Forums > Social Discussion > Spinning Magazine - would you buy one?

Posted: 22nd Dec 2004
Just spin it.

Love is the law.

Posted: 22nd Dec 2004
I am with orbit on the VCD/DVD thing. It is not something that is sitting well with me ideally, though I haven't pinpointed why (except maybe that it is a rip-off of COL).

You mention different issues for each country/global section. Why? Most of the poi people I know travel, and usually quite extensively. I should think it would be more beneficial to list them all.

Next, you say replace "spin" with "skate". Okay. I did. And I know that Tony Hawk is amazing and pro, for example. Therefore I trust some of what he says.
Those magazine utilize journalists, designers and professionals who have been doing this for years who research and do in depth articles which are extremely respectable.

For example, you claim to want to write an article on how spinning has changed in the past two years. Two years? It is nothing. It really has not changed. Try in the past 7 years or 10 years. Then you will see drastic changes.

Are you getting someone who is certified to write the safety column? Are you getting a Dr. to write about burn care or incident care?

Are you going to get people who are formally trained as performers to write the performance articles?

I think the one about the men who spin in the park with coals is nice, especially since it is something that has been known in the spinning community (and has been brought up both on here and in tribe) multiple times. In this light, will you then be offering articles on traditional uses of the tools or will the main focus be on contemporary presentations.

Keep in mind the time frame you are dealing with and who your target audience is.

*ALOT* of what you are proposing caters to newbies, which is great, except then you go back to the fact that poi to a high percentage of newbies is a fad, and therefore you will not build up a consistent readership.
However, offer one or two articles geared towards the newbs and then focus more on those who have been in this for awhile and you will (hopefully) maintain a strong base readership.

You say you have met alot of spinners not on hop (as have multitudes of us) and yet you are looking/mentioning HoPpers as major contributors. This means for your "experts" you are relying on people that many whom you hope to have in your readership will never have heard of. How does this support the level of credibility you hope to achieve then?
This thought process is a direct contradiction to what you said about wanting to reach people who are not on HoP, yet you will still be using HoP as a main source.
Contributors should have easily backed up/proven experience in whatever field they are in just for that reason.

I'm sorry. If I paid my good money for a magazine and read a collection of articles written by backyard burners, I would doubt the validity of the magazine.

Here is where the decision comes in to label it an amatuer publication (which then will most likely not make money) or aim higher and cover more ground but really scour to find people who can uphold *AND* be consistently reliable as writers.

You also asked for writers to email you. How do you intend to check their credentials to make sure what they are reporting is correct?

What journalistic/editting experience do you have that will give potential contributors/investors faith in your abilities to lead this project?

And even more so, what makes you an expert to be leading this project? (because you need to make a compelling arguement for this to get any form of funding).

I also noticed that you mention other tools to a limited degree and then poi alot. I think that would be boring. The resources for poi are far more plentiful than for most other of these arts (with the exception of juggling). Perhaps diversification and less holding to poi as the mainstay might be an order for success.



Before you can even venture into things like, especially when you are looking at getting grants, this there needs to be a full business plan which includes target audience, financial plan (in case grants do not go through), staff, article projections outline for at least the first few issues, deadline schedules..essentially, all your ducks in a row before the paperwork can even be processed.

In case you are wondering where I am coming from with all of this, I have my certification as a grant writer. I have been through it a few times. Also as a contributing writer for 3 'zines, I also know how this works from that perspective.

Hopefully it's more for you to mull over that will help your direction a bit.

Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir
"Oooh look! A pub!" -exclaimed after recovering from a stupid fall
"And for the decadence of art, nothing beats a roaring fire." -TMK

Posted: 22nd Dec 2004

Written by: pele

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I also noticed that you mention other tools to a limited degree and then poi alot.

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Ben......talking about poi alot .....

If you think there are enough of us who can help pull it off - Go for it Ben

"...We don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing......."

Posted: 23rd Dec 2004
Pele, you're dead on target. Ben's new to this project... I've been mulling this over for a year. I've thought through some of those issues, and I know some of those others will need to be done.

The financial plan for this project is to lose money (lots of it mine) at first. This is part of why this project hasn't gotten off the ground. Seriously, though, this will need to go through some rough times before it becomes profitable. I have some potential funding sources that will hopefully help to pay the bills for a little while...

The target audience for this magazine is pretty broad. Spinners come in a lot of different flavors, and belong to many different communities. What I want to do is report on things that are relevant to everyone, and to tell people what's interesting that may be going on in various communities (on HOP, in London, in San Francisco, at Buring Man).

