A Magazine? What's That?
I ran across an interesting factoid yesterday while I was surfing for research at work. According to a survey conducted by the Online Publishers Association, in September, persons 18 to 34 years old were more likely to log onto the Internet (46%) than watch TV (35%), read a book (7%), listen to the radio (3%), read a newspaper (also 3%) or peruse a magazine (less than 1%).
Okay, so that tells us where our priorities lie. Ha. It might also answer that occasional question about the future of literary magazines, whether there's room for both print and electronic, etc.
Regardless, though, as with any survey, one must wonder who exactly answered the questions and how they were picked (it is, after all, the Online Publishers Association).
At any rate, those of us who are aggressively pursuing the Internet markets for our work are obviously on the right track, although some things remain to be ironed out, such as the ezines coming up with ways to market themselves, prove quality, pay us poor starving writer suckers, and reach more people (always a difficulty with print pubs, which I think for so many years had a tendency to stay local or to have severely limited distribution sheerly from lack of exposure, funds, etc.).
Lots of food for thought there, but of course, plenty of ways to blow some holes in the premise, too. I just thought it was worth a post.
Thanks for reading,
LLB
Okay, so that tells us where our priorities lie. Ha. It might also answer that occasional question about the future of literary magazines, whether there's room for both print and electronic, etc.
Regardless, though, as with any survey, one must wonder who exactly answered the questions and how they were picked (it is, after all, the Online Publishers Association).
At any rate, those of us who are aggressively pursuing the Internet markets for our work are obviously on the right track, although some things remain to be ironed out, such as the ezines coming up with ways to market themselves, prove quality, pay us poor starving writer suckers, and reach more people (always a difficulty with print pubs, which I think for so many years had a tendency to stay local or to have severely limited distribution sheerly from lack of exposure, funds, etc.).
Lots of food for thought there, but of course, plenty of ways to blow some holes in the premise, too. I just thought it was worth a post.
Thanks for reading,
LLB
posted by LadyLitBlitzin at 5:20 PM
8 Comments:
The legitimacy seems to increase every year. Oyster Boy Review, for example, had a piece nominated for the O. Henry a couple years back. And more and more name writers are submitting to online places all the time. Maybe I'll post tomorrow on some of my favorite online places.
The biggest problem online mags have is revenue. You have the choice of charging memberships fees to read (bleh), or putting up advertising. One unique method I've seen is taking donations as small as $0.01 via paypal for your favorite piece (wish I could remember what mag this was). In the near-future I see more and more mags offering regular issues online, with maybe a best-of anthology of sorts in print every now and then. That's probably the way I'd go if I started a new journal.
Bleh...sorry this is so long.
From a reader's point of view:
I know for myself I mean to read more, but I have a stack of books beside my bed, downstairs I have a skyscraper-high pile of magazines (old New Yorkers) that await me. I manage to read the local papers twice a week, but that's work-related, since I work in marketing (gotta get my clippings!) and since I work with a lot of local groups and the municipal government (got to know what the competitors are doing, if I'll get a grant to continue my job, etc.)
I would really like to do more of the deep-thinking required for reading. But I don't have time. I don't watch TV, I am trying to cut back on internet time (I haven't turned on that MSN Messenger in months and I only go to my favourite six blogs a day - yours, of course included, as opposed to the rest of the blogs I link to). If I drive to Vancouver that's two hours punched out of my day. I don't have too much housework to do.
Yet, at the end of yesterday, I lay down with Nancy Mitcord's The Pursuit of Love to get in a few pages before bed and I end up making it only through one sentence.
I assume most people are like me. But some don't even really bother to read.
Hey Hebdomeros,
Your post isn't too long. I always go on and on on everybody else's blogs! :)
Please do send more of those online zines. I like the idea of donating money to the story readers like the most, that's pretty cool. (I do know that Drunken Boat has a donation "suggestion" on their home page, but I do wonder how many people actually donate.) I think it's a great idea and it would be nice if everybody did feel moved to donate, it would be a nice solution to the whole problem of revenues, writers getting paid, etc.
Maktaaq -- oh, I hear you. I feel pretty much inundated with media myself and can see how at the end of a long day it's hard to get through that one sentence! I have also stopped logging onto AIM recently... just too much. I do my usual circuit of blog reading, maybe watch a movie, try to write something in old-fashioned print... but seriously, yeah, I am one of those people where the computer is the first stop. (And sometimes the last!) There's really not enough waking hours... nor room in the brain. Sometimes I forget stuff and joke that I'm "emptying the cache" -- of my brain! Haha.
Yes, there is so much to process! I realized I can't even count to eight anymore: I was doing sets at the physiotherapist's yesterday and, between numbers, I got into thinking about my to-do list for day, so much so that I started forgetting what number I was at. Eventually, the physiotherapist assigned a high school student to help me do the counting.
Now that I've recognized my problem, I did go to bed earlier, so I actually read three pages before I fell asleep.
What is physiotherapy? I wish I had a high school student to help me do counting. That'd be cool. :)
Physiotherapy, as far as I can figure it out, is something meant to deal with my whiplash. They put electrode type things on my back and neck, which makes me twitch. They also teach me stretches to do for my new aches.
In fact, I am planning a blog post on it as I am nurturing a small crush on the young man who runs the clinic.
Aaah... go for the young man! Go for it! :) It's so hard to meet new people, that sounds like Destiny to me! :)
lol, I don't know if professionally he could date one of his patients. But it's good stuff for fantasy.
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