Spring Escarpment Views is Getting Out!
February 22nd 2011 The Spring issue of Escarpment Views is starting to get out there in the community. First, our subscribers across Canada and in the U.S. should be getting their copies for a first crack at the contents. The Bookshelf in Guelph has copies for sale. Our magazine tends to be on the bottom rack of the unit next to the cashier. Ask for it if you can’t see it! Next, our advertisers will be getting copies to give out. You can check with our usual advertisers until we’re able to post the new ones that have copies. We’re on the road this week delivering copies from NOTL to Owen Sound. Places further north will get their copies by Canada Post.
We’ve already heard some comments from people about this issue. One guy just said “Nature porn!” A writer/photographer said he likes the profusion of green through this issue, very welcome in the white cold of February. Hold on, because the season of spring really is coming! Notice how warm the sun is, when the wind isn’t blowing. My father reported that his snowdrops beside his house are in bloom.
Over to you. What signs of spring are you seeing?
Working on Spring after Guelph Organic Conference
February 01st 2011
People stop by Escarpment Views' booth at Guelph Organic Conference
Three Years of Publishing Escarpment Views!
November 28th 2010
The winter issue of Escarpment Views is out. In it, we have features on the 19th-century Christmas traditions you can experience at Westfield Heritage Village, the challenges threatening the black bear population of the Bruce Peninsula, and the magical dollhouse collection that used to be in Fort Erie. And there’s more in the way of departments and columns and photographs and the many different aspects of Niagara Escarpment communities that we present and celebrate. We’ll update our “Where to Get Copies” page soon, but meanwhile, if you don’t yet subscribe but want to get a copy, ask at the usual places, or if you’re really keen, email me with your location and I’ll tell you where you might get a free copy.
To get a free copy, see the updated list of Where to Get Copies.
With the winter issue out, we have completed our third year of publishing! This is a significant achievement because many businesses fail before then. When my co-publisher Mike Davis and I started this venture, we were warned by experts to expect prospective advertisers to tell us “If you’re still in business after three years, talk to us then.” I gulped. We looked at each other grimly. Three years seemed so far away. At the time, we were just hoping to be able to publish the next issue.
Now, it truly is easier to publish each issue. Our readers and viewers tell us it’s a wonderful magazine. We never get tired of hearing this! On difficult days, these comments lift our spirits and encourage us to put in all the hours it takes to produce something of our high quality. We no longer have to introduce the magazine to every person. Many people we meet are already familiar with it, or are impressed when we show it and say “We’re pretty new. We’ve only been been publishing for three years.”
It’s much easier for us to get the advertisers we need to keep going. We haven’t had tons of advertisers with big ads, though. This is because our ads aren’t cheap. Our advertisers pay good money to be associated with our magazine. Even a smaller ad works for them. They report getting calls from people about the magazine, or getting customers who say they saw them in the magazine. Their ads stand out a bit more than they would in thick magazines that are littered with ads. Our issues are thinner, but I believe we have more great content in fewer pages. There are magazines out there with 16 pages of ads before you get to the table of contents. This may be great for the publishers, but is it great for the readers? Or even for the advertisers, when readers skim past them looking for the content to begin?
I rather like our slim issues with smaller ads that stand out. It goes along with my environmental concerns, my desire to use resources carefully, to generate less waste. As long as our special advertisers agree, and want to reach the special people that respond to the vision and views we present in Escarpment Views, we’ll be able to keep on bringing you the best, the most interesting, the worth reading about, all along the unique landform that is the Niagara Escarpment.
Do you agree? Or do you prefer thick magazines with tons of ads?
Working on Winter
November 09th 2010We’re in the middle of finalizing and proofing the Winter issue before it goes to print. This is when the considerable work that goes into publishing one of our issues can be wasted by haste and carelessness. It takes time and effort to get the best possible layout, and then to catch every mistake and typo.
Back and forth go the drafts until it’s hard to know which changes have been done and which are still to do. But we make progress, taking steps that get us closer to the quality we want, producing something that we’ll be proud to distribute for the next three months, and display at festivals and community events for years.
Knowing that we’re not creating next week’s recycling discards adds pressure to get it right, so that we, as well as our readers, can live with it for a long time. Right now, I’ve got to go, as the clock’s ticking and I have a bunch more fixes that need to be made…
Guelph’s The Bookshelf Sells Escarpment Views
September 27th 2010We’re pretty happy to share the news that Escarpment Views is now being carried for sale by Guelph’s wonderful bookshop The Bookshelf. Even better, copies are selling! Escarpment Views is being sold there instead of being given away, because it’s outside of our coverage area, which we define as the communities that are closer to the Niagara Escarpment.
Mike approached staff at The Bookshelf to see if they’d be willing to try stocking the magazine and they were, because they like to carry work by local people, and as they said, it’s a good magazine that they’ve enjoyed reading in the past.
