Just When I Thought the Express was Dead...
Seems as though my little magazine has done a Lazarus. Terry and Desi met with a local real estate group today (one that Terry had sold ads to while we were still up and running) and it turns out they're interested in buying the paper.
Apparently, since we stopped publishing 2 weeks ago, one of their housing development offices has been flooded with phone calls asking where the Express went and how could they get one. This phenomena alone convinced them - if no one else - that the Express has dedicated readers. Not just a few. Thousands of them. So, now they're calling us in and wanting to know if we're willing to work a deal where they take over 75% of the company, and allow me creative freedom to continue printing the Express as I see fit. (This is what they told Terry, no kidding). After the hell I've been through with this paper over the last 8 months, I'm still hesitant to get involved in it again, but if someone else is willing to cough up the $100,000 to help us get back on our feet and if they're willing to handle the books, I could be talked into building the damned thing again.
Thing is, I really wanted an arts/community magazine, where local writers could publish their stories and get exposure for their work, not a mag devoted to hawking real estate. But this is a conflict as old as publishing itself - the creative folks are always at war with the ones who hold the purse strings. Besides, if Terry knew just how much I loathe/hate/execrate building real estate publications, he wouldn't even bring up the subject. If it's going to come back, I want it to be a community-focused magazine, not an outlet to sell modular homes. Modular homes can be in it, but I don't want that to dominate the publication. Even so, it's beginning to look again more and more like I'm not going to have any choice in the matter. I'm 20 grand in debt and need a life preserver, and this company is willing to throw me one, so it's either take it or drown. Sucks, yes, but that's life. And it's not like people are banging on my front door to offer me a job or anything.
In the meantime, I've got my health issues to deal with. I made a batch of doctor appointments today for both myself and Alex. Alex hasn't seen a doctor in a long, long time because every time I bring it up, he fights me about it. In the meantime, his feet are getting worse and worse. I suspect he may have diabetes, but he insists he doesn't and therein lies the problem. If Alex doesn't believe that something's wrong with him, then it simply doesn't exist. At least his sister is self-aware enough to take care of her health and such. But Alex is even more Aspergian than I am, and short of God Himself appearing in his room and telling him to handle his problems, Alex won't budge. Ed is the same way. How an uncle and a nephew can be so much alike astounds me.
Recently, I've been browsing about the net, paying visits to all my old chat boards, just to see who's still there and who isn't. I haven't visited some of them in years, and unsurprisingly, many of the old regulars I knew are gone. The boards are populated mostly with snot-nosed brats who attack others who are trying to have a decent conversation. It all bores me, unfortunately. Seems like there's nothing interesting online anymore.
So, to ward off dying of boredom, I've dug out my latest manuscript, "LOS" from '07 and have begun revisions on it again, as well as adding some more material I've collected in note form that I've been neglecting up until now. There's some neat stuff about Skinwalker Ranch in NE Utah that ties in nicely with my core theme, and I've got to re-read Colm Kelleher's book "Hunt for the Skinwalker" in order to refresh my memory on the events that went on there. I read it last year sometime, and though I thought it was way, way out there in terms of suspension of disbelief, it strikes a chord in me for some reason. Being a person who relies on a gut instinct that has always served me well, I think I'm going to pick up this particular thread on Skinwalker Ranch and follow it, just to see where it goes. I'm having more fun researching LOS than I am writing it, but it's a chore that must be done. The guy that runs the Skinwalker Ranch website knows several of the main players in that story and if I can somehow wangle an interview qith one of them. The other person I need an interview with is Dr. Persinger up in Canada, the one who did those experiments with the electromagnetic helmet he built. Once I have those, I think I'll have everything I need to finish LOS and get it ready for publication.
Anyway, that's the long and the short of what's going on right now. I don't know if I want to bother resurrecting the paper again. I'll entertain the idea as long as everyone involved knows that I'm only going to deal with the creative projects; absolutely NO accounting, no payroll, no dealing with employees, and no direct contact with clients. I simply can't deal with all of that anymore. I was roped into doing that before. Never again.
Until later,
Jillian
A chronicle of my adventures in the business of writing and publishing.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
From Zero to Publisher in 15 years
February 5, 2010 heralded the end of my venture into the print publishing business. It's sort of a long story, but here goes.
Back in 2008, I left my graphics job in South Carolina to return to Arizona to help look after my mother, who is getting on in years and needs assistance around the house. It wasn't a big loss - I was already so burned out on building ads and doing page design that my eyes crossed everytime I turned on a computer screen. So, I made the 2,000+ mile trek back to AZ and settled in, finding a job at the local newspaper (heretofore referred to as "the Sun").
