posting this update because we got a bit delayed getting the new issue (and format) of Herbivore finished up and wanted to let you all know what is up and when to expect some mail from us. We should be shipping the new issue out in about 6 weeks, it’s going to the printer in a few days and we’ll get them back out the door as quickly as we can once they get delivered. Thank you all for being patient with us while we rebuild Herbivore from the ground up. We got a real shake up a few months ago when our newsstand distributor went out of business suddenly, owing us a good chunk of money we haven’t gotten. That delayed production a bit while things got sorted out and forced us to make some much needed changes. I am happy to say the future looks better than ever now that we’ve gotten through that and can get back on track. Our new publishing plan is explained below. At the end of this note are some links to articles written about the demise of Indy Press, our distributor and the effects it has had on independent publishing.
While our distributor folding was a blow, we took it as an opportunity to try new things. Once we started discussing possibilities it didn’t seem like a set back at all, but more a door opening into a new way of doing what we do entirely. We hope you’re as excited as we are about the new format we’ve come up with.
2007 will be a year where you the reader will get far more content than ever before, far more often. One of the most common bits of feedback we get is that Herbivore just doesn’t happen frequently enough and we’ve felt that too. A quarterly publishing schedule has limited our ability to be timely and as current as possible. But the financial burden of doing more print editions has been a hurdle we couldn’t figure out a way to get over until now.
Not dealing with the newsstand anymore frees up a lot of energy and resources we can use to make the magazine more dynamic and fun, as well as to bring it into different formats.
So here is what Herbivore is going to look like starting immediately:
We have settled on a publishing format that will be divided between print and online so we can appropriately communicate different types of content. The print side will constitute 2 books a year that will be a collection of long form essays, articles, and interviews based around a theme. We have also talked about the books taking the form of reader contributed recipes, or a full book of Wish You Were Here profiles, or any number of different things. The potential for these books is huge and very exciting for us to consider.
The second arm of the publishing format will be a monthly subscriber only online edition of the magazine. This online version will have text articles to read but will also tap all kinds of new media like podcasts, videos, film clips, slideshows of photographers or artists we cover, and every month there will be a music player built in that you can launch and listen to while you read featuring veggie musicians we dig. You’ll also get monthly recipe card downloads, desktops, and other goodies we come up with. Every month! No more waiting months and months for your Herbivore fix!
In addition to all of this we’re going to have subscriber only forums and other community building tools to help support and build relationships and get you all talking to us and too each other. You will have the ability to comment at the end of articles and respond to what you’re reading. One of the biggest frustrations we’ve had with only doing print is that there is no immediate way for all of us to communicate and share ideas and get dialogues going. We get letters to the editor and I have the opportunity to talk to people about issues but there is no greater discussion that gets going. We hope to remedy this and start bringing all of us together.
Other perks of being a subscriber include access to all back issues of the digital edition, as well as special offers and discounts throughout the year. We’re planning on publishing several books, outside of the Herbivore magazine format, this year and subscribers will get special notifications and discounts on these, as well as other offers as the year goes on and we continue to grow and launch new projects.
We’re very excited and hard at work on the new format, which will all launch in March. Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions. Thanks again for your patience as we pull all this together and get Herbivore ready for the coming years.
* If any of you are interested in reading more about what is going on in independent publishing, here are a few links about how big this shake up is. Reading them over I feel like we got off kinda easy. We’re still here and a lot of important voices aren’t. Very sad.
http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2006-06-14/news/feature.html
http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2007_282/news/12406-1.html
http://www.columbiachronicle.com/paper/arts.php?id=1831
