Thanks for reading this blog and thanks for caring about HM Magazine. The past couple of years running HM Magazine have been difficult. I feel bad that the struggle has gone on so long without clear (and miraculous) resolution. I was chatting with Anberlin’s Stephen Christian backstage at the Cornerstone Festival this year and he asked me how things were going. I gave him my typical, “I’m hanging in there” response, sharing how I wasn’t certain of HM Magazine’s future. “Yeah,” he said in a tone that sounded like an attempt to be encouraging, “but haven’t you been saying that for four years?” I laughed, because the exaggeration was funny, but it made me sad to think that it might seem like this has gone on forever. I don’t want to be that guy that’s always begging or holding on to something long after it’s basically gone (or should be gone).
While there’s a risk in being vulnerable and honest in what I’m going through, I have chosen this route. If I’m going to ask for help, I’m not going to put on a show or pretend that I’m doing better (or worse) than I’m actually doing. I’m cautious that sharing the wrong word at the right time with the wrong person can be harmful. If you’ve played the “sharing secrets” game (where you start with one phrase and whisper it to another and let it spread around the room. After a few people have relayed the message it changes form and conveys a completely different meaning.), then you know how this can be negative. I didn’t want one person to tell another that HM is struggling and have the message turn into a rumor that made its way to a regular client, who might hear, “HM has gone out of business!” Bad news can travel fast and get worse as it goes along. That’s a risk I’ve been willing to take, but I remain careful as I pursue keeping HM Magazine in print.
A year and a half ago I went up to “Mount Sinai,” so to speak, to inquire of the Lord whether or not He wanted HM Magazine to keep going. There were and still are many factors that would suggest shutting it down (like lower advertising revenue and business income in general), but since this is a “God thing” that I believe He had a hand in starting, growing and maintaining, I didn’t want to assume. I could have mis-heard what I believe God to be saying, but I came away with some fresh direction and about 8 pages of notes. One of the last couple of pieces has yet to fall in place, which is the purpose of this particular blog.
I would like to raise a “Volunteer Army” to help HM Magazine achieve what its capable of, to survive and grow. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to share what I do on a regular basis (some daily, some not as frequent). As you look over these duties and descriptions, you can do one of a few things:
a) pray for God to bless these efforts and/or guide us
b) pray and consider getting involved in this particular duty/effort (or a few duties)
c) consider telling a friend that somehow “fits” the description
d) yawn and move on, adding a few more details to your understanding of the inner workings of a magazine
I would like to suggest that you take options “a” and “b.” Now I’ll try to list all the things I do as well as a few things that I wish I did or wish I did more often. One way to improve is to get creative, pray and dream up solutions. I need to delegate some of these duties to others (if possible). Check these out:
Answer email. I get email sent to several addresses (editor@hmmag.com, service@hmmag.com, advertising@hmmag.com, contest@hmmag.com, lustcontrol@hmmag.com, digital@hmmag.com, streetteam@hmmag.com and a personal gmail account). Email, while a wonderful and helpful tool, is also almost the bane of my existence. I could almost do nothing but email all day everyday. I get so much email it’s ridiculous. One idea I have is perhaps I could find someone I trust that would be willing to receive all my emails and route them to me as needed. This screening process could be tedious and long, but it would help me from doing it all myself. I recently changed my long-standing email address (dvanpelt@hmmag.com) and it helped tremendously by slowing down the amount of spam or junk email I was getting.
Posting news at hmmag.com This is something that helps bring traffic to HM’s website. Because HM Magazine is a recognized media outlet, news comes to me from various sources (like publicists, record companies, bands, etc). I like to stay on top of these and post them as they come in or at least a few times a day. I simply copy the text (and sometimes the photos) in the email or press release and paste them into my Word Press blog-style website, add photos if it’s a good idea and carefully make sure that the width of the document I’m copying isn’t wider than the frame size (439 pixels) of my news section. I can view the contents of any post as “visual” or “preview” and “html,” which is what I have to tweak if the content is part of a “table” or an image is wider than my frame size. It can be a little bit of trial and error.
Selling ads. Usually I’ll use email to contact my known, regular and potential ad clients. It’s easy to send off, easy to reply to (or ignore, which is the downside of this method). Sometimes I’ll pick up the phone to ask an ad client if they want to buy an ad. One thing I learned when applying for a job as a Radio Shack retail store management position was sales involves “closing” the transaction, which requires asking the simple and straight-up question of “Do you want to buy it?” I try to keep this in mind with my ad sales inquiries.
Choosing content. Our “formula” for choosing content is (as a rule) based around the release of a new album. We’re not about nostalgia and talking about great albums or artists of the past (though we do try to inject some “history” every now and then), so our feature articles are going to be on bands/artists that have a new album that will be dropping at roughly the same time that our new issue is coming out. This requires some planning and knowledge. Sometimes I’ll know that a certain band has a new album coming out. Sometimes I’ll confirm or learn this information by asking the Publicist a question like, “What artists should we be considering for coverage in our next (Oct/Nov/Dec) issue?”