I started out there as an assistant in the Marketing department, working for one of the most scatter-brained people I've ever met. I found out within a week that I couldn't work for her. She's one of those severely ADHD people who expect me to read their minds and know what they want done. Well, having failed Psychic 101 in college, I decided I'd had enough of the marketing department and jumped on a job opening in the paper's graphics department. Unfortunately, this same woman held sway over THAT department as well, and as a team, we were barely able to keep up with her demands week to week. I finally grew tired of having to complete 65 man-hours of work in a 40-hour week (God HELP us if we got any overtime!) and began looking for another job surreptitiously 6 months later.
I didn't find anything, and believe me, I looked. Around my 9-month anniversary, I finally got my 90-day review (that's how backed-up things were in that office), which went well. My supervisor, a young man named Doug, gave me a nice review, but told me that due to the company's financial problems, he'd be unable to give me a raise anytime in the foreseeable future and there might even be a pay cut on the horizon. At that point, I mentally "checked out" of that job.
I showed up at work every day and completed my tasks like a good worker drone, but my attitude grew worse and worse as time went on. Finally, by the end of that month, I was out of there. My husband, Terry, had been after me for quite some time to start my own publication -- something I had thought about in the past, but never knew how or where the money would come from to get such a thing off the ground. I didn't have $100,000 to get a business going, and I knew from the get-go that's what I would need to sustain the publication long enough to get it going and get people used to seeing it. Turns out that in the end, after I left The Sun, I started the company with about $18,000. It wasn't enough to get the paper going like I'd wanted, but by July 3rd, 2009, we came out with our first publication (heretofore referred to as The Express).
The first Express weekly magazine had maybe 10 ads in it, all sold without the clients ever having seen the magazine. We printed 30,000 of these things and hand-delivered them all over town and placed them in racks here and there, near grocery stores and such. The money lasted for about 2 months. At the end of August, I ran out of capital and had to borrow more money to keep going.
I wanted out of this by then. Advertisers didn't really like the Express because it was still "new," but oddly enough, the readers LOVED it. Problem was that we couldn't figure out a way to prove it. So, I placed a series of cash prize puzzles in it that people would fill out and send in. We received tons of these entries every week. Terry, who was in charge of our sales crew, didn't utilize these entries until it was too late. I ended up owing $7,500 to one print facility (based on 3 checks the other business partners had me write) and I'm STILL paying on that debt. I borrowed money again from another partner (or rather, Terry did, in my name) even when I BEGGED them just to let the paper die. No one was willing to let the paper die while I still only owed a relatively small amount of money. No, their names weren't involved anywhere except on an LLC form. The accounts, the lease and everything were all still in my name. What did it matter to them if the business failed? In the end, none of them - my husband included - didn't owe anyone a nickel. All the burden of debt shifted onto me.
I published the last Express on February 5th, 2010, about 8 months after we began. We'd lasted a lot longer than "The Sun" or any of our other competitors ever gave us credit for. In fact, The Sun flicked us so much shit behind closed doors while we were in business that we never had a chance. By "behind closed doors" I mean that their sales reps and management talked us down to clients ("Oh, they'll be out of business in 4 weeks," or "That paper is run by a bunch of traitors from our company.") and so on. They went to all the civic and charity groups in town, talked us down, telling these business owners over drinks that our sole reason for being in business was to "Puff up" the value of our paper then turn around and sell it for a huge profit. I had to laugh at that one - especially coming from representatives of that particular company.
The Sun is part of a larger media group that is nearly a billion dollars in debt and currently going through bankrupcty. At the moment, they're trying to sell off not one, but FIVE papers to another upstart media group in Arizona for around 2.5 million. Just a few years ago, that sale would have been worth ten times that much. A typical newspaper should be worth about 25 million (or was, before the advent of the internet), and now they're trying to sell five of them for a small fraction of that amount. I'm quite frankly curious how they're able to keep their doors open and pay over 100 employees while operating that far in debt. Anyway, even with their own internal problems to contend with, they still managed to take time out of their busy day to denigrate our paper every which way they could. I have video of several of their in-house carriers taking our papers (and papers of other publishers) out of our racks and throwing them away. They'd leave the display paper in the window tray, but the rest of them in the slot behind it went straight into the trash. One of the carriers even threw away a real estate publication that was displayed in this same rack that The Sun BUILT and PUBLISHED for them! Now how stupid is THAT! Then, after the offending papers were removed, the carrier would put other papers that the Sun printed/produced into slots in this rack that they never bothered pay the rack's owner for. Click here to view one of the videos.