We’ve heard from other people that the magazine has a prominent spot in the bookstore and that it’s getting noticed. This is really helpful to us in increasing recognition of the magazine. We greatly appreciate The Bookshelf’s interest and support.
If you can, drop into The Bookshelf and let them know if you like Escarpment Views. If you love reading, I know that you’ll then enjoy spending time browsing among all the wonderful books and other offerings that are available in this very special bookstore.
Which bookstores do you enjoy?
Escarpment Views’ Office Clear-Out Yard Sale
August 23rd 2010Escarpment Views is NOT closing down. But we ARE cleaning out! As we approach the end of our third year of publication, we find that we have too much stuff! It’s good stuff, but there’s a limit to everything. Also, I’d like to live with less clutter, so I’m saying bye-bye to my poo-poo and making room to breathe and move.
What we have a lot of is books. Good books. Literature. Non-fiction. Hardcovers. First editions. Some brand new, just published, that I received for review but don’t have room to keep forever. The super brand new are priced at three for $20. Older titles are a steal at $1 each.
Christmas is not that far away, so this is a good time to scoop up gifts for your bibliophile friends and relatives!
While we’re clearing out, we’re getting rid of some small tables and a bookcase, and some big wood lawn chairs. Also golf clubs and various other treasures like kitchen stuff and office supplies.
As well, we’ll be set up to give out free back issues of Escarpment Views, plus take subscriptions for you or as your gifts for others. We have a special deal for multiple subscriptions: two for $42, three for $63 and four for $84! As a friend of the magazine says, it makes a great stocking stuffer. Some notecards will be available, and you can even talk to Mike about ordering prints of any of his great photos. Remember Christmas and Hannukah and Kwanza and the winter solstice are coming!
This Sat. Aug. 28, rain or shine, from 8 a.m., our great stuff will be available at 50 Ann St. in the north end of Georgetown. Signs will be at the big curve on Hwy 7 at the Moore Park end of town.
Come and say hello, get some free copies of the magazine, and pick up some gifts and treasures for yourself or others. And help us clear out our offices!
The day after this was posted, I received a complaint about our offer of selling old review copies. The person wrote that publishers would object to us making a profit from the books and that the money raised should be donated to “something worthwhile.”
I replied with a long note about how selling review copies is a common practice among all the media outlets I have experience with, that used bookstores get good inventory this way, and that “profit” is an interesting question. I know of non profits that pay annual salaries of $300,000!
But really, the only point I needed to make is that this person doesn’t object to selling review copies as such. She’s annoyed that the money isn’t going to “something worthwhile,” presumably a charity or non-profit group of her choice.
At Escarpment Views we have to be thrifty to survive. We’re also committed to the practice of reuse as much as possible. Any money we make goes toward the magazine’s survival. Extra money will go toward paying our staff, contributing writers and photographers, better rates.
I guess the main point of this person’ complaint is her impression that we’re making piles of profit, and that Escarpment Views is not something that’s worthwhile.
There’s good news as well as bad in her impression. It’s disturbing that she doesn’t think our environmental, pro-world biosphere reserve mandate is important. But I guess it’s great that the magazine seems highly successful and profitable. It’s only by becoming financially viable that we’ll be able to do all the good work we have as goals for the magazine.
Escarpment Views Flies Out Advertisers’ Locations!
June 21st 2010We’ve been starting to get responses to our summer issue. Some of them are so interesting that I hope we’ll have room to publish them on our letters page.
As for other reactions, we’ve had praise for the centre photo spread, as we always do, and Mike enjoys bragging that he’s sleeping with his centrefold model. She’s cute and has a great tail, but is very hairy, with a wet black nose and four paws, in case you’re wondering.
We’ve heard from people whose gardens we featured. “Look at my garden!” one of them told Mike. “It doesn’t look that way now.” Well, we know how gardens change from week to week. And the gardener was seen proudly showing other people her photo. An aquaintance of mine emailed that she wants to be in the garden on the cover. Someone stopped us on the street to say to Mike “You take photos underwater now too?” A Chamber of Commerce in the Georgian Bay area of the Niagara Escarpment told us that it’s a wonderful magazine and they’re proud to display it.
One of our advertisers wrote “Wow!” and that she loved the variety of articles. When she makes up “goodie bags,” she includes copies of Escarpment Views. What a great idea!
Other people have reported that copies are “flying” out of their locations. I’ve heard that readers are planning to go to some of the places that have been advertised in our magazine, because they’ve only learned about them from their ads with us. Mike had someone tell him that after seeing a restaurant ad in our issue, the man remembered “That’s a great place. Excellent fish and chips.”
But we’re already getting busy with our Autumn issue. We’d love to get your events for our calendar covering Sept. 1 to Dec. 1. Send them to us for free listings in print, on this website, or both.
