The End of 'Clamor'

[bob]

Hey Fine Feathered Folks,

Didn't see any posts about this, so I figured I'd punt it to the group.
Read what they've posted here, and please interpret for me:

http://www.clamormagazine.org/

I think it's time to burn all distros to the ground, hole up in a cave
somewhere, and let Mr. Somers regale us of tales as we drink his
stockpile of spirits...

Bob

[kingw...@yahoo.com]

Worthy projects-- but with $500 I could conquer the world.
You might consider also backing a project that's shown it knows how to
survive, and how to operate extremely efficiently when it comes to
spending-- or not spending-- money.
The Underground Literary Alliance is designed for the long haul.
We also are looking for new allies-- including the Clamor people if
they're not doing anything!

[D. Halligan]

I think what Jen and Jason did with Clamor was quite admirable, their
magazine had a far reach and impact. And they went big from the get go,
trying to do a national magazine that would be easy to fine, but with a
zine-like organization and philosophy. Sadly it's similar to what my friends
and I tried to do with Tablet. And in the world of bigger print runs and
mainstream media competition, it's really hard to operate with zinester
ethics and morals and survive. Advertising is the game at that level, and
you are asked to make a lot of compromises to get the kinds of advertising
that will actually support a magazine or rely on a ton of smaller indie
advertisers who aren't reliable and often end up not paying for thousands of
dollars worth of ads. It can definitely be trying... and expensive!

[bob]

Agreed, but I don't see much of a chance of people donating $500 a pop.
Even the successful end of the zine spectrum is hard pressed to fork
over that kind of cash.

And it seems more like Clamor's info shop is more the cause of this
current crisis than the mag itself. How would the magazine pull down
the others? Now, money owed because of things sold through the info
shop -- that would cause problems for the other mags.

Guess this just is another black mark against consignment agreements...

Bob

[D. Halligan]

> Agreed, but I don't see much of a chance of people donating $500 a pop.
> Even the successful end of the zine spectrum is hard pressed to fork
> over that kind of cash.

Were they looking for donations? I think Clamor's readership was much larger
than the zine community, their appeal was broad enough to include yuppie
liberals like those that subscribe to the Utne Reader. I think if you are
doing a well-done lefty socio-political magazine you definitely can have
some readers that could donate on that scale, but not alot.

> And it seems more like Clamor's info shop is more the cause of this
> current crisis than the mag itself.

Is it? I would assume it was their printing costs, that's what did in
Tablet. Once you start printing full color glossy and 20,000+ copies, you
are paying quite a lot for printing. Based on what we were paying, I'd
guestimate that magazine cost at least $15,000 per issue to print. And the
nature of doing a magazine means you aren't paid by advertisers and
distributors sometimes for months and months... if ever.

[bob]

See, Dan, that's what's confusing me.

They are saying that they have to close up shop. Fair enough. But then
they say that their financial troubles may be taking other worth-while
pubs with them. That's why they are asking for donations directly to
the other pubs, so that this lack of funding (coming from Clamor) could
be off-set a bit.

I can't figure out why Clamor would be in such debt to these other
mags, unless they had taken on a large amount to distribute through
their info shop (a-la Desert Moon, etc.). Or could Clamor's promised
advertising money effect the other pubs that much? I suppose so, but
I'm not getting what's really going on here.

Any ideas?

Bob

[AlanLastufka]

Hey Bob, I've been talking with Jason. The deal is, Clamor runs an
infoSHOP and exclusively sells product for about 10 other projects.
Most of those 10 or so other projects have no other cart/shopping
system set up on their own sites; they only sell through Clamor.

So all the stock and all the sales that should be taking place right
now for those 10 projects are frozen because the bank is looking at the
infoSHOP as a way for Clamor to pay what they owe. This also means any
payments that were sitting in the infoSHOP waiting to be paid out to
the projects are frozen as well.

AL

[bob]

That makes total sense now. It's not too hard to set up a shopping cart
-- even if it's something lame like a PayPal button. I hope those
projects have some plans to get something put together.

Bob

[steve kolcow]

What a shame! Although it was harder to find a copy the last couple of
years. It's a tough world in publishing. Dozens of mags start every
year and dozens fail. The problem is: your production costs are due
today, but the money from advertisers or newsstand sales don't appear
(if ever) for months.

Also a shame the other organizations are affected. Does this mean the
yearly Allied Media Conference is in danger?

Is there really a need for the Info Shop Direct concept? It's way easy
to put a paypal shopping cart on your site and save the expense. It
didn't seem there were a lot of shops listed on Clamor's site. Although
I could see the worth of hassle saving if you just want to focus on
making the zine or cd.

-steve kolcow

[AlanLastufka]

Allied Media Conference will go on as scheduled. It's set up as a
seperate non-profit as far as I know so its assets couldn't be
considered Clamor assets. This year it's being held in Detroit.

I think some people preferred the infoSHOP set-up so they wouldn't have
to maintain anything, or "be bothered" to send out orders. If you have
numerous projects going on and limited or non-existant help, all the
order packing and shipping and bookkeeping can take its toll. I looked
into it for Fall of Autumn, but thought the fees were just too high.

I currently use phpShop on Fall of Autumn, and love it. Much sexier
than the paypal button route, but it ends up at paypal, so has the same
ease of use for the customer as far as paying and all that.