About six years ago, I reached out to friends and colleagues in the magazine industry and asked what it felt like to be working in magazine publishing “in the middle of the biggest disruption in publishing history”.
The Coronavirus crisis is clearly now the biggest disruption in publishing history and I’m resurrecting The Magazine Diaries to chronicle how magazine people are coping with the chaos that this awful disease has unleashed… and to support The Big Issue
How you can help
The first Magazine Diaries project became a lovely little A5 bookazine. This time round I’m keeping it digital, at least until we’re properly on the other side of lockdown. But the content will be exactly the same – 100-word posts written by magazine people about working in our industry during the pandemic.
I want you to write about:
- The frustrations or the joys of working from home
- Managing or working in remote teams
- Falling retail sales or rising subscriptions
- No face-to-face interviews
- Changes in your relationship with your readers?
- Stories that have gone away – restaurant and event reviews, travel, sport
- New stories – health and wellness, technology, home schooling and cooking
- The instant switch to digital
- Your hopes or fears for the future
If you would like to contribute, and I’d LOVE for you to contribute, all I need you to do is write (exactly) 100 words… NO MORE… NO LESS.
To be fair, that’s not as easy as it sounds. Saying what you want in 100 words, especially about such a big topic, can be a challenge. Making everyone of those words sing is even tougher.
But you can do it. You’re a magazine maker.
Once you’ve written your 100 words, just email peter (at) magazinediaries (dot) com with your 100-word submission, your name, your job title and magazine/company and your Twitter account if you want to share it.
If you want some inspiration, have a look at what these lovely people have written so far for The Magazine Diaries 2020 or what some of your favourite magazine people wrote last time: The Magazine Diaries 2014.
Helping the Big Issue
And here’s the best bit… by pitching in, you will be helping to raise awareness of The BIG ISSUE’s emergency subscription campaign.
With vendors kept off the street by the lockdown the Big Issue needs everyone who normally bought it when they were out and about to take a three month subscription. Every 100-word post on The Magazine Diaries: 2020 will link directly to The Big Issue Subscription page.
I really hope you’re interested in helping out. We raised £1,000 for charity last time and collected some amazing insight into how the wonderful people of the magazine industry were feeling.
This time could be even more powerful.
Any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me, and please share this page with any of your colleagues that you think might be interested to contribute.
Stay Safe
Peter
Editor // The Magazine Diaries