Tuesday, March 31, 2009

THE CITY STOPS BEATING


LA CityBeat shut down last weekend. Its demise was hardly unexpected, but no one likes to see a magazine or newspaper go under. The explanation will doubtless be the economic chaos, but I fear the decline had started long before the housing bubble burst. Like many other alternative weeklies (and many other print entities, for that matter) LACB was mismanaged from the get-go. The suits firmly believed what someone on the Big Money website recently noted – “the magazine business is the advertiser audience delivery business.” To that end, content was treated with distain. The idea that writers might need to be paid a living wage was mocked, although the suits worn by the suits indicated they were hardly doing it for the revolution. A mythic young-consumer demographic was constantly pursued as though print could somehow woo the youth away from Twitter and My Space. Promotion was dismissed as not cost effective, and the idea that print might become the domain of people who actually like to read was dismissed out of hand. I’m pissed because I am left with no place to air even my most conventional theories. I have a killer original essay on the total ramifications of marijuana legalization, but currently it has no home. Indeed, right now the writing on the wall for the essayist and mid-list fiction author of gothic fantasy seems to be “fuck off and die.” Maybe, after 34 books and god knows how many magazine stories, I should take the advice all of those who think it’s sooo smart not to reply to my emails and do exactly that. Unless, of course, someone comes up with a cunning plan.

The secret word is Obsolete

8 comments:

Bernard said...

Shit...that article about David Icke last issue was so funny...

Ben said...

Have you tried Arthur?

http://www.arthurmag.com/

Not that I'd imagine they'd pay any too good now that they don't even have cash to print the mag... but still.

The Writer With No Name said...

You know what they say. Jay don't pay. (That's Jay Babcock at Arthur.)

WV -- knoncit

stashdauber said...

pitch it to "high times"

Mark Haspam said...

crap news, Mick.

best luck on the rebound

Unknown said...

With the Chicago Sun-Times media group declaring bankruptcy, Borders on the edge of bankruptcy and weeklies dropping like flies will there be any market for other than blockbuster writers left soon? Magazines are dropping at an increasing rate to as seen at http://www.magazinedeathpool.com/magazine_death_pool/. While print media may not be dead it is very sick and is going to get a lot smaller.

The question seems to be can any one extract enough money from their blog to support themselves? Are there enough paid online venues to support a writer?

D;Baber said...

I'm ready to pay to read your blog
Send details.Dave(a fan for 35 years)

Benjamin Owens said...

You'll do fine, you're famous & shit... you have a wikipedia page & everything.

If worse comes to worse, you could probably start a cult or something.