Apparently, The Sun figured that since it was "The Daily Paper" in this town, this gives them carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want, knowing full well there isn't really anything we can do about it. Hell, it wasn't like any of us have the money to sue them over it. I suppose I could have fought back, and maybe if I had been a little more childish and vengeful, I might have done some nasty things in return, but honestly, I truly don't care anymore. In the end, they'll go to online only before long, if not shut their doors completely. The Express wasn't about me getting them back anyway. The only thing I wanted was to work somewhere else, that's all. Unfortunately, their entire managerial staff over there is just too bloody stupid to see that. I guess it's just too fucking "simple" for them to understand.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I'm done with the newspaper business and I don't care to work in it ever again, in any way shape, or form. This experience has sealed it for me. I'm done. Terry wants to keep the company going, but I don't. I see it as a lose/lose situation, even if we come out with just a monthly publication. I owe so much money right now that I can't think of any possible way to pay it back, even if I got a really good job. Because of the recession, there are no jobs out there - even crummy fast food jobs are fought over these days - and thus no way to make any money to even start paying anyone off. I'm going to have to file bankruptcy and that means I'll have to cancel the business license and the tax ID numbers I've got for the company.
The long and the short of it is this: As far as I'm concerned, Print is dead - at least right now. I can't see any way for anyone to make any money in print as long as the internet remains the way it is. Now if we have a giant solar flare or something that takes down the internet, maybe print will make its triumphant return, but that's not likely to happen. Even if it does, the Internet will be back up and running before long, anyway. Essentially, the only way the Internet will end is when mankind does, unless something happens to throw us back into the stone age, like war or a meteor strike. For now, I'm back to the drawing board, figuring out what I want to do next.
I want to keep writing. I've been ill for the past few years (still am - I was in the hospital just yesterday, getting 3 pints of blood pumped into me because my hemoglobin levels had gotten so low that I nearly died). At least now I have state-funded healthcare for the time being, and while I've got it, I'm going to get some health issues addressed. I'll find a job sooner or later, even if The Sun has tried to have me blacklisted as a "bad employee" in this community. I may even have to leave town to find work, but that's just life. I'll move on.
In the meantime, since I now have a little time on my hands, it's time to do what I actually want to do and get some writing done.
Until later, whenever that might be -
Jill
February 5, 2010 heralded the end of my venture into the print publishing business. It's sort of a long story, but here goes.
Back in 2008, I left my graphics job in South Carolina to return to Arizona to help look after my mother, who is getting on in years and needs assistance around the house. It wasn't a big loss - I was already so burned out on building ads and doing page design that my eyes crossed everytime I turned on a computer screen. So, I made the 2,000+ mile trek back to AZ and settled in, finding a job at the local newspaper (heretofore referred to as "the Sun").
I started out there as an assistant in the Marketing department, working for one of the most scatter-brained people I've ever met. I found out within a week that I couldn't work for her. She's one of those severely ADHD people who expect me to read their minds and know what they want done. Well, having failed Psychic 101 in college, I decided I'd had enough of the marketing department and jumped on a job opening in the paper's graphics department. Unfortunately, this same woman held sway over THAT department as well, and as a team, we were barely able to keep up with her demands week to week. I finally grew tired of having to complete 65 man-hours of work in a 40-hour week (God HELP us if we got any overtime!) and began looking for another job surreptitiously 6 months later.
I didn't find anything, and believe me, I looked. Around my 9-month anniversary, I finally got my 90-day review (that's how backed-up things were in that office), which went well. My supervisor, a young man named Doug, gave me a nice review, but told me that due to the company's financial problems, he'd be unable to give me a raise anytime in the foreseeable future and there might even be a pay cut on the horizon. At that point, I mentally "checked out" of that job.
I showed up at work every day and completed my tasks like a good worker drone, but my attitude grew worse and worse as time went on. Finally, by the end of that month, I was out of there. My husband, Terry, had been after me for quite some time to start my own publication -- something I had thought about in the past, but never knew how or where the money would come from to get such a thing off the ground. I didn't have $100,000 to get a business going, and I knew from the get-go that's what I would need to sustain the publication long enough to get it going and get people used to seeing it. Turns out that in the end, after I left The Sun, I started the company with about $18,000. It wasn't enough to get the paper going like I'd wanted, but by July 3rd, 2009, we came out with our first publication (heretofore referred to as The Express).
The first Express weekly magazine had maybe 10 ads in it, all sold without the clients ever having seen the magazine. We printed 30,000 of these things and hand-delivered them all over town and placed them in racks here and there, near grocery stores and such. The money lasted for about 2 months. At the end of August, I ran out of capital and had to borrow more money to keep going.