I have a doctor who will write about what to put in your burn kit. I have a professional toxicologist who will write about toxicity of various chemicals we use. I will not publish an article about professional performance from someone who will not be credible to other performers. I have professional illustrators who are willing to contribute. I have professional writers who are volunteering to help with the editing and professional production people to put this together. Yeah, it's volunteer work and I expect it will take longer, but they will be credible. This is not a half-assed magazine put together by a bunch of kids. We are not out to piss off upstanding people and businesses in our community -- we are here to move everyone forward in a positive direction and help everyone do what they do better (how ever you define that - a better performer, juggler, spinner, teacher, business person, writer, photographer, magazine publisher). That said, the people reporting on events will be participants rather than professional observers and interviewers. We'll edit gramatical issues and do what we can. The first couple of issues may be rough, but the goal is a real magazine.

Are you telling me that the poi spinning scene hasn't changed at all in the last 2 years? Really?!? Was there this much communication between spinners in the US before tribe.net came along? Did groups of casual spinners in LA meet up with spinners in SF? Did people learn to do wibbles at festivals? Did Crimson try to pull off big choreographed routines the night of the Burn? Did people make their own little videos to download off the web that taught hundreds of other people how to do a particular move? This is the kind of stuff I'm talking... and y'know, if we have people who are trying things that have been tried before -- well, those previous attempts weren't documented, so no one found out about it. That's why we want a magazine!

How am I qualified to do this? What I am imagining is more than just a magazine... it's a mechanism for connecting some of the little pockets of spinners that exist out there and building a market. Maybe the spinners you know travel quite a lot, but I rarely meet spinners who've travelled as much as I have - they often wish they did, but they don't. Maybe professional performers manage to do this, but most of the casual spinners I know haven't travelled. I've been doing cross-pollinating of ideas in California for a while... telling people to check out HOP and other sites - and especially the videos section... telling people to try using socks or cone poi - showing people how to do isolations or stall combos or whatever. This kind of cross-polination can happen on a broader level if we have channels to spread that information. I have an MBA from a top-tier business school and have been a professional product manager for more than 5 years. This magazine is a product in a category I care about a lot.

I have very clear ideas about what I want from various aspects of this project. One of the things I know I'll need is a certain amount of support from the community. It would be nice if people who teach newbies would be willing and interested in helping us get the word out about it. It would be nice if people like Malcolm who sell products in the industry help sell it and advertise in it. I'd like to get Everyone's support (our role is to be a neutral party and report on what's happening and support everyone, not to "take sides") but to be honest, we do need everyone's support - just a few key people.

Oh yeah... I know poi spinners are cheap... I don't mind if people share the magazine. There are plenty of people who are not that cheap though... and if we get the right mix of articles to appeal to people, they'll want their own copy.

If people have insights into why past ventures have failed, I'd like to hear it. I suspect that the market has grown over the last few years - but I don't know. I suspect that they were too focused on one or another aspect of the scene, or assumed that everyone else was just like them (and really loved fire and wanted to read their fire poems for instance)...

Posted: 23rd Dec 2004

I would definatly buy a magazine on fire, i think people want something to hold take around with them and show non-spinners in the hope to get them interested.

Why not just start with a newsletter type thing made and filled with articals info anything of use from people all around the community "Made by the community, for the community" as things take off " if " they do, expand and make into a proper magazine.

Posted: 23rd Dec 2004
i would verry much like to see a fire spinning mag.
it would be verry usefull if there was interviews
had list and pics of new and upcoming fire products.
and list of events. yes we can look it all up on the web. but in a mad it alows us to read it in the car or on the bus hell even on the pot.. it is a matter of convince wich it would be. the adverage mag it about 4.95 but you would be doing a specialty mag so i could see you charging 6 to 7 dollars

SLEEP WITH ANGELS muckieha

Posted: 23rd Dec 2004
Will it have words and pictures and pretty colours? And will it be witty and urbane?


*goes of to find a dictionary and look up what urbane means*

Meh

Posted: 24th Dec 2004
Great idea / stuff but terminology also may be a point of contention!

How are you going to get all the writers to use the same terminology?

If you don't confusion could reign. (I could if you do too!)

Looking at some of the theads trying to express even a relativly simple move could be hell! Try explaining a simple hyperloop / Airwrap / Maxi plus?

I like the Video ide though. People whoe wriite the articles could also have comanion videos to go with them that would not be compressed so madly as those down loadable!

"**grumble*spuriouswindmills*grumble**" - Coleman
"if poi was only for girls there wouldnt be many good poi spinners...." - Nx

Posted: 24th Dec 2004

Written by: native

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i would verry much like to see a fire spinning mag.
it would be verry usefull if there was interviews
had list and pics of new and upcoming fire products......