And if you want to advertise your business, festival, event or service in our Autumn issue, get back to us or your local sales rep. Our ad space reservations will close July 25. You’ll have until Aug. 1 for the final artwork. Be part of our great Autumn issue and you can share in the interest our next issue will generate!
Do you have anything to share about what you liked or didn’t like about our summer issue?
If you’d like to get your own free copy, pick one up from one of our advertisers near you, or contact us for your free trial issue.
Gardens Galore Summer Issue of Escarpment Views Available Now
June 07th 2010The summer issue of Escarpment Views is available for free pick up now from many of our advertisers. Drop in on one in your neighbourhood and tell them you came for a copy.
This issue is our gardens galore spectacular, with features on growing mighty delphiniums, and some of the lovely private gardens that were on horticultural tours in Niagara-on-the-Lake and Georgetown last year.
As well, Mike takes you underwater off the Bruce Peninsula to some of the shallow shipwrecks you can see from kayak or by snorkelling. His photographs are unusual views you certainly don’t see frequently. As I’ve said before, he will do almost anything and go almost anywhere to get compelling photos.
We present a ferry ride on the Chi-Cheemaun with an interview with Captain Adams and photographs of the bridge, the ship and what you see while sailing between Tobermory and South Baymouth.
Our featured centre photograph is a stone beach, on the north shore of Manitoulin Island, where the Niagara Escarpment reappears in Lake Huron. This is one of the properties protected by the Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy. We hear that some people are collecting, framing & hanging up these centre photos! I have to admit that my own office walls are getting covered with them.
We also celebrate the local freshness available at farmers’ markets, especially Georgetown Farmers’ Market and Ottawa Street Farmers’ Market in Hamilton.
What looks interesting to you in this issue?
Of course, instead of having to go out and pick up a copy, you can subscribe and get Escarpment Views coming to you!
If you missed the spring issue, some of the articles are available here, or you can contact us to order a copy that we’ll mail to you for $5.25 until July 1. Then it’ll cost $5.65 because of the HST.
Escarpment Views Noticed at MagNet
June 05th 2010Mike and I attended MagNet last week, a national conference for the Canadian magazine industry. On one day we sat in on sessions about the Canada Periodical Fund and about Canada Post, but we didn’t learn much that was new or helpful to us. That’s partly thanks to the Independent Publishers’ Association of Ontario, which we are part of, and which had a meeting recently about the changes to the federal periodical fund.
I think there’s value in attending a professional development seminar even when you don’t learn anything new, if only so that you get confirmation that your knowledge is current.
The next day we attended sessions that were jam-packed with new ideas and information. I went to “Circulation Solutions on a Small Budget” by Faith Drinnan, Mike attended “The Fundamentals of Advertising Sales” by Gwen Dunant and we both heard “Small Magazine Creative Marketing Solutions” discussed by three panellists.
While we scribbled down plenty of notes from these sessions, a strong sense that remains is that people seem to be impressed by Escarpment Views. Thanks to Mike’s fearlessness in handing out copies of our summer issue, lots of people talked to us about the magazine. An editor I’ve known for a long time said she envies us for starting our own magazine that’s a success! One of the panellists even held up a copy saying that we’re doing a lot of neat things, and then used it as an example of ways to try to get advertisers to take bigger spaces. The fact that we have already tried the techniques he mentioned was not as important as the promotion and recognition he gave us. He wouldn’t have used Escarpment Views as an example if it was poor.
I was exhausted by two solid days of meeting people and taking in information but MagNet was definitely worth going to. Now the challenge is to actually implement the many good ideas we were given.
What conferences have you found helpful and why?
If you liked this post you may want to read “Celebrating Two Years of Publishing Escarpment Views!”
Don’t forget to subscribe before July 1 to beat the HST!
If You Can Get Escarpment Views for Free, Why Subscribe?
May 18th 2010We’re on standby here, waiting for the printer’s call to say that the first copies of the summer issue are ready. We’re updating our mailing list, and this reminds me to explain again why you would bother to subscribe if you can get a copy for free from our advertisers.
We value the support of our subscribers and we make sure you are among the very first to get each issue in your mail. You don’t have to leave your home because you’ll get Escarpment Views at your door!
As a plus, if you provide your email address, we’ll notify you about free tickets and other offers that we occasionally make available through this website. The value of what you could receive can be far more than the cost of your subscription.
Right now there’s another reason to subscribe before July 1 and that is to beat the HST! Subscriptions for four great keeper issues are $21 before July 1 and $22 after. You can save even more by subscribing for two years at $36.75! After July 1 it will cost $39.50.
First crack at each issue. No need to leave your home for it. Free online giveaways. Saving money. Four good reasons to get four great issues a year!
