Independent magazines are currently the talk of Publishing Town. High on creativity and low on print runs, they provide an ideal platform for new topics, trends and talent, which often subsequently finds its way into the mainstream. At the recent DistriPress Congress in Portugal, we spoke to Jeremy Leslie – Founder of MagCulture, to find out more…
“MagCulture is kindof a complicated, many-headed beast,” he tells us. “We’ve been involved in many different operations. I’ve been reviewing magazines and specifically concentrating on the new independent scene for the last 16yrs now. Seven years ago, we launched our shop in Central London, where we display about 700 magazines from around the world.”
“We also operate out online shop, so we’re shipping on a daily basis right across the world. And we have events there at the shop, as well as annual conferences at other venues, which have been going for about 10yrs.”
The mainstream magazine sector is today often governed by a ‘safety first’ approach to numbers: what do we know is already working? And what type of title is likely to have the broadest consumer and advertiser appeal? It’s a strategy that the industry has doubled down on in recent years, faced with the unrelenting march of digital and now also the growing challenge of soaring print prices.
Against this headwind, Leslie says that one of the most enduring – and appealing – aspects of the indie sector, has been its ability to put creative endeavour before commercial viability over the years.
“I’ve been involved in publishing on the art & direction side for 30 something years – maybe even 40,” says Leslie. “I’ve been involved in making magazines for most of that time. But I’ve also got this kind of parallel path I’ve been following, where I’ve just been evangelising about print and the joy of real magazines.”
“And that’s largely over the last 10-15yrs taken a big focus on the indie scene. Because that’s where the most innovation, the most creative work is taking place. It’s where the work that reminds me why I love magazines is taking place… and that is this unique way that they can take text and images and combine them on the page to create fantastic content.”
Like a small independent music label focussing on quality of artist before quantity of sales, independent titles bring much in the way of ‘now and next’ when it comes to both trends and talent. For Leslie, the parallels between these two industries are plain to see.
“The wonderful thing about the indie scene is its camaraderie and its sort of mutual support systems. People ask, how are creatives going to make businesses out of what they do in the indies… and for a lot of people that’s not the issue. It’s not about being a business, it’s an activity for the sake of itself. Some of the more esoteric and experimental magazine projects can be compared to experimental filmmaking or music. People are pushing the edge of the envelope in terms of what can be done with a magazine, and that’s what so exciting about it.”
One hot topic in the publishing sector right now, is to what extent traditional publishers can and should be learning from the ingenuity of indie titles.
On the one hand, magazines have always, by their very nature, been more niche and community-driven than the mass reach of the daily news cycle. But with some indie titles printed by the dozen, rather than the hundreds or thousands, it can of course be difficult to convert even the most alluring of ideas into mainstream success.
So just what does the journey from underground artist to The Marshall Mathers LP look like in print?
“Every now and again, one actually pushes through and becomes a phenomenon in a business sense as well, it becomes a success. And that’s what I mean when I say some of these magazines will grow up to become – and have the ambition of becoming – the biggest magazine in the world.”
“But I think it’s also true that one of the critical situations in the industry now, is that there’s very little space for people to get apprenticeships or start at the bottom of the rung and develop up. And in a way the indie scene is providing individuals with that opportunity to learn their craft, to learn their trade.”
“You are seeing people who are involved in the independent scene begin to develop… their project becomes successful, maybe a designer gets offered a big job at a big magazine, or they combine the two. So it’s not just that magazines are being influence by the indies, it’s that the people who are making the indies are getting drafted into the mainstream. And that’s the future, that’s the future of publishing.”
Finally, from somebody who is probably THE leading voice on independent magazine titles in the world today, I had to know… any advice for the budding artists out there!?
“I think making your own magazine is a fantastic showcase for your talent, and your ability, and your ideas. What I would say is if you want to do it, you have to DO IT. As in, you have to do your idea, you can’t be influenced by what other people are doing or what you’ve seen elsewhere. There’s no point in looking at two magazines and a third one and thinking ok I’ll have a bit of that and a bit of this and then come up with my own. Forget that, just do your own thing, do what you want to do. And then you can start working out whether there’s a business or a bigger plan that might give it longevity.”