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Written by: MEERCAT

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I would definatly buy a magazine on fire,...........

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Many people seem to think that spinning=fire.

I'm one of those who don't; to me spinning is about spinning poi, staffs, meteors etc- working on skills, mainly without fire, then, as a little extra thing, doing it with fire.

I was under the impression that this thread was about a spinning magazine, which would include stuff on fire arts, but not as the main focus of it.

One thing I notice about Peles list of failed magazines-

Written by: Pele

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Burn Syndicate. E-Zine. ..........

Fire Magazine.....

Spin and Burn......

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is the emphasis on fire in the titles.

I suspect that a new magazine which emphasised fire would not do too well, as

1. some of the potential readership may be put off due to perceived dangers

2. if, as is quite possible, bad publicity about fire arts continues to grow (ie the stuff we've seen about deaths/serious accidents with breathing and other, admittedly not spinning but it all gets tarred with the same brush, fire incidents that have resulted in the clampdown on insurance for fire performers) then any magazine primarily focused on fire will suffer

3. I believe that most of the 'semi-spinning' public, like the people who bought loads of copies of that recent poi book, are more interested in learning some spinning skills, rather than fire

I think that a successful magazine will be about spinning skills, other skills (diablo, juggling, unicycling), with occasional good accurate articles on fire and safety.

We've had precedents of successful magazines along those lines, such as (in circus/juggling) the UKs 'Catch' (now defunct but it had a good long run) and the European 'Kascade' (which is possibly still going?).

IMO, keep fire out of the title, and have fire articles as an occasional part of it, rather than tying it in too strongly with fire arts.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 24th Dec 2004
Great idea, yeah, it would take a lot to get it started, but I think that a lot of people would buy it. I would pay for it. I'm basically on my own spinning out here and would definitly like to feel at least a bit more connected to spinners. It gets lonley down here in the suburbs of New Jersey.

Don't mind me, just passing through.

Posted: 25th Dec 2004
same as above...
except that I'm in the suburbs or mass
damn the northeast scene... or lack there of rather

I'll get there too late if I shorten my stride, I'll get there too soon if I find me a ride, I'll never move forward if I try to hide this path that I've troden one step at a time.

Posted: 25th Dec 2004
i'd buy it. i'm not interested in whether or not its a good idea int he end, if enough people just give it a little faith it'll fly. ben sounds like he's got it worked out, so what's the harm? i'd love to get a poi mag. nobody seems to be in the dc area either

-James

"How do you know if you're happy or sad without a mask? Or angry? Or ready for dessert?"

Posted: 25th Dec 2004
There's a big DC scene, coming out of the Playa Del Fuego regional group for Burning Man. I can't vouch for their technical skill level, but to claim that the scene doesn't exist just means you haven't looked hard enough.

Or maybe we just need to get the magazine going... *sigh*

Posted: 25th Dec 2004
International shipping fees is what I'm worried about.





But as long as I'm in it I'll buy it. Nah I'm kidding, I think it's a fantastic idea.

.All things are beautiful if we take the time to look.

Posted: 28th Dec 2004
Shipping fees aren't such a problem.

I'm happy to sort the european print job out.

I do a lot of printed graphics, our last big job cost about £45,000 to print. So I get super cheap prices.

I have friends who i''m sure will be happy to distribute the mags for europe

Then roger and ben just need to sort out printing for the US and Oz. Printing in SF should be easy, and pretty cheap ~ don't know about australia as I have to get stuff printed in UK and sent to Oz on a regular basis.

From the printers point of view they will need to print at least 10,000 to make it worth their while. Are we gonna get rid of that many in 3 months??? I doubt it. I suggest for the first issue to make it an anual.

Cost comes down if you have a multiple of 16 pages, you must have a multiple of 4 pages. So we are probably looking at something like 48 A4 (legal) pages plus a separate cover. Probably use 90gsm paper with perhaps 200gsm gloss cover. Full colour throughout? If you want black and white it will have to be for a set of 16 pages. I'll get a quote for 10,000 print job at this spec (unless anyone wants to change it) So at least everyone gets an idea of the cost.

The mailing costs will be about the same as print cost, but this comes down if it is sent as part of a bigger order.

Apart from that i think it can work. Will people buy it? maybe. Will it pay for itself? almost definitely.

my 2 cents,

m

Spherculism ~:~ The Act of becoming Spherculish.

Posted: 28th Dec 2004
"So we are probably looking at something like 48 A4 (legal) pages plus a separate cover. Probably use 90gsm paper with perhaps 200gsm gloss cover. "

I'd agree with that... sounds nice. And I reckon B&W would definitely be best for at least part - cheaper.

