We Have Reached a Crossroads: A Brief Historical Review
[a letter sent to subscribers]
With works & conversations as with most art organizations and artists I've met, it's always a struggle to make ends meet. For eleven of the fifteen years I've been publishing, I've had to subsidize costs myself. In the last few years, income has been [barely] covering the basic costs of production: printing, mailing, license fees, proofreading and small honorariums. I've called that "breaking even" even though I don't take any money for my own time in producing the magazine, editing it, and doing all the many associated tasks that go with putting a magazine out. Total costs per issue [for 1200 copies] are thus amazingly low, approximately $7500.
Why have I persisted even though I don't make a dime, and it's an ongoing struggle? If this were any ordinary business venture, it would have ended years ago. But there are things the standard business model doesn't take into account. Still, the dollar side can't be completely ignored. Each issue costs money to produce.
Two Different Measures
According to the Bottom Line view, we're not doing so well. But by a measure of quality and substance- that's a different story. As subscribers, I know you already appreciate this. And it's why we have attracted subscriptions from Harvard, The Metropolitan Museum, Stanford, SFMOMA, RISD, Columbia University, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, LACMA, The Hirsch Library, The Chicago Art Institute and several other respected institutions. And beginning with this issue, the former chief editor of The Christian Science Monitor, Paul Van Slambrouck, participates as a new contributing editor. Renowned artist Enrique Martinez Celaya also joins us as a contributing editor. Neither has asked to be paid.
Sixteen selected interviews from works & conversations are coming out soon as a book [The Conversations, published by Whale and Star and distributed by University of Nebraska Press.]
This is a magazine of outstanding substance. Readers tell me that the magazine just keeps getting better and better. I'm grateful to hear that, because it's something I can't see. Every time I finish an issue I'm in love with it. They all seem wonderful to me.
A Shocking Development
And now the magazine will be given away. What happened? Through Paul Van Slambrouck, I met Nipun Mehta, founder of CharityFocus.org. Nipun gently pried my fingertips free from what little remained of my attachment to the "business" model.
"What you're doing is a gift, Richard," Nipun told me at our first meeting. "It should be given away." So it wasn't really that great a leap when I answered, "Yes... Let's do that."
Pay It Forward
Issue #14 actually completes your subscription. But we're adopting a new model. We are not going to ask you to renew. We will send you new issues as long as we are able to do so, without asking for subscription fees. Nipun describes this as a "gift economy" model. [The magazine is now associated with CharityFocus. org/] Carrying no advertising, making the entire texts of past interviews available on-line without charge, and not charging any subscription fees for the print magazine, we've decided to make the leap of participating in an economic system in which goods and services are given freely. The circulation of gifts within the community leads to increases of another order of wealth, one that's not quantifiable by dollar measurement.
Beginning now, meeting our costs will depend entirely on the unsolicited donations of like-hearted friends and readers as gestures of gratitude and support.
Richard Whittaker, editor
works & conversations
This experiment in service works because of your participation. To lend a hand, please write us anytime!