I wanted out of this by then. Advertisers didn't really like the Express because it was still "new," but oddly enough, the readers LOVED it. Problem was that we couldn't figure out a way to prove it. So, I placed a series of cash prize puzzles in it that people would fill out and send in. We received tons of these entries every week. Terry, who was in charge of our sales crew, didn't utilize these entries until it was too late. I ended up owing $7,500 to one print facility (based on 3 checks the other business partners had me write) and I'm STILL paying on that debt. I borrowed money again from another partner (or rather, Terry did, in my name) even when I BEGGED them just to let the paper die. No one was willing to let the paper die while I still only owed a relatively small amount of money. No, their names weren't involved anywhere except on an LLC form. The accounts, the lease and everything were all still in my name. What did it matter to them if the business failed? In the end, none of them - my husband included - didn't owe anyone a nickel. All the burden of debt shifted onto me.
I published the last Express on February 5th, 2010, about 8 months after we began. We'd lasted a lot longer than "The Sun" or any of our other competitors ever gave us credit for. In fact, The Sun flicked us so much shit behind closed doors while we were in business that we never had a chance. By "behind closed doors" I mean that their sales reps and management talked us down to clients ("Oh, they'll be out of business in 4 weeks," or "That paper is run by a bunch of traitors from our company.") and so on. They went to all the civic and charity groups in town, talked us down, telling these business owners over drinks that our sole reason for being in business was to "Puff up" the value of our paper then turn around and sell it for a huge profit. I had to laugh at that one - especially coming from representatives of that particular company.
The Sun is part of a larger media group that is nearly a billion dollars in debt and currently going through bankrupcty. At the moment, they're trying to sell off not one, but FIVE papers to another upstart media group in Arizona for around 2.5 million. Just a few years ago, that sale would have been worth ten times that much. A typical newspaper should be worth about 25 million (or was, before the advent of the internet), and now they're trying to sell five of them for a small fraction of that amount. I'm quite frankly curious how they're able to keep their doors open and pay over 100 employees while operating that far in debt. Anyway, even with their own internal problems to contend with, they still managed to take time out of their busy day to denigrate our paper every which way they could. I have video of several of their in-house carriers taking our papers (and papers of other publishers) out of our racks and throwing them away. They'd leave the display paper in the window tray, but the rest of them in the slot behind it went straight into the trash. One of the carriers even threw away a real estate publication that was displayed in this same rack that The Sun BUILT and PUBLISHED for them! Now how stupid is THAT! Then, after the offending papers were removed, the carrier would put other papers that the Sun printed/produced into slots in this rack that they never bothered pay the rack's owner for. Click here to view one of the videos.
Apparently, The Sun figured that since it was "The Daily Paper" in this town, this gives them carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want, knowing full well there isn't really anything we can do about it. Hell, it wasn't like any of us have the money to sue them over it. I suppose I could have fought back, and maybe if I had been a little more childish and vengeful, I might have done some nasty things in return, but honestly, I truly don't care anymore. In the end, they'll go to online only before long, if not shut their doors completely. The Express wasn't about me getting them back anyway. The only thing I wanted was to work somewhere else, that's all. Unfortunately, their entire managerial staff over there is just too bloody stupid to see that. I guess it's just too fucking "simple" for them to understand.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I'm done with the newspaper business and I don't care to work in it ever again, in any way shape, or form. This experience has sealed it for me. I'm done. Terry wants to keep the company going, but I don't. I see it as a lose/lose situation, even if we come out with just a monthly publication. I owe so much money right now that I can't think of any possible way to pay it back, even if I got a really good job. Because of the recession, there are no jobs out there - even crummy fast food jobs are fought over these days - and thus no way to make any money to even start paying anyone off. I'm going to have to file bankruptcy and that means I'll have to cancel the business license and the tax ID numbers I've got for the company.
The long and the short of it is this: As far as I'm concerned, Print is dead - at least right now. I can't see any way for anyone to make any money in print as long as the internet remains the way it is. Now if we have a giant solar flare or something that takes down the internet, maybe print will make its triumphant return, but that's not likely to happen. Even if it does, the Internet will be back up and running before long, anyway. Essentially, the only way the Internet will end is when mankind does, unless something happens to throw us back into the stone age, like war or a meteor strike. For now, I'm back to the drawing board, figuring out what I want to do next.
I want to keep writing. I've been ill for the past few years (still am - I was in the hospital just yesterday, getting 3 pints of blood pumped into me because my hemoglobin levels had gotten so low that I nearly died). At least now I have state-funded healthcare for the time being, and while I've got it, I'm going to get some health issues addressed. I'll find a job sooner or later, even if The Sun has tried to have me blacklisted as a "bad employee" in this community. I may even have to leave town to find work, but that's just life. I'll move on.
In the meantime, since I now have a little time on my hands, it's time to do what I actually want to do and get some writing done.
Until later, whenever that might be -
Jill