Getting to the other side

Posted: 29th Dec 2004
a magazine is a good idea. i sometimes use the free online lessons or if i want to practise a move ive seen its usually when im outside in the garden or in a wide open space, so a computer is useless as ic ant carry it outside with me, but a mag ould be great for people to exchange tips and moves and to see some new pictures and to see whats happeing around the poi world and up date each qaurter what events are on. if you have the means i say go for it, i could name a lot of ppl who would buy it.

Posted: 29th Dec 2004
I think A4 is actually close to letter size rather than legal... Letter size is 8 1/2 x 11 inches, which is slightly wider and shorter than A4.

Posted: 29th Dec 2004

Written by: NYC

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I don't think spinners would buy it.

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I agree. Nice idea, but as we all use the net already, why not just make it web based? If you get free help from professional designers (ie not PHPNuke) then it can be just as glossy as paper, without the cost.



I've been involved in the past with a reasonably large (32,000 readers a month) paper based magazine in the area of festivals/campaigning/free parties which existed purely off donations and advertising. It lasted for 10 years, but most months we wouldn't break even. Some people gave five pounds, some even twenty, but the average donation was about 2p (UK). If you can make it web based you'll reach more people any shouldn't loose any money (especially if you use HoP as the server, i'm sure Malcolm would welcome it).



Getting money out of hippies is hard, trust me

Posted: 29th Dec 2004
but there's loads of spinners who can't or don't use the internet - and there's not really much opportunity for them to get hold of stuff like this.

maybe it needs thinking about, but i think it's worth it for all those peeps who aren't on HoP etc.

I had a dream that my friend had a
strong-bad pop up book,
it was the book of my dreams.

Posted: 29th Dec 2004
yeah i know what you mean! not including those poi-ers I met a PiP, a pretty darn high percentage of poi-ers Ive met don't come on here. Might be hard to let the poi world that dont use the internet know of it tho?

Livin' on dreams and custard creams

Posted: 30th Dec 2004
>but there's loads of spinners who can't or don't use the internet

internet cafes, work, school, libraries, etc? https://www.ufi.com/ukol/
(UK)

I don't beleive many people in the 1st world who claim they have no internet access, a lot are just being lazy because they don't have it at home. Online gives much more possibilities (ie Video), but a well designed page should be printable (or have a print option), to give copies to people who geniunely don't have access to the net.

Posted: 30th Dec 2004
ok, they might have access, but there's other reasons too, maybe they're just not as comfortable with the internet as other people, lots of people still aren't.

anyway, a paper version gives different benefits, for one you can take it anywhere, keep re reading it, tear bits out and put them on your noticeboard, lend it to your mates etc. etc.

I had a dream that my friend had a
strong-bad pop up book,
it was the book of my dreams.

Posted: 1st Jan 2005
oh oh most deffenatly and i would pay no more than £5 i do not usually buy magazines as there are never of any interest so i do not mind paying a bit more,
hmmmm as for what would be in it, may be how to's as well as a bullitin board etc, you could also do high lights from all over the country/world or something.
i hope ones comes out i want to buy it now

Life's too short to worry about where you put your marshmallows

Posted: 1st Jan 2005
I'd buy it! I need all the help I can get. Might get more people involved in spinning if they see it for sale around the place. I know it's hard to find other local spinners so it would be great to see advertisments for get to gethers in your local state.

Never hold your farts in! They travel up your spine, go into your brain and that's where shitty idea's come from.

Posted: 7th Jan 2005
that would be really cool, will it cover all other toys too?

I'm going to leave the army and run away to the circus

if not i will just become a MI5 agent !!!

Posted: 7th Jan 2005
Would be brilliant if it was well done. I would be a regular subscriber I am sure as long as it had a good level of content / variety . Sounds like an interesting idea

What if I should fall right through the centre of the Earth and come out the other side where people walk upside-down?!

Posted: 14th Jan 2005
online fire mag

Step (el-nombrie)

Posted: 14th Jan 2005
Had a read, they certanly started it with good ideas / intensions.........

But i think due to lack of "input" it hasnt really grown at all........

I think if you are going to make something like this work, you need alot of input from people all over before you commit yourself to calling it "a monthly" magazine..... otherwise it will quickly fade into the abyss that is the web.......

"...We don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing......."

Posted: 14th Jan 2005
i didnt makeit i just found it!



but i thought the same, a little low on the ground



main problem will be motivating people with deadlines, who already have jobs and ful time commitments to go and write and artice for you, on dead line, and not get any reward back...ie financial or discount....

Step (el-nombrie)