Communicating with freelance writers and publicists. When I figure out who I want to cover in an issue of the magazine, I’ll choose one of our freelance writers (we have a “pool” of a couple dozen regular writers) based upon how well they “fit” the assignment. Perhaps one writer, like Matt Conner (one of our best) is better at rock and pop than metal or hardcore. Giving him the new album from TDWP would be a poor “fit,” while assigning him the new one from Deas Vail might be a great fit, for example. I’ll email that writer, asking him/her if they’d like to do such and such assignment. I’ll give them the word-count (how many words/how long the article should be), their deadline and the amount we’ll pay them for this assignment (lately I’ve asked a lot of writers if they’d volunteer an assignment, as our budgets have shrunk). If/when they say, “Yes,” then I’ll contact the publicist and share with them the writer’s name, their deadline and ask them if they’d setup the writer with bio information, music and an interview (if it’s a story; just music and bio info if it’s an album review). As a rule, I never share with the publicist the size or prominence of the story.
Following-up with people. Whether it’s a potential ad sale or a writing assignment, I’ll touch base with the responsible party to see how things are going, asking if there’s any assistance I can offer.
Answering questions. Many times the emails or phone calls I’ll get will be questions that only I can answer or questions that require some knowledge of what HM Magazine is doing or planning in order to properly and accurately answer the question.
Answering the phone. These days the phone doesn’t ring “off the hook” like it might have in the past. There are still times, however, where phone calls will increase in frequency. It’s possible that calls could be routed somewhere, like a virtual receptionist or something. It stinks how often I’ll get a sales call. “Can I speak to the person that handles your phone services or mailing supplies.” I usually politely reply with, “That would be me, but I’m sorry, I’m not interested. Have a good day. Goodbye.” Then I slowly hang up.
Planning events. The Cornerstone Festival has had a stage called the “HM Magazine Stage,” as have other fests (Purple Door, Sonshine and even Ichthus this year). Sometimes this requires choosing bands that should play on these stages. I keep a folder in my Outlook email program called “stages,” where I’ll file such inquiries or replies. If it’s not the right time to plan the stage, but a manager or band sends me an email expressing their interest in playing the stage, I’ll file it there for later reference. This is one of many things I manage. I hope I can remember them all for this blog today, but I might forget some details…
Promoting HM. Sometimes opportunities will come to me from another party (magazine, radio show, festival, etc) that will potentially help HM Magazine grow or expand its reach. One of my points here is that these ideas or opportunities often times come as a result of an outside influence. They’re not just ideas that I have dreamed up. Each opportunity could be replied to with wisdom and knowledge of our capabilities and resources. Some we take advantage of, others we decline.
Promotion activity. Sometimes I’ll have an idea, but it takes some work to make it happen. That might be dropping off some promotional materials or copies of HM at an outlet in Austin (like the Spider House or Waterloo Records) or going to a website or message board to post a message about HM. Perhaps it’s as simple as tweeting something from our two main twitter accounts (dooglar and HM_mag). It might be contacting a newspaper and suggesting that they interview yours truly for an article about something relevant (like a cover story on local artists from the Lancaster, PA area, like ABR; or perhaps promoting my new novel, Desert High, by suggesting coverage). It might be designing and printing a new promotional postcard or sticker or something.
Picking up the mail and mailing packages. We have a PO Box here in Lago Vista, Texas. I’ll try to check this every other day or so. We also get mail at our residence. When I have something to mail out, like new issues of the magazine or other merchandise people order at our online store, I have to pull (from the shelf/storage), pack, label and ship the package. I’ll use that next trip to the post office to ship it. Getting help with this particular job, of course, would require someone that lived nearby Lago Vista, TX.
Receiving and processing new content. Whenever a writer submits a written assignment, I need to save it (or “file it” by renaming the filename in a way that’s easy to find, like “150_thrice_feature.doc” and saving it in an appropriately named folder, like “150/docs”). Then I’ll proofread and edit the story. If someone else does this for me (like an intern) I’ll ask them to rename the edited version with their initials, just in case if I don’t agree with their changes/edits I can always go back to the original/raw file. (For example, if Tony Bryant were sending me an edited file, he might rename it: “150_thrice_feature_tb.doc”)
Communicating with our printer. I’ve done business with the same printer (Quad Graphics, who’ve changed ownership and their name a few times over the years from Pendell Printing, Inc) since 1991. From time to time I’ll need to communicate with them in regards to the date I’ll be supplying them with files for the next issue.
Laying out features. I will take the content for an issue and paste the text into a design program that’s part of the Adobe Creative Suite – InDesign. I’ll paste the text into a text box, place a photo in a photo box and arrange them on the “page” to be aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-read.
Preparing images. For a photo or image to go in HM Magazine’s print version, it has to be re-sized to 300 dpi. This is “high resolution.” If it is formatted at 72 dpi, it better be a large file, because when it is re-sized at 300 dpi, the dimensions will shrink proportionally. We can’t use something that’s small at low resolution and pretend that we can keep it same size at high resolution. Technically, PhotoShop will “allow” the user to do this, but it’s making poor quality look even more clearly as poor quality. You can’t take a newspaper photo and make it look pretty for a magazine cover. You can go from high quality to low, but not vice-versa. Once the image is re-sized at 300 dpi, it needs to be converted to “grayscale” mode if it’s going to be black&white or “CMYK” if in color. These images need to be saved as .tif files. An “RGB” image is only good for website stuff. If it’s going on our website, it can be low resolution (72 dpi) and re-sampled to fit our website’s frame dimensions, which is 439 pixels wide. These images need to be saved as .jpg files.
…this is taking me longer than I thought. How ’bout I post this now and add more later?
Here is a link to later – Part 2.
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