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Climb magazine (Read 12597 times)

chris

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#25 Climb magazine
March 11, 2005, 10:58:37 am
climb mag is shit, lets be honest OTE was reasonable but in its later stages it went to the dogs. It was just a promotional piece for lucy creamer, steve mcclure and gaz parry et al. Not taking anything away from the climbers, their achievements and articles....some of which were good. I just didnt enjoy reading about the same old characters each week. I hope climb mag doesnt follow suit. :roll:

As bouldering goes we need our own mag......[highlight=red]JUST [/highlight]for bouldering

cowboyhat

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#26 Climb magazine
March 11, 2005, 03:50:51 pm
Go on then...

there are plenty of us who would contribute photo's/articles/cynicism.

Bubba

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#27 Climb magazine
March 11, 2005, 03:58:13 pm
But are there? Presumably such mag can't pay very much for articles and who can be arsed submitting articles for free?

I've offered to put articles up on here and have received about 4 over 3 years...

r-man

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#28 Climb magazine
March 11, 2005, 03:59:02 pm
Quote
Go on then.

there are plenty of us who would contribute photo's/articles/cynicism.


I'll second that. In fact, I'll start a new thread...

And here it is

saltbeef

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#29 Climb magazine
March 11, 2005, 05:48:36 pm
just looked at new issue down the sledge. dave binney and steve aren't exactly marius and ben and jerzy...

r-man

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#30 Climb magazine
March 11, 2005, 05:58:17 pm
Quote
Presumably such mag can't pay very much for articles and who can be arsed submitting articles for free?

I've offered to put articles up on here and have received about 4 over 3 years...
 


Yeah, I guess it all comes down to money in the end. Selfish bastards aren't we?  :wink:

Plus there's also the whole thing of seeing something you've written in print, and sharing it with a wider audience, which the web doesn't really do.

Would a bouldering magazine in the uk be commerically viable? It would be a fun thing to do, but as you said, if there aint any money in it, it's a lot of time and effort to put in, in return for a few congrats and backslaps from your readers. (and that's only if they like it!)

saltbeef

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#31 Climb magazine
March 11, 2005, 06:15:31 pm
surely friction is aimed at this niche? its not got many articles about anything else...

Bubba

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#32 Climb magazine
March 11, 2005, 10:37:26 pm
Quote from: "r-man"
and sharing it with a wider audience, which the web doesn't really do.


I disagree there - take this site for instance....it's only a small (though fairly active) forum, yet I reckon it reaches a far wider audience than any startup magazine could hope to....and all for just server costs and a bit of my time.

I think that making a commercial success out of a mag for such a specialist market would be really hard thing to pull off.

That said, if there was a cool bouldering mag available, then I'd most probably buy it.

r-man

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#33 Climb magazine
March 11, 2005, 11:53:59 pm
I guess a couple of major pros of having a web zine (is that the right jargon?) are that in theory you could create the perfect mag -

1. It could have something for everyone.  
2. With the lack of pressure to produce a certain quantity every month, no need to use space fillers and boringly average articles. Hence, quality all the way.

On the downside, it really is a pain to read decent length articles on a computer screen, which is of course the reason for the web's evolution towards a much more visual format with largely bitesize text areas.

Quote
take this site for instance....it's only a small (though fairly active) forum, yet I reckon it reaches a far wider audience than any startup magazine could hope to


Well, I guess it all comes down to promotion - most probably you're right that a startup magazine for a niche market wouldn't have the finances. And ukbouldering certainly has a sizeable (and influential) cult following, though I'm sure you must have started out a lot smaller.

-Actually that raises an interesting question - how many members did you have in the first few months, and how many now? Just curious.

...But anyway, although there is a sizeable cult (and although I'm sure it will continue to grow and grow) I still think anything web-based is going to struggle to reach the same audience as tangible magazine. Odd though it may seem to us web-addicts, most people use the web for little more than emails.

Thing is, as you said, if there was a cool bouldering mag available you'd probably buy it. As, would most people on this site, I'd think. Which does suggest a reasonably large percentage of the bouldering community would be interested?

Perhaps one way would be to start off web-based then move into print later if possible. Lakesbloc for instance has a whole bunch of free topos, yet most people would still be happy to shell out for something they can hold. I guess the real trick with this would be to have writing, photos, whatever, that people would really value and want to own.

 

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