Some magspiration for you... 

An indie mag newsletter by Dan Rowden
 

Issue 7 — March 29, 2018



     

Hello fellow mag aficionados,

I've been using Instagram DM a lot in recent months. It's such an impressive communication tool, especially for business and partnership stuff. This edition of Coverage was crafted purely from replying to Instagram Stories from my @dansmags account; one of the interviews was then done over DM. Super simple, but very effective.

As I recently wrote on Twitter, I'm currently in a bit of a magazine drought. We're travelling to Europe in a few weeks for a four-month trip (can't wait!). Knowing the Mauritian post, I'll open magazines sooner if I get them sent to England and open them in May than if I got them sent here.

Speaking of being in England, I want to organise some sort of magazine meet up in London around May 11/12. Let me know if you're interested by replying to this email. It would be amazing to have a group of indie publishers and readers together in the same place to talk about magazines!

Enjoy the email, and see you in two weeks ❤️

-Dan

P.S.: A Coverage blog is almost ready! It will be an online archive version of the emails, making the content easier for non-subscribers to find and read. And a podcast version of Coverage is coming, too  🎧

     



Paper Planes

India's indie scene

Earlier this week I chatted with Nupur Joshi Thanks, founder of Paper Planes. A former corporate lawyer, Nupur set up Paper Planes in 2014 to bring amazing indie titles to India, where there is, to this day, a very different magazine market.

Dan R: You started Paper Planes after discovering independent magazines on your travels. What do you enjoy about bringing indie mags to India?

Nupur JT: Oh, there are so many exciting things about bringing these titles to India and the timing is just right. People are investing in their passion and want to hear stories of others who do the same.

These mags are on point inspiration for so many.

DR: That’s really cool to hear. So are indie mags a relatively new thing in India?

NJT: Magazines are not new but indie mags yes. The market has always been dominated by big media houses. Also the times were different; design and creative jobs were not considered as serious professions. So no one really thought this could be an independent venture. But with the fast-changing landscape of design and technology becoming easily accessible, people are finding innovative ways to express ideas. Independent magazines are such an incredible medium for this.

DR: Can you see momentum in India for new local magazines based on all the titles you are bringing in from overseas? Or can you see more interest from Indians wanting to explore the world through foreigin mags?

NJT: Well the publishing momentum is still to catch on but there is a lot happening in the zine space which is a good beginning I reckon.

The interest in new titles and the subjects they explore is slowly building and I am excited that we can help share the titles.

DR: That’s great. I’m sure exposure to a range of established titles from elsewhere will create a local scene too. And it’s wonderful that you’ve taken on the task of sharing all those magazines to a new market!

What’s popular at the moment?

NJT: The usual suspects: Kinfolk, Monocle, Cereal do well. But people are responding positively to titles like Anxy, Weapons Of Reason, Vestoj. Also Gather Journal, The Happy Reader and The Gentlewoman have loyal followers like yours truly :)

I love (figuratively) going around the world and talking to people who are spreading their passion for great print.

For more about Paper Planes, check out joinpaperplanes.com

     



Pit, issue 3

Cooking goat in the mud

The third issue of Pit, a magazine focused on anything to do with cooking food with fire, comes out this week. I've seen a preview and it looks lit (lol). One of my favourite features is their “guide to cooking and eating goat meat.”

20 friends piled into art director Holly Catford's snowy/muddy back garden for a huge goat shawarma cookout. Here, Holly describes the day, and more about how the feature came together.

“In every issue we do what we call an ingredient focus. The first issue was ribs, and the second was corn. Goat is a really amazing meat, but not very well known over here apart from the classic Jamaican curry goat. 

“We wanted to put together a feature that was a proper guide to cooking goat for beginners and experienced goat eaters. We collaborated with James Whetlor who owns Cabrito to introduce it, as well as carry out what we called ‘the project’, which was the massive goat shawarma. 

“To shoot it, we had to have a barbecue in my back garden in the snow. Luckily twenty of our mates managed to drag themselves on a January Sunday to muddy Catford to eat most of it. This was all shot by our ‘King of the Camera’, Robert Billington. 

“The next part of the feature was a classic butchers diagram (drawn by George Wylesol) annotated as a quick glance cheat sheet of all the cuts you can buy, and how to cook each one. 

“Lastly there are three recipes by Helen Graves (our editor) and Donald Edwards (our booze expert). For this I worked with my studio mates Ian Wright and Ed Park. Ian took all the flavours from each recipe and turned them into beautiful goat portraits, then Ed shot them. Ian's famous for creating portraits of people out of the things that their known by, but this was the first time he'd done something like this for a recipe. They're probably my favourite thing in the issue.”

Enjoy some images from that day and some spreads of the finished feature...

     
     
 

💥 Issue 3 of Pit is available now for £6 at pitmagazine.uk
Scroll down for an exclusive discount for Pit subscriptions!



Caboodle

Origin Story

Caboodle is a magazine that caught my eye online recently. The magazine is quite hard to miss, with its bright, engaging covers and enthusiastic demeanor, and highlights creators and makers from around the world.

Kayti Peschke, the one-woman team behind Caboodle, takes us back to the start of the magazine...

The magazine started as a need to create. I’d been working as a fashion photographer for 15 years but due to a sudden chronic illness I had to give it all up overnight and was going mad at home not being able to shoot. So the idea of a mag came as an outlet for all my creative energy and ideas, something I could do from home to keep me sane!

“Other than shooting for mags I had no experience in design or publication, but I’d always loved magazines and am a huge paper nerd. So I threw myself into it with plenty of enthusiasm. I really just created a mag that I would like to read: colourful, fun and optimistic with a little bit of everything in it, and thankfully people really connected with it. It always had to be a print mag. That was so important; it had to be something you could hold and that felt beautiful.

“Caboodle is essentially a one woman show—run from my little bungalow in York—but I co-ordinate commissions and submissions from a team of wonderful creatives from all over the world to bring it all together. I’ve just published the 7th issue and it’s become a real showcase for sharing the work of creatives, makers, artists and illustrators. I want Caboodle to be an open door to anyone wanting to get involved with content and have met so many amazing people through it.”

Kayti recently published Caboodle's 7th issue for SS18. Go check it out at caboodlemagazine.com

     



The Flatplan by magCulture

A fab magazine day from magCulture

Billed as the “first magCulture magazine making masterlass”, The Flatplan looks like an amazing opportunity for anyone in the early stages of starting a  magazine.

Split into three themes, ‘Dream’, ‘Make’ and ‘Sell’, the day will feature an impressive list of speakers such as Kirsten Algera (MacGuffin), Danielle Pender (Riposte), Simon Esterson (Eye) and Angharad Lewis (So You Want to Publish a Magazine).

The Flatplan happens on April 14th at the magCulture Shop in London. Tickets are £150.

👉 More info and the full programme can be found on the magCulture blog.

     



DIY magazine stands

Someone should manufacture these DIY magazine stands

I stumbled across these beautiful magazine stands recently on Instagram. They are part of a promotional DIY series by German subscription platform, Lesebox.

Lesebox even provide a series of YouTube videos to show how to create them; the one pictured above costs about $30 to make However, I think if someone made these and put them for sale, they'd be picked up by magazine lovers all over. Absolutely stunning.

Source: instagram.com/lesebox/

     



Buy a Pit subscription

A discount just for Coverage readers ❤️

Holly and Doug from Pit have set up a special discount for Pit subscriptions! (Pit recently started using Subsail for their subs 🙌)

Use the discount code SUBSAIL at checkout to get an extra £1 off when you buy a Pit subscription.

🔥 pit.subs.io/SUBSAIL/ 

     



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